All Forum Posts by: Bhavesh Patel

love the grey with white trim! simple and modern feel!

 Hi Polar - I will gladly join you...let me know!

first property, in long beach and I am in escrow. The inspector said his biggest concern was temporary patch jobs in the roof...so I am looking

The real estate agent is finding, but I thought I would do my own research for learning purposes

I asked a friend who said his guys usually don't come for an estimate in escrow, but rather if work was getting done.

1.) What kind of person am I looking for that kind of estimate?

2.) Do I just checl yelp and pick the highest reviews?

31/m originally from Massachusetts seeking financial independence through real estate investing

I moved to SoCal for a girl from MA, got engaged, and she broke it off because she didn't like my parents and I wasn't good enough for her. Over it...want to make money!

Goals are:

1.) take a loan that someone else pays off, get tax benefit, build wealth through appreciation

2.) get practice/become proficient in property management

3.) Take advantage of long term investment benefits - stomach the dips/rises & retire by 60, have a maid do my laundry/clean my house/cook my food, live in an area with nice weather, workout every day, ride motorcycles, drive sports cars, do track days, visit Vegas whenever I want.

I plan to do this with income properties - buy a duplex, 3-4 unit, and into the bigger (15-20 unit) closer to retirement.

Long Beach investors - hit me up!

I'm also noob, in escrow for my first property ever, so take my limited experiences with a grain of salt:

FHA:

-low down payment that allows you to get into a home w'out a big down payment (3.5%!)

-you can only have one FHA loan at a time

-has a point included in the financing - all FHA loans have it, most people roll it into the financing as a point. If you pay it to avoid that point, you end up putting about $12-$15k down; effectively canceling out the advantage of that low down payment

-can fund up to 4 unit*** - BUT 3-4 unit homes do have a "Self Sufficiency Rental Income Eligibility" test that says that the PITI can NOT be less than 75% of the rents

http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/documents/huddoc?i...

^^ read the bottom of pdf page #152 and the top of page #153 (LAST UPDATED 9/14/15)

In socal, this is ridiculous because the 3-4 plexes are $700k++ and there is no way 75% of the rents are going to be greater than the mortgage payment without a huge down payment. I was looking at a $725,000 property, and needed something like a $130,000 down payment to have it pass this test. So much for 3.5% down...

On the other hand, a sufficiency test would never work on a duplex...so, it does not apply, and you can finance up to ~$725k with that low down payment. 

In summary, without a big down payment, going FHA means you can buy -

-a single family home/townhome/condo

-a duplex

noob here - most of socal is overpriced, ha. But I think long beach has upside potential...the rents are pretty good and downtown just got renovated w' shoreline drive (there's an h&m outlet) and they are building more high rises and re-habbing the old office buildings