All Forum Posts by: James Robert

Hey guys 

I am a realtor for about a year now, I got my first house 8 months ago which I am slowly rehabbing. I saw a condo i wanted, tried to get approved and I cant until i hit the 2 year mark and my income is not enough to make underwriters pass me for one year even if i wanted to put 20% down. Am I going about this all wrong? I want to heavily invest in real estate, however my income varies. Should I put buying properties on the back burner until I find a way to start making more traditional income? I feel as though I am fighting an uphill battle here without making good money at my job... I do good but doesn't seem to be enough for what I want to do in real estate.

Advice?..

Thanks

Quote from @Dan Porter:

Quote from @James Robert:

Quote from @Dan Porter:

It depends , if you have enough capital for multiple a year then as long as you can keep up with the maintenance and vacancies. But investing in one would be a great start! You can do 3.5% down with an FHA loan and live in it for two years to avoid capital gains. And then you can always re-adjust the plan as you go

Definitely. I'm a realtor and I get 2 free personal deals a year where I take a full commision I can roll into a downpayment a year. So FHA I'm only paying .5% to acquire the house. So I could buy 1-2 a year but that's a lot of moving. I was gonna do one house a year and buy something turn key - I don't like doing the work while living in it. Is this a good strategy? I feel like one house a year is not enough

 I think buying one would be a terrific start. After you see how much work it is you can go from there depending on finances. I think as long as your getting some skin in the game you are ahead

Agreed. I own my first house now which I bought 7 months ago. I have enough money right now to get a new one and move into it. I just might wait a little longer to see what the market does when my 12 month mark hits then I can decide to sell this one or keep it 

Quote from @Dan Porter:

It depends , if you have enough capital for multiple a year then as long as you can keep up with the maintenance and vacancies. But investing in one would be a great start! You can do 3.5% down with an FHA loan and live in it for two years to avoid capital gains. And then you can always re-adjust the plan as you go

Definitely. I'm a realtor and I get 2 free personal deals a year where I take a full commision I can roll into a downpayment a year. So FHA I'm only paying .5% to acquire the house. So I could buy 1-2 a year but that's a lot of moving. I was gonna do one house a year and buy something turn key - I don't like doing the work while living in it. Is this a good strategy? I feel like one house a year is not enough

Alright guys - tell me, is this a good path? Or should I try to fast track it. Should I just try to acquire a property once a year (rent the old live in the new) and keep doing that for next 10 years and so on or should I try to buy multiple a year? I don’t see how I could even buy more properties than 1 a year because I’d have to put 20% down. That’s alot of money 

Quote from @Caleb Brown:

I'd hold it. Rent it out. Verify rent from a PM. Find another house hack and do the same thing. Do that 2-3 times and you'll have a great start. Then you could go more creative on the financing. You could also do a HELOC with the equity you have

That is a good idea. When you mentioned heloc, what would i use that for? I really wouldn't need that to acquire my next house if I am doing a conventional primary loan 

Quote from @Caleb Brown:

I'd hold it. Rent it out. Verify rent from a PM. Find another house hack and do the same thing. Do that 2-3 times and you'll have a great start. Then you could go more creative on the financing. You could also do a HELOC with the equity you have

 Do you think I should move houses to a new primary and rent this or maybe sell it, OR use a heloc to buy something with 20% down that I wouldn't have to live in and start Air bnb;ing it right away?

Quote from @Scott E.:

You've got about $44,000 in equity and you're cash flowing around $400 per month (I'm assuming some repairs/maintenance/vacancy).

This means you're getting a return of over 10% on your money right now by hanging onto this property and renting it out.

As the other posters have said, probably best to hold this one as a rental unless you think you can do better than 10% with another property.

I agree it would be nice to hold, however with the house being so old I may run into problems later than require a lot of funds to fix. So the profits on the mortgage sound great but I have to think about the money I have to put in. Not sure what to do.. 

Quote from @Jeff Lang:

For how you've laid this out, it's sounds like a home run for a house hack. If you want and are able to get a person to come rent a bedroom now, you could decrease the mortgage payment you have right now which would allow you to save up more money for a down payment on the next house. If you haven't read the House Hack book, I suggest you do that. 

https://store.biggerpockets.co...

 My girlfriend pays half the mortgage on this house so I only pay 550. I could buy a new house right now and roll a full 3% commission into the downpayment so I would only be putting 2% of my own money down. Bonus if i can get seller to pay closing costs. 

I have 20k saved. It would not take much to acquire a new house on a conventional loan thats why it is very tempting 

I can sell them for free minus paying the buyer agent 3% *****

Hey guys - looking for some advice on how to invest my current cash.

I am a Realtor in Cincinnati so I can purchase homes and take commissions on them for free minus paying the buyers agent, please keep this in mind when reading. I have 20k in savings, I own a house which I paid 186k for, I have done numerous updates and I could probably sell for 240. I bought this house 7 months ago. I don’t really want to rent it because it’s very old and a little sloped as most houses 115 years old are. I don’t know how much worse the sloping will get over time so I’d rather offload it sooner than later. However, it would rent for 1900 and my mortgage is 1100. Should I keep stacking cash, wait until my 1 year mark on this house, sell it and buy a new primary? What strategy would you do given my situation wanting to be a RE investor. (I really wanna do air bnb too)

Let me know! Thanks!