All Forum Posts by: Guy Yoes

Creative? NO. Good credit takes time and discipline to acquire.  You need to pay off debt, pay bills on time, live within your means, make sacrifices on having all the things that don't really matter. Get a job (or a second job). Then start saving your money. In the meantime, spend about 100 hours on here reading and listening to everything you can.  

IF you work very hard, in about a year you could be ready to buy your first property. If you don't want to put that much effort into this, then you may want to consider something else. 

Find a mentor to work with would be a good start. That would be an investor and not a realtor. Ask on here if there is anyone in your area who could answer questions for you. Look on BP for RE meet ups. Spend about 100 hours on here reading all the great free info and listening to podcasts.  That's my answer to your question.

Here are my questions:

Do you plan to house hack the duplex? Are you good at doing repairs and maintenance? Have you considered the area the properties are in? Do you plan to hire a PM? What is your plan?

I assume you have a job and enough for the down payment and half that for repairs, insurance, taxes and emergency funds if the property is not rented for awhile? 

No one can answer that for you. Everyone is different. Too many factors to even suggest at this point. 

Have you ever bought a house? How much money do you have? Where do you plan to buy? What is your credit score?

These are just a few questions you need to consider? I suggest spending as much time reading and listening to podcasts as possible. You will learn and be better able to judge for yourself. 

Make you own decisions and don't let anyone tell you what is best for you or pay anyone to teach you how to do it.

Most of what you need is here, just spent the time leaning first or it will cost you dearly later.

Good luck!

Banks will accept rental income... IF you have a job. You would have a better chance if the properties were paid off. They will not count rental income on mortgaged properties as your sole source of  income. What happens if you don't get rent? How are you going to live and pay the mortgage if the house is empty?

Will you be earning enough off the rentals to pay for your living expenses? This includes all debt you may have i.e. car, credit cards, rent, utilities, insurance, food, taxes etc?

If you learned a good skill in the military, put that to use. Appears to me, that at this time, REI is an investment and not a full time job. Get a job and continue to invest in RE. You will know when it is time to move into RE full time.

Best of luck and thank you for your service!

Ivan-

As REI and former educator who recently retired (from education) after 35 years of service, I would like to throw in my two cents.

I started investing in RE later in life after my children were grown. So I envy the head start you have. That said, IHMO you have a sweet deal going now and I would ride it for a long time. My reasoning is:

A. Texas pays teachers better than almost all area states. ( I was in OKLA and we were 48 out of 50) Putting back 40K a year gives you options you won't have if you just live off your rental income.

B. Your insurance is paid for by the school. young and single insurance is cheap. See what your premiums would be with a spouse and children  At nearly 60 as I am, it goes very high. 

C. You have more time off than most people. This is great if you start a family and have a spouse with a 50 week a year job.  ( i raised my daughter by myself and could only do it because we had the same schedule during the school year and summers off)

D. Owning properties is a job! Even people who made millions in RE are still working. I don't get this " I'm a REI and retired at 28" what a load of crap. I have 7 doors and stay very busy managing them. They are an investment and I put in a lot of time and money to keep them rented and cash flowing.

E. If you love your job as an educator as I did, keep following your passion. In 35 years, I had 4 days I dreaded going to work. They were personal issues and not work issues.

F. You are young and you have time to grow your business. Be smart and grow slowly. Talk to some of the older members here. The ones who went through the housing market crash. Ask them what happened to the "maxed out the mortgage" people in "08. I was there and saw it. I had 3 doors all paid off. Not much but it flowed good cash and allowed me to  buy good properties very cheap because loans were hard to get.

G. Focus on quality and not just quantity. Spend time learning to use the resources and mentors on here. Find value in using 1031's and diversify into notes and liens or hard money lending. 

I will probably get some blowback on this, but being debt free and having a portfolio I can manage myself allows me to sleep very well at night. Remember, opinions are like fingerprints. Everyone has a handful of them and they are all different. In the end the only ones that matters are yours.

Best of Luck!  

@Darren Sager

I understand. We had our house paid off and used a HElOC to purchase our first rental. The rate was higher than a loan but no closing costs as we paid cash. We also acted as our own agent (we are not RE agents) and negotiated the contract ourselves. We had saved saved 10K and took out a HELOC for 90K. We paid off the house in three years using the rent, our former mortgage payments and any extra cash we had. After three years we repeated with a 80K foreclosure paying two rents, previous mortgage and extra cash. Paid off in two years.

This works for us. My wife was hesitant to go along with this, but we ran the numbers and the hassle of getting a loan made this a better process for us. 

I hope you have better luck with the refi on the rental than we did. Our bank is not to keen on rental loans but fell over themselves in getting us a great rate for the HELOC.

While you can no longer take interest for you home loan off your taxes, you can deduct if the loan is for a rental ( same as a refi).

Is this for a rental or a flip? HML's are going to ask for about 9-11% and they want longer terms usually.

We looked into lending early in our REI journey. It was hard to find the right fit we were comfortable with. We ended up going with first position notes ( 5 year term @ 9%).

Best of luck!

Do you have equity in your house? you can do a HELOC to raise capital.

It’s not a phobia it’s a health issue.   A person could wear a hazmat suit I guess.  The question is ... should a tenants right supersede the rights of the owner?  Where is the line? We have pets and allow pets but I should have rights as well. Thinking I may sell the properties and invest in more notes and tax liens. No worries that way (or law suits). 

What if I (as the landlord) have a condition that prevents me from entering my rental due to pet hair or dander? If I was extremely allergic to animal hair to the extent that just a few minutes inside would cause a severe reaction? I know this is out there a bit, but don't I have the right as the owner to enter my own property without fear of physical harm?

At what point does the tenant's rights to a pet override my right to manage my business?

Safeguard is one of the companies I have used and have been happy with.  I am  also trying some crowd funding on a small scale. I have tried hard money lending but have yet to close a deal.  Currently I’m doing a 1031 with @Dave Foster    I couldn’t be happier with the process.