All Forum Posts by: Chris Chesser

Connor Heim I'll admit I'm far from knowledgeable on taxes and how they're calculated, but the numbers in the OP are accurate. It is not a sales tax, rather the yearly taxes charged by the county. On our local assessors page it says 12.20864 Tax Rate.

Justin Jolliffe There isn't a time limit for PMI, I believe Harjeet Bhatti was saying it would take 111 months for you to reach 20% equity given a 5% down payment.

Episode 152 was definitely fantastic. Any episode with Ben Leybovich, Serge Shukhat, or Brian Burke is worth a listen. Also really enjoyed the episodes with Chris Clothier, J Scott, and Michael Quarles to name a few.

Type the @ sign. Then, type the first letter of the persons name with no spaces after the @ sign and a menu should pop up automatically allowing you to select the person you want to mention. For example type @John Doe instead of @ John Doe. Hope that helps.

Lara Thomas based on the numbers, this deal looks way too tight. If the value drops AND you are not cash flowing you may find yourself underwater quickly. If you can pay all cash, why not offer less than market value with a cash offer? Looking at the pics and recent sales of the property, it looks like this property was recently flipped so there will likely be little to no value add opportunities and the owner may be looking to get out quickly. I am not familiar with the area at all but the only upside could end up being appreciation and I'm not a fan of speculation. Just my 2c. Good luck.

@Brett Coryell First off, thanks for the response and congrats on the 8 unit. I hope it works out for you! I had no clue there were active BP members in the area, glad to see there is at least one.

As for the rest of your response, the SMI seems like an amazing system to rank these universities. I had never heard of it prior to your mentioning it, but I think that each of their 5 categories for ranking are truly vital knowledge for anyone to have while looking at a potential school, especially if the student is from a lower middle or lower class family. The one thing I do wish they included is the availability of online courses. As anyone struggling financially knows, working less to attend class isn't an option. Many of the lower income people have full time jobs and families, therefore, they may only be able to "attend" class in their spare time which can vary wildly from day to day. There are many reasons that I haven't gone back to school, but the unbelievable amount of debt people take on to attend college is one of the main reasons so I do appreciate what they are trying to do with their system.

I think the point made repeatedly throughout this thread is that if the motivation is there, there really isn't a huge downside (other than debt) to going back if given the opportunity.

@Mindy Jensen Yes, that's exactly the plan if I go through with it. I've been told NIU has a good business program if I go that route but unfortunately I'd have to start out at the local community college since I screwed up when I went years ago. May be a good thing though, ending up $50k in the hole is a horrifying prospect. Also, I'm happy for you that BiggerPockets was looking to hire someone with a degree in fashion design!

@JD Martin That's an excellent point. Not many bad things can come of it unless, like Mindy mentioned, I don't succeed and have to pay full price. The crazy thing is that at my place of employment it's very similar, I've been told there are 2-3 people out of a couple hundred employees that utilize the tuition reimbursement.

Best advice when starting out is to soak up as much knowledge as you can. Listen to the podcasts, read books like Set For Life, and seeing as you are very young, I would recommend you look into house hacking as a way in to the industry. Most of all, network. Tons of extremely knowledgeable people here on BP to establish relationships with. Best of luck!

Jay Dean First of all, I have read Set For Life and it is awesome. I highly recommend that book to everyone looking to build wealth. Secondly, my job isn't quite that horrible. I make over $16/hr with plenty of OT opportunities but that actually makes the decision harder in my opinion. Most two year degrees wouldn't give me an overwhelmingly significant pay raise. So I'm committing to a 4 year OR something that could greatly increase my knowledge and experience.

Ashley Kehr Corby Goade These are the type of responses I'm looking for. What are degrees that are beneficial for an investor and are those degrees worth it in terms of time, pay, and experience. Great answers, thank you.