All Forum Posts by: Dan Cecchin

Hi Arcei - I had a great experience with mold remediation for my primary residence using Mike Tucci from Rest-a-Sure Restoration. He came out to check on the extent of the mold and gave a quote first. After getting a few quotes, he wasn't the absolute cheapest, but guaranteed his work, explained everything in tons of detail, did other work for us beyond the mold that came up, and overall was great. Good luck!

Welcome @Cesar Torres!

There is a great real estate investor meet-up that was started a few months ago and meets in downtown Downers Grove once a month (DuPage County Real Estate Investor Group).  I wasn't able to make the last one, but met some great people at the first one.

You may want to look in to look into a 203k loan with your budget, as it will allow you to find a place that needs some work and roll the rehab costs into your mortgage, keeping your down payment as low as possible.  I think you still may be able to put down as little as 3.5% - but do some research and I'm sure others can give much better advice on this (I've never used one, but a friend has...a bit of a hassle and some added hoops to jump through, but otherwise worked great).  I'm not sure how helpful it would be if you are trying to do most of the work yourself , but worth a look - there are many great financing options if you plan to live in the house for a few years.

https://www.myprospectmortgage.com/fha-203k-loan/r...

Good luck!

It sounds like you are looking at a shorter term loan than 30 years so it is more of a financing decision that is driving the negative cash flow. It could be worth looking at it as if you were using a 30-year, 80-100% financing to see if there is positive cash flow. If there is, but you want to use a shorter (you mentioned 10 year) loan, where the larger monthly payment is what drives the negative cash flow, than that is different than solely relying on appreciation.

Thanks everyone!

@Account Closed and @Michael Barbari - yes, the meetup you are organizing on 3/23 is the one I saw.  Hoping to make it!

@Account Closed - thanks for the info, will definitely check it out!

Hi BP members!

My name is Dan and I live in Downers Grove, IL (west suburb of Chicago).  I am 27, and have been interested in buy and hold rental property investing ever since taking a college course dedicated to the topic.  I came across Brandon Turner's book "The Book on Rental Property Investing", and after all the references in the book, thought I'd check out the site.  I've been following different threads over the past few weeks, and after just seeing a post for a meet-up happening in my area soon, I thought it was finally time for a first post.

I do not/have not ever owned a rental property, although my wife and I were very close to keeping and renting out our condo in downtown Downers Grove a few months ago after buying our new house nearby.  We had a tenant lined up, but ended up selling to an investor as the numbers vs. purchase price (up significantly since we bought in early 2013) weren't quite where I wanted them to be.

I don't ever plan to use real estate to replace my job, but rather as another source to enhance savings and retirement returns.  I'm pretty comfortable with the financial side (analyzing a deal, understanding tax impacts, etc), but less so on actually running the day to day (and am not handy at all) - though I have many questions on everything. After focusing my time on some personal/career milestones over the past few years, building some savings, and re-sparking my interest with Brandon's book, I'm finally taking another serious look at an investment soon.

I'm glad I came across the site and look forward to learning more from everyone!