All Forum Posts by: Erick Sembrano

I would agree with the others above, option 2 looks much better in terms of having more cash out to acquire another property that will give more cashflow than the 100 dollars you "lose" from the refinance. 

I agree that while starting and building up your portfolio, cash flow in your properties will help you stay in the game and keep your properties to continue growing.  The appreciation would be nice when starting, and will definitely grow your wealth over time and can focus on it when your financial foundation is set. Seems like having a good defense with cash reserves or emergency funds will help a long way.  

I am definitely a big fan of house hacking and would go that route especially in the Boston area. If you can find a triplex of 4plex to house hack, eliminate your housing expense and if lucky cashflow even a little bit, then value add, there might be a chance you can refi to get some or your money invested back if done right. Then perhaps at that time you can reuse some of the cash out refi to look for an investment property in St Louis. Good luck!

Not dealing with a bad inherited tenant early on. I should have terminated the month-to-month lease right out of the gate when I got the property. Entertained their request to stay until the school year ends and turned out they are just nasty people. It ended up costing me around 6 months of hell, lawyer fee's trying to get them evicted, and eventually paying them to leave ($15k) just right before the COVID related city lockdown. I would definitely avoid inherited tenants or get better dealing with them, definitely a lesson learned. 

@Besnik Kadriu nice to meet you here, definitely, it's always nice to connect with fellow investors in the area! 

Thank you so much for a detailed response @Jonathan Bombaci! It's helpful to know the info you shared and that a little creativity will help to still find a deal in a market like Boston. Appreciate your response!

I'm new and just started house hacking. Looking for deals on our second house hack and I'm confused as how to apply the rules / guides (1% rule, 50%, or 70% etc) into house hacking numbers especially in a high cost of living area (I'm in Boston, MA). Any way to help place this in perspective would be appreciated!

Great job on being creative and making it work better after each step! Love the house hacking strategy and that you still have untapped potential in the property to get our of it in the future. Congratulations!  

@Jessica Stevenson What about just at the border of Mass such as Salem, NH? Is that at good are to look into? I live in the Boston area but work in Salem NH so that's the reason I'm curious. Thanks! 

@Gualter Amarelo I live in Boston, just curious if you would recommend New Bedford as an area to invest (from relatively long distance), and even with property management, there's many opportunities to cashflow buying small multifamily? Thanks! 

I like the approach of @Adam Sankowski to lean toward which property you would like to live in especially for a house hack. Good to know about the STR in Somerville as quite restrictive. Would you know @Philip Ganz if house hacking a multi with a potential STR would be a good strategy in areas such as Everett, Wakefield, Malden (a little north of Boston close to I-93)?