All Forum Posts by: Jared Wonders

This is a great question/point and appreciate you bringing this up @Maranda Tucker! When my wife and I started REI we had very little to our name as far as assets go but had been saving at a VERY high rate for a year or two prior to getting into investing. We were in a position to have very solid incomes, yes, but the fact that we had a good financial foundation combined with a very high savings rate helped us overcome our first investment "miss". Having a good reserve (sunk) fund in place will help you avoid a lot of headaches when you get started.

@Brandon Shaffer

Just wanted to offer input as well and it's great to hear fellow success stories with use of this mechanism. My wife and I have used the HELOC twice now. Once to find a purchase in cash for 3 units with a partner and another for a STR purchase. We haven't looked back and the return has obviously been vastly superior to the dead equity we had in our primary. We plan on paying down the HELOC and if future opportunities arise utilizing it again if need be. Good luck!

Jared Wonders

@Jamie Fankhauser

Good afternoon and welcome to the BP community!

Good luck getting started in the Charlotte area. I echo a LOT of the comments here regarding house hacking. My wife and I talk all the time about what we would do different had we jumped into real estate prior to purchasing a primary residence and we come back to house hacking pretty much every time as a way we could have accelerated our wealth faster (especially as we were living like college students in our first few years in Charlotte anyway).

People have offered very good book recommendations and I would recommend delving into FI (financial independence) if you haven’t yet. BP money or Choose FI podcasts offer pretty good discussions in regards to this topic.

In reference to the Charlotte market it is a very strong housing market right now. Multi-family are a little harder to come by, however, I think it would be very easy to house hack on a rent per room basis. Very doable if you don't have an HOA or have one that will allow this. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions and good luck in getting your journey started!

Hey @Michael Qubein,


Good luck in your search! Feel free to PM me for recommendations on who to steer clear from.

Jared Wonders

@Dave Poeppelmeier

Congrats Dave! Truly inspiring story! I grew up very close to the Toledo/Maumee area and my wife graduated from UT so very awesome to hear stories of relatively local success. My brother still lives around the Toledo area so I’m doing my best to get him to start his real estate journey! Best of luck going forward and excited to hear about your future successes!

Jared Wonders

@Christina Zimmerman

I agree with @Charles Carillo post above. We have also rented to tenants with lower credit scores and but well exceeded our income requirements on the income side. They have *knock on wood* been incredible tenants for over a year and a half now and are about 6 months into a two year lease. If your credit check allows you may be able to see the reason for the bad credit. Sometimes it could just be a medical debt that they slipped their minds or something. I would also agree that I would definitely stick to the income requirement criteria as you really don’t want to get stuck with a tenant that simply won’t pay and is unable to be evicted in COVID times. Good luck in your search!

Jared Wonders

@Ben Scarborough

I would definitely agree with the above posts in saying that house hacking would probably be the best option starting out. My wife and I’s biggest expense by far is our primary mortgage, however, we didn’t overextend ourselves as much as the average person and still have quite a bit of money to set aside every month for investing.

House hacking allows you to decrease your expenses as well as give you experience AND potentially increase your income depending on how the numbers work. If you aren't wanting to go that route what we did is we started investing in simpler SFH (one story, <1500 sq ft, brick exterior, crawl space) because there isn't as much to these properties and if there are issues they can be easily accessed under the crawlspace.

For financial literacy I would highly recommend looking into some books pertaining to financial independence (I.e. “Retire Before Mom and Dad”, “Your Money or Your Life”). If you are into podcasts check out Choose FI or the BP Money podcast is also a good one. Good luck in your journey and feel free to reach out!

Jared Wonders

@Eugene Rabinovich

Unless the numbers really work I would highly recommend really understanding how the property taxes and millage rates work in the particular county before you invest and also factoring in the increase in property taxes for non-owner occupants (6% vs. 4%). This doesn’t seem like much but in the grand scheme of things makes a big difference. My wife and I just exited a property in Lake Wylie because the millage rates for York County were SIGNIFICANTLY higher for non-owner occupants along with the added tax above. Definitely run your numbers very carefully before investing in a property in SC in and around Charlotte. Hope this helps and the York County Tax Assessors website actually have some pretty good examples on how to calculate millage rates as it pertains to non-owner occupants. Good luck!

@Jeremiah Fennell

My wife and I are still investing in Charlotte! Definitely still good cash flowing properties to be found around here.

Hey @Austin Culp!

Congrats on getting started and good luck as you begin your journey. My wife and I currently own four units in the Indian Trail/Matthews area but are always looking to meet up with investors around the area. Feel free to send me a PM.