All Forum Posts by: Sunny Suh

Hello everyone!! It has definitely been a wild ride... January 2017 and my renovation is JUST finishing in JC heights. 

Common theme has been trust but verify. Even "when" is crucial, as information can be wrong depending on the time. For example, I believe you used to be able to take the PMI off from an FHA loan, but with the law changing that is not the case anymore (Someone please verify, haha).

Also, upon finding out about an oil tank, it is the seller's responsibility to take care of it. I thought it was due to my lawyer but that wasn't the case.. 

Talking to many people will help your experience. 

I have face black mold, termites, 1 mouse, contractors who haven't come to work on my home for 2 months without a reason but plainly obvious they were working on other homes. 

Ultimately, I expected to pay around 30k, and I have gone upwards of 70k+...

This was my guinea pig house going in, to see how much I can stomach along with my wife. Boy have we stomached a lot. 

Details will follow, overall I am grateful for the learning experience, and seeing how 2 family homes are selling for roughly 500k around the area also helps a bit. There seems to be a new restaurant opening every month so happy about that too. 

On a side note, I started my real estate class here in Jersey City and learning so much with a cool group! Friends are also curious if I will buy another home and want to pool money, but I'll focus on this home until I get a tenant in. 

Happy new year everyone. 

hi Sandy, 

do you mean the reno would be a brownstone and a kitchen? or is there actually something called a brownstone kitchen? anyway, it depends on where your house is located. I'd advise doing a drive around your neighborhood block radius, you will notice the popular and good contractors have signs of their work on homes being worked on. good place to start in my opinion. 

@Account Closed hey are you a fan of your inspector? Would like to find a decent one, but I'll probably go into the next property with a contractor. 

Be careful with turning on tax loss harvesting while you have vanguard, it may be considered a wash especially if both brokerages have a similar asset, unless Vanguard is a target date fund you may have issues. 

House just had a pipe burst, my renovations are at 45k and that doesn't include new bathrooms or kitchens... will update soon. 

@Account Closedglad you enjoyed it!! Love Mr. Money moustache although I have my own version and take on money. Used to voraciously read the other bloggers such as getrichslowly, thesimpledollar, and i think millionaireby40? Along with a ton of books (I will teach you to be rich, Millionaire next door).

Curious what your take is on the vanguard vs. betterment. I also use mint.com and personalcapital along with futureadvisor which are more tracking tools. Personal capital tells me I'm too heavy on the foreign but my take is PersonalCapital favors domestic a bit too much. Futureadvisor tells me other funny things like if I had their asset allocation I would be 1.7% wealthier in 5 years but currently my realistic setup now is 0.4% better than their current plan. Hope to bump into you sometime as well!

@Debu Sinhahey Debu, appreciate the clarification but I was more taking a jab at the other noobies, so not a assumption personally on you but on newcomers here in general. 

lot of respect for your journey and where you came from. when the only option is forward, then you keep moving :) sorry to hear about your dad and hardship, but i have no pity for you. understanding a little about you, you probably don't expect any either. i pray that the hardships mold you to become the man you are striving to be and that you do well in this life.

love jack bogle's philosphy, he has his own following of bogleheads. having multiple streams of income is definitely key. I am still learning as I go, but I have no problem casually having convo. on here or somewhere else. you should come to one of our meetups around JC or even the one in nyc by Darren Sager. I'm sure we'll bump into each other sometime. 

Don't mean to offend but is it possible you got lucky with a paying tenant for a poorly located/conditioned unit?

Curious to your reasoning as I don't understand why you'd want proof since Jersey City rentals get snatched up quickly, then again I am a noobie so my reasoning can be way off and I apologize in advance.  

Hey Nidia, a meetup was created from a post I started on here that meets around JC area. You should also look into Darren Sager's meetup in NYC, one is coming up on March 8th. 

Best way is to keep searching and finding good people to help, really awesome you're taking action. Let me know if you have any questions. 

@Nidia C.

I just realized I came off as a dick in that last post and can't change it... Sorry Debu, didn't mean to sound like that, looks like the moderators keep deleting my posts too because I know I put that info about the FHA loan in here but I can't find it anymore.

Just to fill you in, FHA is a type of loan where you put 3.5% down on the house. If you put below 20%, you pay what's called a PMI which is an insurance for the lender in case you default or stop paying. My PMI is roughly $188 on top of all mortgage+insurance+tax. You can request to take the PMI off once you hit 20% of the VALUE of the house. So let's say in 4 years I hit 20% of what I paid for the house 300k, or I paid back 60k. And let's say the house now costs 400k after 4 years. Still not good enough, I need to have paid 80k, 20% of the current value. Once I do, I can just ask them to take off the PMI, no need to re-finance.

PMI is the only real downfall, plus the requirement to live in the house for 1 year, I believe, maybe 2. You will probably have to live in the house for 2 years before buying another house anyway because if you try to buy another house under 2 years, you are seen as an investor and need to put up at least 25% for the next house you buy. Once the 2 years pass, you can then buy another house as an FHA and start the process all over again. Happy hunting my friend, feel free to message me.

Hey @Debu Sinha!

Vanguard VTI? Doing well the past 2 years if you are, I invest in Betterment, which picks from vanguard and blackrock. Kudos to you if you re-allocate yourself. 

Jersey City is expensive, but nothing good is easy. It's 20% cash typically, but I went through an FHA loan. Search the site on here about FHA loans, sorry but no one is going to spoon feed you info. I put down 5%, so 15k plus another roughly 8k for closing costs (closing costs are roughly 2-3% of the total). My repairs will realistically end up costing me 30k+, not to mention the cash to pay monthly mortgage, insurance, tax.

I'm borrowing some cash via friends/family for the renovations, but you may also look into an FHA 203b.

As a noob, I advise first learning to help yourself and taking action. Majority of the new people come to this site looking for hand outs or a mentor to show them everything and when no one does they get dissuaded. Chris Rock the comedian said it best:

"I used to have horrible cars, because I never had money, so I'd always end up broken down on the highway. When I stood there trying to flag someone down, nobody stopped. But when I pushed my own car, other drivers would get out and push with me. If you want help, help yourself—people like to see that. "

@Matt R.Thank you so much for the tip. I have enough problems with this house already that I think it will serve as good training/experience. Asbestos? check. black mold? check. pipe burst? now check. 

2/22/16 Update

After meeting with multiple contractors and electricians, I decided on the one that goes to my parent's church. Mothers do know best I guess. Before the contractor was going to do the demolition a pipe burst.. The timing was impeccable, took pictures, called insurance, had them demo and fix the pipe. Ceilings look great, installed LED lights, such an up and down ride. Googled a lot of about how to prevent pipe bursts. Heat tape is one option, styrofoam another, blow-in insulation another. Problem with Jersey City is permits take forever with these high rises; what normally should take 2 weeks takes 2+ months. Problem with pipes bursting is the same, if your pipes burst others may have had the same situation, hence it took 6 days for the claims adjuster to get to my house. 

Good news is this has been a good learning experience, but ALSO my last company heard about me having bought the house and I have tenants who are ready and trusted before the place is even finished. Taking in the good with the bad :). Yes i am a guy who just placed an emoji.