All Forum Posts by: Christopher Arter

Hi all,

I'm currently diving deep into real estate investing, currently studying for my RE license, and listening to BP, reading the books, etc.. 

Right now, I'm a web dev / programmer in the aviation industry. I've always been into web development & programming. I work a lot with MVC frameworks like Laravel, and just generally enjoy back-end development, working with APIs, etc.. 

If you had genuine web development skills (beyond installing wordpress plugins), is there a way I could leverage this as a newbie investor without a ton of capital?

I've read in various places they'll recognize up to 75% of the income, and this is based on experience as well.. Is this a policy of a specific lender, or industry practice?

Hypothetically, could I find a lender who will count 100% of my income from departing rental as well as providing a conventional 95% LTV? I'm assuming that would require a great credit score as well.. (mine is average but improving).

@Christopher Phillips

Great points. I have an excellent rate with my FHA loan right now (3.4%) so aside from PMI, I'm hesitant to ruin a good thing.

So, it sounds like I need to keep my focus on finding the deal, and the money will follow. Which, is something I've read here and heard on the podcast many times! 

I bought my first home with an FHA loan. It was a modest 157k house, but I only make about 43k a year, plus I have about 26k in student loans and a 14k car loan, so my DTI is pretty tapped (I'm undoing and re-educated myself on personal finance). I want to buy another home and rent out my first home. I know lenders won't consider the projected income of my rental of my house for my DTI, so I'm sort of stuck.

Are my only options to wait, chip away at my student loans for a few more years? I Does Brandon's Low & No Money Down address getting around the DTI issue when trying to buy the second (first investment) home? Or is it time to start thinking about creative financing & sweat equity kind of partnerships?

Welcome! I'm in Polk County near Four Corners. If you like sprawling streets of single-family stucco houses, you're in the right place ;)

I second @Julian Sibley's second idea about the wood panels. You can get some cheap pine 1x4s and make a great looking divider with .5'' between each board. It's a great MCM look thats very trendy right now. Then, just use an outdoor stain to seal & protect (and darken the wood a bit). Like below:

Hi @Josue Vargas,

I'm finding these primarily on Loop Net and Craigslist. I'm avoiding Realtor.com / Zillow as that seems to be full retail. I haven't visited the properties yet. Primarily I'm practicing getting used to running the numbers and getting my deal valuation skills 100% on point. I am, however, using Google Street View to have a "virtual" drive through the neighborhood to get a feel for the area. As you probably know, you can click your way through the neighborhood just as you would driving through it in person (almost). It's a great tool that I used when I was a regular joe looking for his first house that I bought last year.

But, those images are out of date, so once I start to analyze a real deal, I'll most certainly drive it and have a look in-person.

As for the Realtor, I'm actually studying for my RE license myself now. I'm doing this mainly so I can have unmitigated access to MLS. I've found some rather hands-off virtual brokerages that will allow me to basically do my own thing.

Do you have any books you'd recommend for deal analysis? I'm currently reading What Every Real Estate Investor Needs to Know About Cash Flow. It's great!

Hey everyone,

I'm a total newbie and learning everything I can. I'm currently studying for my upcoming Real Estate exam, too.

Question.. as a thought exercise, I've been analyzing deals that I have no intention of buying yet (still getting my personal finances in order), but I'm a kinetic learner so I'm doing deal analysis as practice and to learn my market.

A lot of the ads I see for properties include a lot of rehab estimates and ARV values from the seller of the properties. Apparently, every deal on the market is a slam dunk, right!? :) I'd imagine these numbers are taken with a huge grain of salt, and a diligent investor wouldn't pay any attention to them and do their own analysis, right? And if that's the case, are they there just to hype a careless buyer? What's the point?

This is my first post, and I've had a lot of questions like this that I think are probably "dumb question" but life is short so here I am.

Thanks in advance for your input! :)