All Forum Posts by: Jarret Durst

 Hey Devin, going great man! Like David said, I also don't get on here to check my notifications very much. I am swamped right now with my rental renovations & furnishings I am finishing up plus I typically work late, so I haven't been able to make it much lately. Either way, it is a great group of guys and you should come to one of the meetups if you can make it. 

So I’m under contract right now and I know I need to get an insurance agent to help me find the right insurance policies for my situation. 

I know it’s not good to use people like nationwide or state farm because it limits my options. 

Basically, how do I go about finding a good insurance agent? Only thing I can think of is yelp, but that is only useful for my location. 

 Idc about comfort too much so the roommate option doesn’t really bother me.

Well, I walked it today and I'm thinking the best route would be to live in the 3 BR first and get it fixed up. Then work on the ADU because it need A LOT more work than the house.

So, I think I finally found my first property & househack. I’ll be going back to school for a couple years to move up in my current work place. This property is just down the road from the college and only 30 minutes from my place of employment. So, I thought this would be a great househack opportunity.

The property is a 3 Br 2 Ba with an ADU above the garage. The strategy is to obviously live in one unit and then rent out the the empty bedroom(s) of the unit I am staying in plus the 2nd unit.

My question is, would it be better to stay in the larger unit so I’ll have income from 2 bedrooms plus the other unit or live in the smaller unit while renting out 1 bedroom and the large unit? 

Kind of seems common sense to do the former, but I wanted to get y’all’s opinions in case I’m missing something.

 The big things were it was in a small town in a lackluster area. I could have made the house nice but it would have been on a hillside surrounded by crummy properties and burned down houses.

On top of that, I couldn’t run comps because none existed in the area. Property isn’t purchased in that area often I came to figure out. There was literally one house that was similar, but it was much nicer and on a better area.

I initially was going to rent it but after I got my estimates the numbers just didn’t work. I also didn’t know there was a minimum loan amount for renovation loans. 

 Fantastic points! Exactly what I learned. That it is vital to stay emotionally uninvested when looking at properties. I believe this is especially hard to do with your first property. You are new and excited to just get that first property. So much so that it can overwhelm you and cause lack of logical thought.

 I appreciate the support! I agree with what you said about family & friends. They do things that has all the good intentions but don’t understand how it can upset our morale. It’s a hard lesson I’ve had to learn over the years and I do my best to not take it personal and get mad at them.

 I am a new investor and I am going to make mistakes. I also wouldn't say the seller did nothing wrong. We agreed on a 20 day due diligence period and 10 days in they were trying to hurry me through and cut it short. They were even threatening to back out until my realtor convinced them not to. Plus, they did not have the water on for my inspector to check things and then refused to call and have it turned on because she was on vacation. This didn't allow me to do everything I needed to do to check out the property. The seller was extremely difficult to the point where my realtor, who was also representing her, was getting irritated with her. The whole thing just didn't sit right with me.

I just backed out of a deal that would have been my first property. I was coming up on the end of my negotiated due diligence period. Everything checked out. The inspection went well and I could tell that I found a good GC (general contractor). The property was practically mine, I just had to pay. So why did I decide to back out?


I started thinking hard about the property and I realized something. This was not going to be a logical buy but an emotional one. While readdressing the property I realized that I didn't have all the information I needed to run accurate numbers and the location was not great. I was doing this just because I crave so much to quit my 9-5 and live with financial freedom. On top of that, my parents keep telling me it's a bad idea to get into REI. So I also really want to prove them wrong. All this, and probably more, blinded me from the reality of the property, it wasn't a good deal. I was basically taking a shot in the dark because I couldn't be patient. It could have lead to my REI career failing before it ever started.

basically, my point is don’t let your emotions and ego blind you and keep you from seeing the truth about a property. Make sure you have all you need to run the numbers and get accurate information. Have a process and follow it. Don’t blindly purchase a property because you are impatient or wanting to prove people wrong. The right property will come.