All Forum Posts by: David James

@Ben Nelson I would say have him move out as a contigency for closing. At this point, dont let emotions and opinions govern how you run ur BUSINESS. Remember, this is a business and if you allow him to stay regardless of what the conditions of how he got on the list, future potential tenants will be looking at that and pass on your property for something else. Good luck on your decisions. Let us know how it works out!

Welcome Joe!

Its all good, the most important thing is that we all start.

Welcome aboard Rumi! Enjoy the journey. 

I have a few different scenarios that I could follow.

1. "Buy her out" and keep the house in VA and then rehab then sell.

2. Let the house go and use the 50% of the equity I will get from it to help finance a rental deal that I can get with a VA loan.

3. I have a friend that 100% is on board with being my hard money investor for a flip. I just need to convince his wife. Which I think she is 70% on board. I am just a little confused on what to offer them as an incentive since they will be fronting all the money. What is the typical offer from something like that? Example:

There is a house in need of repairs that I intend to flip. Asking price is 94K. Its an REO property and has been for sale for a while. I would try to get it for around 60-65K or less of course. Rough estimate is about 50K for rehab. So all in for 115K. What is the payback that I offer them? Percentage? How long would it take? etc...

@Ned Carey I like that advice! I do plan to take my time and work on my RE eduction also. The thing is with buying a property in DC or Maryland, using my VA loan it has to be my prinary residence. Would be too far of a commute to be worth it. I will look into some creative ways to make it work. As for the house in VA, i was thinking that if i buy her out and then do some cosmetic repairs, then i could then sell it for more than its worth now. She has let the house go but not bad enough that a few thousand wouldnt fix. Im thinking that right now the equity is around 10 to 15k. ARV the equity would probably be 20 to 30k. Of course after I see what the house is worth then i can make that determination. Thanks for helping me think through this.

Thanks Carl. I have been thinking about that as well. Do you know of any investor meetings going on in So MD?

Thank you Ned, nice to see a fellow Marylander on here! So here is my scenario. I am going through a divorce. I have returned from Iraq and am now living in an RV on my friends property while I get established through the divorce. I would like to keep the house that we have in Virginia, so I would have to "buy her out". I would then use that as a rental property and use property management. I figured now is the time to rebuild myself. I am talking with my lawyer and scouring through my finances to see if that would be a smart option. Im paying $1500 for that mortgage. Since I have been here in Maryland (since Aug) I have been increasing my RE knowledge. That's when I found this site. So I got pre-approved for a another VA loan. I would like to do a house hack but there are literally no multi family places in my price range here in Hollywood, MD. Before I even do that though I need to wait until we establish spouse support to see what I can afford to do. I think right now I am anxious to get started but I need to wait on a few things. What do you think would be a viable option for me in this case? I wanted to get started but also protect my finances at the same time.

Im sure I will have a lot of questions for people here. I have a unique situation that will launch my RE Investing journey. It involves a soon to be ex wife, an existing house, a VA loan and a pre approval on a 2nd VA loan.

I have ideas about how I want to proceed but need some sound advice on moving forward and some of my options. Looking forward to getting to know a lot of people on here and bouncing ideas back and forth. My 5 year goal is to have enough rental properties in 5 years to generate $5000 a month in income.