All Forum Posts by: James Wilcox

Is anyone from Louisville KY at BPCon?

Hey all, I'm looking for a lender or private investor that could help my wife and I get things started. We have our 1st house hack in Northern KY and are ready to start looking at BRRR's and multi-family's. Hoping to find someone to work with that can help with the deposit, the property purchase and renovation costs. Thank you, Matt

Hello BP community!

I absolutely love reading and learning about realestate. Last, 2-3 years it’s the only thing I read. Every book and podcast has been checked off.

I am finally ready to dive into it, slowly…

I belive I am a buy and hold kinda girl and house hacking is where I will begin.

I’ve went backwards than most I am 45 but now my kids are grown therefore house hacking is do-able.

Honestly I could house hack forever, but I have a boyfriend of 10 years.

Eventually it will be time to make a move together….

Thoughts on my ideas please and thank you SO much!

I would love to start with a fourplex, but I feel that is out of reach for me.

We are considering: (my guy and I)

Each of us buying a duplex. That is owner occupied starting 2025.

I will test (if approved) STR or MTR…on the other unit, but also Besure it works for LTR.

We both have good credit, DTI is way low, great jobs, and money saved to start this process.

Here in Lexington KY I feel it’s hard to find duplex in a decent area unless it’s over $500k.

We each prefer under $300k for a duplex. We prefer 2bedroom 1.5 bath.

We also want to invest here in KY.

A few perks about my guy, he works for a builder, investor. He is Property Manager. We will pick his bosses brain eventually.

I plan to start my process January 2025 on my duplex. My guy will start closer to May 2025 on his.

I should mention my guy owns a primary home already as an inheritance that at this time we have no plans to touch. It’s in a GREAT area and in the future we do have plans for that, but we have an elder family member living there. I would assume we would need to change that to a rental before he starts his duplex process??

That home has $45k balance. At this time we aren’t pulling funds from that home. But we do have that option in year 3 and after.

Other than that we have no debt.

So, any upgrades to our duplexes will be from our cash.

This is our plans for year one and two.

Year one I get a duplex, then again year two. My guy will be doing the same.

Year 3 we plan to make the move together and build (my guy works for a builder so huge discount there)

After year 3 and we are settled and married and living in our home and we would have our duplexes we would love to continue into flipping, or BRRRR maybe one per year…. I would love to find a storage facility for sale one day or even one cabin in TN, but that's later goals. For now it's duplexes and our home. Year 1-3.

We have 4 kids all older between the two of us.

Our ultimate goal is retirement and generational wealth.

Each kid will inherit one duplex and we want to teach them as much as possible.

Does this sound like a good plan,

Or am I missing anything?

Buy and hold, and have some cash flow eventually (enough cash flow to continue this journey year 1-2) but definitely appreciation.

If we can't find duplex is it a bad idea to consider SFH with basement? We would each flip our basements and STR or MTR 1st floor and we would live in our basements of the SFH.

By year 3 we hope to each own 2 duplexes.

I would prefer single family homes I may be wrong but does single family appreciate better than duplexes? But, I also think what if STR or MTR goes good.

I don’t see a family allowing that in their basement. So for now I feel a duplex is best for our goals.

The home with the $45k balance might be our forever home once flipped the way we want it in year 3, but for now it’s occupied by a family member and we don’t want to change that…..

We want to use our cash now for these duplexes and save that for our home in year 3. Then after settled move into other projects each year to pay down debt.

also, from FHA one to two on our duplex we would need to refinance out of that loan, correct? Or I guess the 2nd loan would be conventional? We would like our home year three to be FHA as well.

Hey BP Community! I remember listening to a podcast episode of someone who would rent their LTRs to a non-profit at market value so they could use the housing for people in need. Does anyone remember the guest and podcast I'm talking about? I want to say he was from Louisville, KY but no amount of searching is helping me...

Yeah, that makes sense. No idea why they would state they're $200 under comps and not doing it themselves so maybe I'll see if I can get that $100K and send you 25% for the lead. Win, Win, Win. My initial infant level of knowledge would tell me it's a combination of being poorly managed (I calculated they're spending nearly 65% on expenses to only have $305K NOI on 95% occupancy at $875/m, if that's even the average rent/unit currently occupied). I had read 50% is a fair number to use for calculations which would raise the NOI by, drumroll...15%, but this is purely speculative) and perhaps the funds or energy to go through an upgrade if they're looking to get out of it anyway. Sell as is type of thing. This is in Lexington KY which AI says have grown 5.1% YOY but the latest data I saw for this particular zip code is a year old and says it's the lowest in Lex with a median of $900/m so +5% only gets us to $945. Look at me, figuring this out as I go in real-time!

I've since learned that the DSCR maxes at 10 units but even those are rare so just take that out of any equation. I'm still not 100% what the advantages to that are anyways, even on a 2-4 units but I still have a lot to learn.

So what percentage would you tack on to your fund raising to cover taxes, insurance, and upgrades? Is that just case by case or is there a general rule of thumb for each property class? 

Hi Biggerpockets Community, glad that I created an account with biggerpockets. Aside from this any recommendation about groups that  should join or actively participate to maximize my reach? I am a CPA and a private money lender, Thank you!

I'm genuinely looking forward joining this investment community. My husband and I are now in a position to start acquiring some rental properties. We're looking in the Lexington/Richmond KY area. I've come to Bigger Pockets to learn some tips, tricks, and hints about real estate investment and to connect with folks who have similar goals. 

We're so excited to be hosting all of you at BPCON2024 in Cancun this Oct 6-8th! The best part of the BP community is that the fun doesn't start or end with BPCON with options to connect and learn year round - so let's start before we get to BPCON with a round of introductions. I'd love to learn about the following from all of you coming to BPCON

😁 Your Name
🧠 What would you consider your area of expertise - real estate related or not!
🙌 What are you most looking to get out of BPCON 2024
🤝 Fill in the blank: If I could make a great connection with someone who is an expert in _________ at BPCON2024 then I would leave BPCON happy
🗓️ What session are you most looking forward to? Reminder: here's the event schedule

Ha! Chasing the distressed landlord overseas!  I am debating selling one but it is Owen county @James Wilcox

I can inquire with my tax team but wanted to hear from the experts here with any advice as well. I ended up getting a state tax refund this year from Kentucky.  

Been gone a long time from the forums, 

Hoping someone with tax expertise could help me here.  

My wife and I have 16 rental units in Kentucky and although we have an on the ground handyman we mange financial things remotely.  

We are living in Phuket Thailand currently and this year I utilized the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion to not pay taxes on the first 120k of income.  any income over that which is a combination of W2 and rental income is subject to taxes starting at zero.  so this eliminates taxes on the TOP end of income.  (if I made $200k I would be taxes on 80k after taking the standard deduction and child tax credits, etc.  no AMT or anything.  

Also, I have a 10 year visa for Thailand which excludes me from paying any taxes on income or wealth here in Thailand.  so no local taxes. 

The question is, my wife and I are both able to take the FEIE if we are both working.  My W2 income takes all my FEIE, can I have our rental property business expense her management at $100k?  this would have the rentals break even on my income, and her 100k of income would be untaxed under the FEIE.  

is this possible?  She and I jointly own about 10 units while the rest are under my name.  No leverage, not much in the way of repairs as they are all rehabbed with long term tenants.  Low cost basis so the depreciation is not high.