All Forum Posts by: Eric Miller

Congratulations on your first kiddo!

I've been BRRRRing a house for the last year while having a new baby at home and have a few thoughts. I definitely wouldn't consider living in the property, having a peaceful and quiet place to be will be so valuable. If you start with a place that needs simple cosmetic updates (which I would recommend since you both have W-2 jobs and have that kiddo on the way) and can do those before you move in that might work.

If your current home would cash flow and could become a good medium or long-term rental, try and hold on to it. If your goal is having multiple long-term holds, you automatically already have one!

If you have enough equity, consider a HELOC on your home, just know there is risk involved and there will be some stress worrying about getting it paid off.

If you won't be living in the house you purchase, you'll likely have to do a combination of financing, e.g., HELOC + hard money.

Read through the creative financing threads, there are some pretty interesting ways to structure deals.

I live in a college town and it's great for renting out a property, but the buy-in is pretty painful and makes it hard to cash flow. The college town you're looking at may be different.

Last thought - estimate your rehab costs and then double them, estimate your timeline and double that too. Plan for those figures and you'll be happy if it's cheaper and faster and not in trouble if it isn't.

Good luck on the journey!

I'm new at BRRRRing and just about ready to refinance. The main benefits I see are getting a property for 75% of it's value after all costs and only having to have a minimal down payment (that's how I see the money I'm leaving in the deal.) 

I will say this deal wouldn't work without leaving in 7% or so of ARV, but in the last year I have seen a few come up in my local area that would. Hopefully I'll see more later this year!

BRRRR is a buy, repair, and hold strategy, it sounds like you're more interested in flipping?

Our HELOC is at 7.75%, no points. Why are there points to have a high interest rate?

Also, don't take the funds up front, make draws as you go. Your initial monthly payments will be very low and then build up as the project gets to the end.

Quote from @Chris Seveney:

I would take one over property over 4 all day long. Now I agree the 4 will cash flow better than one will but I also look at it from risk of 4 properties will have higher maintenance costs and lower priced properties tend not to appreciate as well as a higher value asset

I am also in it for long game and managing one is easier than 4

 Thank you, that's helpful.

Quote from @Nicholas L.:

@Eric Miller

I was going to say something similar to what @Greg Scott said, that generally you wouldn't have this as a choice.  but you did say that it "reflects your situation."  are you able to share more about that?

i am just going a deal at a time. i actually have bought properties on seller finance at 95% LTV. i've also BRRRR'd. i'd do either. to go back to my first point, though, i generally can't pick - it can take months and months to find a deal. i then evaluate it and i buy it or i don't. lately i keep getting outbid on potential BRRRRs. I'll make an offer that works for me and then someone else will bid slightly more or way more. i move on to the next one.

what were you looking to get out of asking this question?

My BRRR is in a pretty great location. There are occasional properties in the rural areas around here that I can get 95% LTV on, those areas don't appreciate as quickly but do have decent rental rates. Not sure if it's worth it to gain the extra appreciation while also having to manage multiple properties that are a bit of a drive away and have unknown maintenance requirements. As long my refi goes through ok I think I'd like to hold onto the BRRR and be more careful about what I get into next.

Buy four houses with $50,000 down on each. The mortgage payment is $1,000 on each house, so you earn $500 per house or $2,000 monthly. After five years, you'll earn $120,000 in rent income and $136,000 in appreciation. You've earned $132,000 more by splitting your money and leveraging it.

Since I've been searching for more deals I have seen one or two that might actually cash flow decently but most seem to be at break even assuming normal expenses, vacancies, etc.
I'm just learning my comfort levels with leveraging and trying to take advice from others about managing multiple low cash flow properties vs. one higher value one. 

Quote from @JD Martin:

Correct, I need to apologize for keeping my example too simple when most people on here are much more sophisticated in investing than I am.

Thank you for the answers, I appreciate the insight and it’s helpful to see different perspectives on the same question. 

The example does actually reflect my situation but I tried to keep it as simple as possible. 

I hadn’t thought about the risk of expanding my portfolio by having multiple properties over leveraged, although that seems to be a growth strategy that many use,  I’m not sure it’s one I’m comfortable with. 

I'm working on part of an investment strategy and I'm curious about having one more valuable property that, either through a large down payment or BRRR method comes in at 70 LTV, versus using creative financing to have multiple less valuable properties at high LTV.

So, assuming all properties would be at just above break even, is it better to have one $600k property at 70% LTV, or four $300k properties at 95% LTV? 15 - 20 year hold time.

The rental investment calculators show that the four $300k properties would have a lot more equity in the future and many times the cash flow after a few years, but does the extra maintenance, management time and expense, etc. outweigh the numbers?

Is having more properties always better than one nicer property?

Can of worms opened!