All Forum Posts by: Grant Merrill

@Saemi Jung

The rule may have changed since the last time I used a VA loan but as far as I know you cannot use a VA loan in this fashion. Once a VA loan is used you must live in the house for at least 12 months. At that point you can move out and continue to use the house as a rental property. At the very least you will want to make sure that you are doing everything on the up and up.

Found a house in my local area. It turned out, after during a bit more research, that the title actually includes three lots. From what I can tell the house is built of one lot and the other two are open land. This looks like a great opportunity to me, but I'm unsure on how to capitalize on it. I need some guidance on what the next steps should be.

My local area has quite a few manufactured (manu) homes. It is a more rural area with a city center nearby. I have started looking as some of the properties that are for sale. Not know much about manu homes I turned to the forums for more information. There seems to be a toss up on the feelings of buying manu homes. Some say they are a great (read cheaper) way to get started in investing, while others swear that they are garbage. I realize that a lot of opinions may be based on experience in a different markets. I'm just trying to get a better feel for whether it is ever a good idea. Do manu houses work for long term buy and holds or better as a fix and flip? Would I be able to use a strategy like BRRRR on a manufactured home (in other words is there an avenue to refinance after a rehab)? What expenses are there on manu homes as opposed to more traditional stick houses? Just trying to get as much information as possible to do accurate calculations.

Bottom line are manu homes worth the squeeze, so to speak? 

Thanks in advance.

The older couple that was living next to us never out recently and the family is looking to sell the property. I’m thinking that o might try to buy it from them but want to see if they are willing to do a seller finance deal. How do I set up that type of transaction? Who do I need to get involved? What other questions do I need to look into that I haven’t thought of?

To be completely honest it's lack of knowledge. The financing part of investing is the part that scares me the most. I haven't learned about financing as much as I should.

https://www.biggerpockets.com/calculators/shared/7...

This is the first deal that I looked at where the numbers actually work. I'm excited and a little cautious. Being the first time, I'm pretty sure that I have missed something, probably a lot of things. I'd like to learn from those mistakes and make the next analysis even better. 

Thanks in advance for your time.

Grant

I been reading through the forums and listening to the pod casts and have heard several people talk about getting their real estate license in order to get access to MLS. Just wondering if it matters what state you get your real estate license in if that is your only intention. For instance, there is a deal on Groupon to get a New York real estate license. I live in Texas. Can I get the New York license for access to MLS? It's rather expensive to get a license in Texas, not to mention the 180 hour course that's required.

Hello everyone. I'm Grant. I've dabbled in real estate for a little while, and by dabble I mean I've bought a couple homes to live in and then didn't sell them when I moved out. So, even though I have some rentals I know nothing about investing. I've been looking around on several websites for a group that can give me some more direction. I've been successful finding companies out there charging mucho dinero for their products and while they sound good, I just don't have the money up front to fork out to someone else instead of toward my goals. I've read a lot of the Rich Dad series. I've started incorporating the properties I own. Recently, my wife found Bigger Pockets and suggested I check it out. So here I am. I've listened to a few podcasts from Bigger Pockets. There's good information. I'm hoping to learn a lot more.