All Forum Posts by: Chris Reichenbach

 Really good question! I graduated about a year ago and think about it sometimes. If you treat college as an experience, which it is turning into, and try to learn different skills rather than textbook information it could be very beneficial. College is a lot of learning about how to manage a schedule, be on time, and socialize along with school and getting a degree. 

If you manage those things really well, work part time, or find a way to bring in income you'll have real skills to put on a resume rather than saying you have a degree and no skills to show for it. You can also get started in real estate early with buying a house and renting to other students (House Hacking) while in college and learn property management and other necessary skills in real estate. I learned about real estate in my last year of school so I wasn't able to do this but if I had known earlier I would have.

However, in high school jumping straight to working could be beneficial if you know exactly what you want to do and studied real estate. But either way, reading and educating yourself, learning property management, learning what a deal is, and learning different investing strategies will always help you.

With that being said, I believe college could be a big benefit to learning real estate along with having a college experience. And on the other side, if you know what you want to do and have been educating yourself through high school and have the resources then go for it!

Brady,

Reading is definitely the best place to start! The Book On Rental Property Investing by Brandon Turner is the one I started with and it gave me a a good overview of some of the different strategies in real estate. From there you can branch out into whatever peaks your interest and Bigger Pockets has all of them covered.

Easiest way to get started is by tracking your own finances so you can lay out all your numbers on the table. Then from there you'll know what you can afford, how much you can save, and build a base to start from. Set For Life by Scott Trench is another BP book to get a better understanding of this and investing in general.

Hey Taylor,

Cash Flow is going to be pretty tough to find in Charlotte even though it is a hot market to invest in. Cash flow was something I was looking for when I was trying to get my first property but quickly realized that it was going to be super tough to find. This is where getting creative is going to be more important.

Buying distressed properties you'd have to make sure you have enough funds to do the rehab or have access to them. Being your first investment this would probably be pretty tough. 

However, buying a primary that you can afford and renting out rooms would be a good way to get started in renting to traveling nurses. I just bought a house in a town close to Charlotte and rent out a room and have had a few traveling nurses reach out about renting. So I would look at towns close to Charlotte that may have more affordable prices.

I am getting ready to do some updating to my home before I furnish and make it a medium term rental. I plan on using credit lines to fund all of the rehab but am curious about my options to pay them off through a cash out refinance or a HELOC?

The cash out refinance seems pretty straight forward by getting an appraisal after the rehab is complete and getting 80% of my cash out. However, a few different lenders have been trying to push me towards a HELOC but a HELOC on my current equity would not cover all of my rehab expenses.

Would it be possible to fund the rehab through my credit line like I planned and pay it off with a HELOC based on the new appraisal after the rehab is complete? Or would sticking with a straight cash out refinance be more beneficial to paying off the credit line?

Hi Solomon,

I actually went to school at Lenoir-Rhyne in Hickory and went there for 4 years so I'm pretty familiar with the area. It really depends on what you want to invest in whether that be student rentals, furnished medium term rentals, commercial, long term, or fix and flip. There's a lot of possibilities in the area but some areas you may want to stay away from. The downtown area is growing along with the school.

I'd be happy to hop on a call sometime if you want to know more!

If you would want to do something now and have the capital for a 20% down payment, and furnishings, and systems set up then I would look into a mid term rental. You wouldn't be able to use a VA loan to do this.

Hey Cooper! The Charlotte market is definitely expensive so I would consider some different strategies to use. Reading helps a lot and broadens your ideas on how to make something work as well.

There are different rental strategies like a medium term furnished rental and AirBNB to get into the market now so it will be waiting for you once you're out of the military. It will be a bit more work but it gives it the opportunity to cash flow if done right.

I recently bought a 2 bed 1 bath in Kannapolis, NC. I bought into around $10k of equity with an appraisal of $170,000 and would like to rehab and refinance around the end of 2023 to get my money out and then buy another place to rinse and repeat the process. I plan on starting the bigger parts of the rehab around September so I have some time to plan things out, but I'm looking at an ARV of about $190,000 and putting in about $15-20k in rehab/updating.

I'm just looking for more information about whether to look at a hard money loan or use a personal line of credit for this. I know there's minimum amounts to borrow if hard money is used but I wasn't sure if a personal line of credit would work or if I would have to get a small business loan for the $15-20k amount?

If anyone has any insight or ideas I would greatly appreciate it!

Hey Isaac, Charlotte will definitely be an expensive market so it couldn't hurt getting in touch with local lenders and seeing what you qualify for before you get here. I would also consider looking at some towns right around Charlotte with lower prices such as Concord and Kannapolis. Those could be good mid term rental areas as well with Atrium Health being really big in that area for travelling nurses