All Forum Posts by: Gabriella Pellolio

About a year ago we purchased our home in Marin County. We were able to buy low in a good neighborhood since the home was in need of some work, mainly needing cosmetic work and some deferred maintenance. We have been living in the home and slowly doing work as we can. The home value has increased even though we haven’t had it reappraised with the work we have done so far. We currently have about 200k equity. Our mortgage rate is high at 6.75%. Given this and what I’m seeing homes around here rent for, there wouldn’t be much monthly cash flow if we were to rent it out today as a LTR, but there is the opportunity to grow equity. Unless we tried a MTR, this might bring opportunity with monthly cash flow. I want this to become a rental property and would like to begin investing in real estate, I am not sure best approach. Marin is expensive and though we want to live in Marin, I think it’s smart to look at other markets for investing. How do we make the most of where we’re at and these needs?

Some ideas and questions I have around best approach:

Do we continue to put our own money into these repairs to see through the work on the home or is there a loan or HELOC that should be considered instead?

Should we refinance now if rates decrease even just slightly so we pay a lower monthly while we see through these repairs, then once repairs are complete have home reappraised and take out this equity to buy next property where we would live while renting out our current home?

Do we take equity out now to buy next home, rent this home now, and save MTR OR LTR cash flow to do repairs in between renters?

Do we continue to live in this home, take out a HELOC or cash out refinance to purchase a rental property, and once have more equity down road move out of our current home and rent this as well?

Appreciate your insights, thank you!

Thank you!

Hi BP Community!

I'm looking to switch our accountant. I'm going to begin my real estate investment journey and would like to find a CPA that is knowledgeable about this. Additionally, I own an interior design business so bonus if they have interior design clients / are familiar with this industry as well. I'm located in the San Francisco Bay Area, but am open to finding the right CPA outside of this area.

Thank you!

Gabriella

Hi BP Community!

I am eager to get started on locking in my first investment property and have questions on what my best approach would be.

I own my home and have been making slow improvements to it over the last year I have had it. This has been with my own money and there are more improvements I'd like to make. It's a bit of a fixer upper, but in a great location. I have a 6.875% mortgage. My goal is to eventually hold onto this as a rental property. With the equity I have started to build I am thinking I could take this out and use it for a down payment on an investment property. Question 1: should I wait for mortgage rates to come down and then refinance and take out a HELOC and use these funds to buy another property? Or should I wait for mortgage rates to come down and do a cash out refinance? Or ?? Question 2: Should I be utilizing one of these approaches (or another way?) to have money to put into improving the property so that it can be evaluated higher?

I own an interior design business. I am looking to start a real estate investing portfolio and figure I can utilize my interior design business for needed material purchases on my properties. Question: should I be starting a real estate business (LLC, S-Corp?) so that this business is purchasing these properties? Should my interior design business purchase a multi-use space where I could have our office and rent out other spaces? Or should I be purchasing these investment properties on my own?

Thanks in advance!

~ Gabriella