All Forum Posts by: Huiya Xiao

Khaled, there's this CAZA Reston STR meetup next week that seems to fit what you're looking for.

https://www.meetup.com/grid-caza-reston/events/290176796/

Hi Kyle, nice long posting you shared. I'm many years your senior, and so maybe this is more like what I wish I had done when in your situation.

I have one investment property now, which had been my primary residence when I bought my current house. That was inspired by the book the Automatic Millionaire Homeowner by David Bach, and probably one of the few smart decisions I've made with RE investing.

I also like to recommend a book to you here, The Richest Man in Babylon. It tells you that "a part of all you earn is yours to keep, and what you save must earn, and its children must earn". For me, I wish I were more persistent with my RE investing and taking more actions.

I like many BP podcasts, and will recommend episode 223 with guest Scott Trench (if you haven't seen it). The book Set For Life by Scott probably would be very helpful in your situation, particularly with his idea of building out this financial runway.

Best luck to your RE investing journey!

@Yong Jin Lee - My wife and I both work full-time and don't qualify for real estate professional. So we can't deduct real estate losses on our regular income.

Yongjin, we were in your situation a few years ago. We rented out our primary residence then (also a townhouse) and purchased a SFH.

Real estate is quite expensive in Fairfax county. With RTP around 0.5%, the rental property barely cashflows. On the other hand, the properties here appreciate well. We could use some more appreciation vs. cashflow debate. In retrospect, we're definitely glad that we kept our townhouse as a rental instead of selling it. I think it's one of the easiest ways to get into RE investing, other than house hacking.

We also used HELOC on the townhouse as part of the down payment for the SFH. It took us a long time to pay it down, but at least you know it's an option.

@Brandon Wagner - Sound strategy. Thanks for the input!

@Cassidy Burns sorry I guess I missed your post. I like the 5-property goal you suggested, and I'd like to work towards that. Thanks!

Maria, we were in your position a few years ago, renting out the townhouse we had lived in and buying a SFH. We opened a $50k HELOC on the townhouse, and used that and some other savings for the 10% down payment of the SFH. We mortgaged 90% of the SFH, with 1st mortage of 80% and 2nd of 10% (with a little higher interest rate). After a while when we had more equity in our house, we refinanced our mortage with just one loan and better rate.

I think a lof of HELOCs have interest only payment for the 1st 10 years. The rate of HELOC is typically tied to primate rate and can fluctuate. Ideally you want to be able to pay it off in a few years. It took us a long time to pay off our balance, but the interest rate was lower then.

There're lots of postings here regarding the difference between HELOC and HELoan. Hope you'll find a strategy that works best for you!

Welcome to BP! There's no short of educational resources here. If you're interested in a particular topic like multifamily, you can add an alert with that (from Settings). Then if there's any new posting with the keyword, you'll get a notification (Notifications icon is next to the Account at the top). Sometimes I also do a Google search for a specific topic, setting BP as the site. I started to listen to BP podcast several years ago, and just picked it up again recently. To me watching the podcast episodes on YourTube and seeing the faces of the hosts and guests makes me more engaged and motivated. See if you have a favorite host on the podcast, and I think most of them have written books that are available in the store. Best luck with your journey!

Lots of sound advice already provided. I'll just plug in a great strategy that I read (regretfully didn't really do myself). That's from the great book lots of investors recommended, including David Greene (BP Podcoast# 169), The Richest Man in Babylon. The strategy is putting 10% of your income to pay down the debt, and saving 10% of your income to invest. With this simple framework, I think you'll be able to work towards your goals step by step. I second @Jake Andronico that you're asking important questions just fresh out of college, and best luck with your journey!

 Thanks for the advice! My primary goal is rental properties and I should probably learn more about syndications down the road.