All Forum Posts by: Chris Szepessy

I suggest renting for a while until you know the area better and/or the market cools off a little bit. It seems like everyone is moving to TN right now, so it's definitely going to be tough buying a house. You don't want to get a bad deal or a house you don't really like just for the sake of owning something. My wife and I bought our first house in our early 20's (22 to be exact), and I know how "house fever" can set in, but you're still really young and have plenty of time to buy!

 Looking to make a quick $4 million in a year without doing anything. lol

The pics are pretty cool, though!

@Lorraine Patterson I'm in the village of Catskill, but I don't personally have any STR's. My son's friend's parents BnB a house (in the village as well) and it's doing really well. They're booked every day for the next several months. Having said that, I'm not sure with the increase in home prices if the numbers could still work.

One of my units may be vacant the beginning of next year and I had considered attempting to do a STR, but it's right next door to me and I have a few dogs and a couple kids, so the noise level may be too much for people on vacation. Lol

@William Mitchell I would not cash out a 401k to pay off debt. Between penalties and taxes, you’d be paying 30%+ for the money, which is probably more than the credit card interest rate. And if you took a loan against the 401k, I believe you are only able to take half or up to $50k, whichever is less, and that won’t be enough to pay off your debt anyway. And as stated by someone else, moving the debt doesn’t fix anything if the behavior stays the same. I suggest reading The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey. Even if you don’t follow all of his “baby steps,” the debt snowball is a pretty good idea.

I'm in the same predicament. Between the market and being several years into a 15 year note, we have a bunch of equity as well. I don't personally think I could put my primary home at risk in order to buy more rentals, though. However, my two rentals also have a ton of equity and I had considered refinancing those, but we only owe another 4 and 7 years on them, and having paid off properties sounds pretty good. 

It CAN make more sense to rent where you live and invest where it makes sense. Sometimes a market is too expensive for someone to buy a primary house in. However, me personally, I like the stability of knowing I'm going to have a place to live. As we all know, LL can not renew a lease for any reason. And I can get whatever pet I want to. And sometimes when an area gets "hot" and investors with big money come in and invest millions into buildings, you can get priced out rent wise, too. I'm not mad that investors do that, my point is just that you may need to move because it's no longer affordable. The stability of knowing what my mortgage payment is every month until it's paid off is comforting. I can probably make a list a mile long of reasons why I enjoy owning a home...and someone else can probably make a list just as long as why you shouldn't own a home. It's basically personal preference.

Maybe I'm being arrogant, but isn't borrowing against a whole life policy, just borrowing money that you could've just put in a savings/money market account and used from there? I don't see the point in paying a ton of money for a whole life policy just to be able to borrow from it. I understand there is a "death benefit" with the policy, but whole life is crazy expensive compared to term insurance. Just looking for some clarification on why this is a good way to go, since it wasn't explained in detail in the podcast.

If I'm doing something that is going to take some time (hour or more), then yes, I usually notify the tenants. If I'm just cutting the lawn, no need to notify. They should be aware that the lawn is going to be cut at some point.

I couldn't read the whole article without subscribing, but my guess is that the factories finally caught up to the demand. I'm far from an economic expert, but it seems like simple supply/demand. 

People do it and you can probably make decent money doing it. I recommend buying a unit that is a year or two old as to not take such a hard hit on the depreciation of it. Just remember that RV's aren't made like houses and things are more prone to breaking due to quality of parts used. 

We just sold our travel trailer a few months ago. It wasn't feasible for us anymore, but prior to getting rid of it, I had considered doing something similar with it. My idea was what @John Underwood said about towing it to a campground and picking it up when they're done. Problem was my work schedule didn't really work well for that.