All Forum Posts by: Eric Huang

I'm under contract of a cabin in Verlot WA. 

The cabin is sitting on a 10-acre land immersed by Doug Firs. There is a creek passing through the property and yet massive land is still unexplored. And there are abut 3 pieces of lawns in front the two-story cabin. The deck is overlooking the lawns. I think there is a great potential of putting a few glamping sites on the lot. I wanted to find a landscaper, especially someone has prior experience in setting up glamping sites, tiny houses, or trailers on big land. In the meantime, any suggestions are greatly appreciated!

Thank you all for the inputs. As for Chattanooga market, I was introduced to the market by other investors.

Hello Chattanooga investors,

I'm an OOS investor based in Seattle. I've been looking to buy and hold a rental property in the area. I've searched in signal mountain, north Chattanooga, and Hixon areas finding no strong cash flow properties. I recently came cross a few downtown properties near the UTC campus within walking distance to restaurants and city vibes. But, the current rent is kind of low (3bed 3 bath 1700sqft for $1700), which make the cash return minimal. What about the appreciation potentials? Is the downtown area rejuvenating?

Many thanks,

Eric

Thank you Caroline. Yeah, the airdna numbers sound too good to be true. I'm also checking the county office for permit requirement. 

I came across a property in a popular vacation spot in the Olympia national park. The property is half block away from the water with a nice lake view from the backyard. The house has a main structure about 800 sqft (2b1b), a separate storage space 600 sqft (potentially converted to livable space in the future), two-car port and an old barn space (a potential indoor rec space). The property lot has two parcels with a total of 12K sqft and only one parcel is currently occupied. I ran numbers and it seems very promising. Asking for $290K, expected the total revenue of $64K per year (with 55% occupancy rate based on airDNA data) for the main structure only. I may need to put $20K upfront to refresh the house. The average monthly expenses is estimated to be $2300 per month, including expenses such as cleaning, maintenance, insurance, CapEx, landscaping, utilities, internet, management, etc. Is it sufficient? On top of that, there is about $1100 mortgage given 4% rate and 20% down. 

(courtesy of a bigger pockets member for creating the Vacation Rental Analyzer - Cash Flow Analysis)

However, the water supply to the property is from a well and shared with other 3 neighbors. And the water rights belong to one of the neighbors. Although the owner mentioned said they have no arguments in the last 35 years, it sounds risky to me to run airbnb business on it. And because of water supply issue, the bank will not able to loan it. But the seller is willing to offer a 30 year at 4% loan to the buyer. To resolve the water supply issue, I have to put a well, which may cost $15K roughly? I have no prior STR experience. Is it worth considering the property?

Hello Community, I've been calling around to find "best" HELOC lenders, some local credit unions (BECU, Sound credit union, First Tech union) and some national ones (Third Federal). Sound credit union is by far the best local lender in terms of rate and terms. Third Federal offers unbeatable rates but no interest-only option. So I want to reach out to the community to check out other potential lenders.

Another question, I'm the process of refinancing my primary residence which I will use to get HELOC. Can I apply for a HELOC at the same time or get a pre-approval? My broker told me I cannot and should wait until the refi is done. But want to double check. Many thanks always.

Eric 

I'm actually using it as of now. I found it's quite handy, nice tool.

Thank you Gideon for your insights. I'm running number to see if some properties in Tacoma make sense to me. But as you say, competitive market like Seattle, I need to be creative when it comes to let numbers make sense to me :)

 Thank you Joe for the reply.

That makes sense. I bet there must be something under the table. Thank you Michael.