All Forum Posts by: David Martin

@Peter Hightower Maybe the vampires did get him... maybe he's the deceased homeowner in question, returned as a creature of the night, trying to figure out how to legally reclaim his home under another name. hahahahaha

@Nick Pierce Ask a parent to set up and UTMA account for you. You can do a UGMA, but UTMA will give you more flexibility later on, and additionally ask to set up a Roth IRA account for you. Once you get a job, and every chance you get for a small windfall (birthday/christmas/sales bonus at work), put away some in each of those, and get yourself in to some starting basics... Shoot for a broad index fund or something that pays a decent dividend. Let that grow for a few years in the background as you start your path to learning.

As far as building credit, just have mom add you as a authorized user for her card, which would issue a card in your name, and let her just shred it or something if she's concerned about usage... what will really matter is you get some credit history that matches her use of the card... caveat here is only if she's good at paying things off... if she has bad credit habits, you'll just inherit that... but yeah, then once you're at 18, you'll have 2 years of credit history that hopefully is good, and you can leverage that towards your first loan with much more favorable terms than your average 18 year old.

Recommended reads...
Set for Life by Scott Trench
Drink from the fountain of information that is Investopedia.com
And of course... keep up here on BP.

@Jay Hinrichs Definitely agree on all points. I realize I'm unicorn hunting a bit for an informal chat before I went the legal route, but figured I'd ask around at least once before I went that way.

Would love to have a conversation with, or be referred to, anyone that has had success with adverse possession in Texas or is familiar with it's workings. I realize it's a fairly esoteric area of RE law, so initially just looking to learn about it at a high level. I've read through the various statutes and I believe there is a property that could be acquired using the method, but I want to understand it a bit more before deciding if I should pursue it.

@Jason Appel Every strategy and market has it's own basement floor, so this number could vary wildy and widely depending on what you do, and where, but I would generically say $15k to $25k in starting funds gives you at least some optionality of opportunity. Sliced out, probably $15k transactional and $10k reserves. Might not be in your backyard, but somewhere in the US, that should get you started with a few strategies.

@Guifre Mora Soooo..... I was with you on this one, 100%. Was having a laugh at the ambiguity of the OP's request. Read it again and have a laugh.

@Blake Harris Yeah, co-borrow with someone who will occupy and then rent the other rooms out, house hack style. If done well, neither you or your co borrower would be out of pocket other than maybe building and keeping a stash for CapEx. You need to secure that person to that property though via contract or something, because within the spirit of the requirements, the moment they want to move out before the year is up, occupancy is broken, and they still are participating as an owner at that point. Really work on making sure you're aligned with that person... so like maybe you're willing to front the downpay, and they get the benefit of being paid the 10% to property manage, so they have an incentive to not take off early, and then you get like a right in the first 48 months to buy out their share at prorated at the original property price or something. Think it through, war game out what all the traps you think could happen are, and prepare for them in your legal docs with the other person to protect yourself. If you can build out a win-win scenario that maths right, for you and the other person, you should be fine.

@Blake Harris If you co-borrowed with someone that lived in KC that you knew would occupy within 60 days and then stay for one year following those 60 days, then you could achieve it, as they would satisfy the occupancy requirements, so if you wanted to do something like team up with someone that needed to house hack to drop their monthly expenses for a year in order to afford to save up for a purchase, that might be aligned goals. Would for sure get with an RE lawyer to make sure interests are sliced up as agreed.

@Michael Mullins @Guifre Mora .... guys... it's pretty clear... he's looking for a local hard money lender to offer to loan him a property that has no living owners in Texas. I can see he is forming his own unique groundbreaking strategy that none of us can understand, but one day we'll all give it an acronym or nickname, and it will be the hot new niche for everyone to try. :)

@Stone Jin Two birds with one stone.... while having a blower door test on the house for air leaks, use some burning sage for the tracing of the leaks.