All Forum Posts by: David Yandel

Thanks Jason, let me clarify. We are in Salt Lake City, and It's only our basement that is rented, should we move and rent our upstairs as a long term lease it should bring in an additional $1800, bringing our rents to $3,750 and cash flow to roughly $800-$1,000 monthly. We are currently occupying the upstairs. 

I would not like to sell that home, as we have a lot of upside when we move to rent and cash flow. I am trying to decide whether to buy another home here or buy an investment out of state. 

I just got a good quote for two properties in Lakeland from Giella Insurance Agency in Wesley Chapel. Pretty straight forward and reliable. I didn't end up bidding on either property, but the quotes we got were reputable.

Tampa, Orlando, Miami, Broward, Jacksonville and their surrounding areas are all booming right now and can be great long term hold plays that still will cash flow if you find the right deals. General rule of thumb, stay away from the bad parts of town because you will always have tenant turnover and issues. I recommend googling "(City name) comprehensive plan" every city has a city plan that shows where their major commercial projects are heading. You could aim to purchase near those areas that are already or set to boom even more with large commercial projects going on. 

My wife and I are certain future real estate investors who would love to enter the market sometime within the next 1-4 years and acquire our first rental property. We both are drawn to either single family long term rentals, or STR's in the right locations.

Right now we have $20k cash available for immediate investment, with the ability to increase that to $60-70k in the next 3 years through savings and bonuses at our day jobs. We also have approx. $140 equity in our primary residence that we'd be open to getting a HELOC on (would love feedback on if people recommend this or not).

Given our limited available resources for down payment, high home prices, and higher interest rates, is now a bad time for first time investors to enter the market? Is there a chance that rates and prices decrease in the next 1-4 years as our cash reserves increase, thus creating a better scenario for us first time investors?

We would GREATLY appreciate feedback from experienced investors on how best to start out on our REI journey.

Investment Info:

Single-family residence buy & hold investment.

Purchase price: $450,000
Cash invested: $5,000

Purchased this home to live in, then rented it and moved out just over a year later, this is my second deal like this, according to Zillow I owe about what Zillow says its worth but I got it at a good rate, although it was at the peak of real estate right before everything dropped and rates started increasing. I'd probably loose money if I had to sell, but I don't intend to and I'm not loosing money on it now. I wish I could edit it but it probably came out to 15,000 total cash invested to get the place in a good place to rent, 5,000 was just the initial amount we put towards the loan.

What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

I like that new builds don't require a lot of maintenance (although we had to put in a yard which was more than I expected). I also like that these newer homes attract quality tenants, I may be lucky but haven't had any issues with any of my tenants in these types of homes (yet).

How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

I worked through a real estate agent that I trust and we got a deal that worked out.

How did you finance this deal?

VA loan, very close to no money down, but we did pay a little out of pocket to cover

How did you add value to the deal?

being a new build we had to add some basics, like blinds and a yard (including a sprinkler system that I installed myself, I learned a lot there)

What was the outcome?

So far we are cash flowing and I am optimistic that the market is going in a good direction

Lessons learned? Challenges?

I learned that I like newer builds, they weren't overly hard to put tenants in, but i did learn that I need to budget more for landscaping up front if its a newly built home.

Did you work with any real estate professionals (agents, lenders, etc.) that you'd recommend to others?

Jacob Thurston from Shadow Mountain realty was great.