All Forum Posts by: Eric DiNicola

The bottom line my friend is that real estate investing has made the most wealthy people, no other field. She needs to understand how much better her and your and your children's lives will be if you can sacrifice a tiny bit now and put together some serious foresight about the future. If you can invest in a multi at your age to start your life, you'll be so happy. 

I convinced my then GF to let me buy a multi family that we could live in when we started and then hold as a rental when we moved out. She was completely disinterested in real estate and still is, but I had the knowledge and had to just believe in my plan and showed her the proof that it worked. She doesn't care about money like I do (but really, she does, as do most people who say that, when they see what it does to your life eventually) but the convincing angle has always been "look, this is how we are going to make the most money over our combined lifetime so that by the time normal people retire we'll have been set up for decades, able to travel, send our kids to any school, etc." and she trusted me, I just didn't stop until she did. It was a great decision and I'm now fully entrenched in real estate. You don't have to be a know-it-all or try to control the relationship, but if you have this knowledge at such a young age which sounds like you do, you need to do what you know is going to be right for your future family, and that's investing in real estate. You should try to appeal to the family idea -- your future family will be so set up if you do it right, and if you wait you're only losing money via opportunity cost by the day. My ultimate advice D'Andre, you have to keep pressing her and make it work, and then keep scaling from there. You and her will never, ever regret it. Just let her be part of it, decorate the first house hack to her liking, whatever she wants. You are about the numbers because you know it works, she has to just be brought on board. It's very difficult to have great foresight at 21 but it sounds like you do. Do whatever it takes to get her on board. Good luck man. 

I agree with @Caleb Heimsoth, you're paying too much for that kind of rent. Even if you could raise the rents I don't think it makes sense. Maybe I'm too conservative but I always apply the 50% rule first for expenses, and if it doesn't at least make decent money at that point, I move on. In this case, you'd be looking at $737.50/month expenses and after your 25-year am mortgage payment of around $800/month, you're making nothing, in fact losing ~$60/month at current rents. The Airbnb potential is nice but it's just potential. Ideally you want to get something that already works very well as-is, if you're aiming to somehow incorporate airbnb down the road, and you can then upgrade even more from there. There's always another deal and this one is too far off to make it work, I would advise against it. 

1. 

- YOU have to have the vision, no matter what anyone else in your family says. If you think you can make it work, and the numbers make sense (remember, numbers don't lie, emotions do though) go for it. And remind them every so often -- the majority of wealthy people made their wealth through real estate. 

2. 

The numbers don't lie. If you prepare for the worst case scenario and create very conservative numbers, and your deal STILL looks profitable in those scenarios, make a plan, stick with it, and go for it. The richest people in the world own real estate, keep remembering that. If people who own real estate don't like it, they could be doing it wrong. Some people know you can fail, but they also don't know the steps to succeed. You have to figure those out -- they're just steps that involve numbers -- and take action. That's all. 

3. 

I think your idea of a 3.5% down via FHA and getting a 2-4 unit MF is a tremendous idea. Think about this -- your investment of around $22k only at the beginning (based on the 12k and 10k numbers you mention) will get you into a multi-family home that you are collecting rent on 1-3 units. If the rents in that area competitive and your numbers work with conservative estimates, you have a no-brainer my friend. Don't wait another second and you won't regret it.

1. Other than just proving my success later on, how do you think I can convince my family we are prepared and this is the right move for us? 

2. Probably not the most unbiased forum online, but which concerns should I give weight to and which could be chalked up to my dad's uncle's lack of preparedness/management/bad apples/etc? In other words, what are some of the things which pose the greatest danger for those like me about to get into their first house hack/rental investment? I have been trying to learn about all of the pitfalls and instead of saying "I can't" say "How can I" overcome them.

3. Any other beginner investment vehicles worth pursuing that could yield a similar opportunity for return for my wife and I? For our specific residence situation unless we rented a place we would be getting a new mortgage anyways, it seems to make sense to house hack instead of following the traditional path of 'moving up' to a larger house and a larger mortgage. But I'm curious to hear everyone's thoughts...