All Forum Posts by: Chris Carbonell

@Matthew Abrahamzon @Dustin Ruhl

I can confirm that Madison, WI is a seller's market right now. My wife and I just bought our first SFH and we were competing with 10 other offers! Prior to that, we lost out on maybe 4 or 5 other properties with similar competition.

It's gotten to the point where our realtor has gotten a little creative with our purchase contracts. For example, sped up timelines, rent buybacks, personal letters, no radon testing, etc.

The big thing I learned - and this is obvious - is that cash offers are king.

Thanks @Kristopher Drake! I did come across that after posting. For our first property, we're going to look for something simpler but I'll keep this in my back pocket just in case a similar opportunity comes along!

Hi BP!

Does anyone here have experience replatting in Madison, WI? My wife and I are looking for our first home and, since the market is super competitive right now, we're trying to think outside of the box whenever we come across a property.

The property we have in mind touches both it's frontage street and the street behind it. Basically, the backyard is where our backside neighbor would be. What are the basic criteria to divide the land to create two plots of land? How long does that process usually take?

We are toying with the idea of buying the property and doing something with half of it if we can divide the land. We'd like to either just sell the land as is or build something new on it.

Thanks,

Chris

Thank you everyone for clarifying that last bit! For anyone else that comes across this thread, I found a great thread regarding buying vs renting here on BP:

https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/52/topics/170...

Long story short: it boils down to your own preferences and your local market.

@Kyle Doney, @Account Closed

Thanks for your input! I'm really itching to start so I appreciate your objective perspectives.

To summarize, it sounds like everyone is saying that my money would be put to better use in a multi family. Now, let's say my wife is tired of renting. Is buying that home now (even though it's not a good investment property), scenario A, preferable to continuing to rent and looking for a better investment property, scenario B? Both scenarios are less ideal than finding a good investment property now but I'm curious to see where they stack up next to each other.

Also, does anyone here on BP have experience with buying multi family properties in downtown Madison, WI? If so, any tips on how I can find one myself?

Hi BP! My wife and I are looking to purchase a SFH in Madison, WI with a budget of about $250K. We've really just started looking but our goal is to find a place to live in for about three years and then rent out afterwards.

The problem is that our budget is making it pretty tough to find a good investment property in Madison. For example, we found a place that could rent out for about $2200 (based on average rent from PadMapper) but a conservative estimate of the expenses would be closer to $2500 (based on BP calculator) so we'd be losing out on this particular property.

We're currently renting a place for about $1300/mo. If you were in my position, would you buy a property like the one above even though it didn't make a good investment property? On the one hand, we'd finally be saving money on rent and building equity instead. On the other hand, we'd be banking on appreciation and rent inflation to make this property a viable investment.