All Forum Posts by: Eddie Gonnella

@Daniel Baker

I own an STR about 1 hr from Acadia NP. Happy to chat, send me a pm. Been going great, bought in Feb 2021.

Eddie

@Michael Susi Good luck man! 

@Codey Fabian

Retweet what Ryan Murdock has said. Being completely unleveraged (no loans) is just not the mathematically best way to build income in real estate quickly. Especially today when you can get interest rates at or around 3%.

What town are you operating the handyman business out of? Central, ME can be a big area! I own a few rentals near UMaine and am always looking for good handymen, I know some other investors in this area who are too. Any particular parts of remodeling you are experienced in?

Eddie

Sounds like you are firing on all cylinders right now man! I feel you on the pain of scratching through the MLS without much help of a realtor. What area of town is this in? I'd love to come by and see what a $100k rehab project looks like. I've done three similar to this, two in Southside and one in Fulton Hill. Nothing at this size though, I'm very intrigued.

Awesome! Congrats man! What kind of terms did you get for the refi? And how did you manage the construction? 

@Joe Van

Nice work Joe! How much did the rehab cost? What does it rent for now?

I love the BRRRR strategy!

Eddie

The lack of urgency, the pain of having to move and find new tenants, complacency with already having a good spot where I live for free... changes in the market since the first ones that make the deals look not as great. 

Also, my purchasing power was decreased because I couldn't count the rents in my SFH house hack towards my income, so I had to account for two mortgages. And I didn't really consider the tax implications of writing off a ton of the renovations from various projects so it made my rental income look like I was losing money, also reduced my purchasing power on the 2nd house hack.

Ended up getting under contract last month for a 2nd SFH house hack at 135k. Needs about 20k in work then I will move in. Should be worth 180/190. I will probably live in it and then sell it after 12 months for this particular spot, just because I am not sure the rents are catching up to the appreciation in this area. So I might just take the profit and plug it into a different area of the city in a different project instead of keeping a marginal rental. Not sure yet though, my goal is to always hold as long as possible.

@Doug Crenshaw I think the area of the state you are looking in you want to shoot more for the 2% rule. That is due to 1. Higher taxes than that 'rule of thumb' usually accounts for 2. having to pay for heating costs for the building in almost all cases (see point above about not leaving this to the tenants and letting them flood your apartment) 3. the housing stock is extremely old, which means a lot more maintenance and long term capex. 

I wouldn't touch anything that wasn't closer to 2% unless I was confident the place was much newer (most stuff around here is early 1900s... bad news for capex) or it had clearly just been updated essentially down to the studs and all new systems. 

Happy to chat more, let me know! 

Hey Emily! Feel free to send me a direct message. House hacking is awesome. I am in Richmond and am going on to house hack #2 (closing this month). I would 2nd the advice to read Craig Curelop's book and also listen to his podcast episode. 

I've found small-multi family in Richmond to be pretty difficult to find for house hacking. Though more recently I have seen a few come across that might have worked. If you are comfortable with it, I would recommend the single-family home, rent by the room approach. That's what I've done and it's worked well. Do you have a network in Richmond of friends that you can have as roommates? I was new to Richmond so that has been the hardest part for me. 

@Paul Murch

I used them and it's worked so far - that said I haven't really used them for anything other than putting them on the LLC form, but my LLC was filed just fine. Seemed reasonable at $49 a year with scanning. Nothing has been mailed to them yet though so tbd if the same day scanning works.

Eddie