All Forum Posts by: David Richmond

@Mary Denby that’s interesting. I also consider Alexandria a long term buy and hold area. Wondering what you think: In my view the high cost and  poor cash flow relative to other areas is a premium I pay to have access to a higher caliber of professional tenents, that need proximity to Washington or the pentegon. The schools are not fantastic, but I (so far) have been blessed with busy and low maintenance tenants, especially in old town. 

It can be discouraging sometimes running the numbers on potential rentals in premium areas like old town, but in my (limited experience view) I see it as paying a premium to buy into a great potential tenant market with solid appreciation opportunity. 

Greetings BPs, Should I consider another rental purchase in Alexandria? I currently own a SFH rental in old town Alexandria and even though it is an expensive market I like the quality of renters It attracts and have been happy with it for the last 6 years. Thoughts? Better areas to consider?

@Jay Helms that is an interesting point and one we have been focused on previously from the oposite direction: getting sued through my wife's medical practice, since most docs in her line of work almost always have one open law suit against them. All is well and good provided the hospital backs you, but if your at fault.... To protect against both directions our strategy has been to use umbrella ensruance and move the property(s) into an LLC and or land trust.

@Jay Helms after traditional tax deferred places to stash cash rental properties seem like a diversified place to build wealth and supplement income, plus I like that similar to investing you can create a strategy that’ fits your risk tolerance, time horizon and available time. In our case we are fairly cautious, busy professionals with limited time (plus four kids) and although we have had a good cash flowing experience with our first rental for 6 years, I am struggling with developing a growth (next rental purchase) strategy that fits us. Our end goal is 3-4 rentals,  but I need a conservative/not over leveraged growth strategy. I admire the many members on here that have aggressively grown large portfolios, but I would personally never be comfortable with that much leverage. 

I sincerely appreciate the detailed replies. Extremely educational for a beginner. Perhaps a few more details will help further. my wife finally completed her 15+ years of medical training and is a trauma surgeon making Really big girl money. But since we have been used to living on just my salary, we now have the ability to pay off her 300k in student loans and thr 300k left on our 500k rental propriety in three years. We dislike debt by nature  because we both grew up eating government cheese in families where money was always super tight, so our first instinct is to slay the debt. 

That’s said, I would love  to have 3-4 rental properties to suplement retirement income or just have a cash flow to allow less/different work, but don’t necessary want a rental empire given the time/other work interests. Were both right around 40 so don’t have forever to play around, but sounds like from the advice an alternate move might be to just be trefi the rental to increase cash flow and use some of the recent increased doc salary to buy a second rental. 

Again I really appreciate the insightful advice. 

If you can pay off the mortgage on your first rental property should you? And is it a viable strategy to then use a HELOC on the (now paid off) rental to buy a second? I ask this because my wife and I dislike debt but love rental properties.