Skip to content
×
Pro Members Get
Full Access!
Get off the sidelines and take action in real estate investing with BiggerPockets Pro. Our comprehensive suite of tools and resources minimize mistakes, support informed decisions, and propel you to success.
Advanced networking features
Market and Deal Finder tools
Property analysis calculators
Landlord Command Center
ANNUAL Save 16%
$32.50 /mo
$390 billed annualy
MONTHLY
$39 /mo
billed monthly
7 day free trial. Cancel anytime
×
Try Pro Features for Free
Start your 7 day free trial. Pick markets, find deals, analyze and manage properties.
All Forum Categories
All Forum Categories
Followed Discussions
Followed Categories
Followed People
Followed Locations
Market News & Data
General Info
Real Estate Strategies
Landlording & Rental Properties
Real Estate Professionals
Financial, Tax, & Legal
Real Estate Classifieds
Reviews & Feedback

All Forum Posts by: Jeremiah Dunakin

Jeremiah Dunakin has started 7 posts and replied 175 times.

Post: Older houses (1890-1940)

Jeremiah DunakinPosted
  • Posts 185
  • Votes 188
Quote from @Scott E.:
Quote from @Jeremiah Dunakin:

I would steer clear as Patricia said. I live in a house that was made for n 1880. I just got a quote to help reinforce floors that was 2500$. The main beam in my basement still has bark on it. I see square nails. The framing to the house is all balloon framing. The house has settled over 150 years  and the rooms all have a nice slant to them. In order to get that slant out you would have to gut the entire two store house as the drywall would all crack, windows and doors would not work. Not to mentioned when I opened a wall up nothing is remotely to code as far as structural. All that said the house has made it for 150 years. But to improve it is challenging. I also lost track of how many different sub floors I have in kitchen under tile. The house has been “worked on” for 150 years of people. Most of which were poor farmers at the time just trying to get by. 


All fair points, but all items that would be discovered during a home inspection.

This is where I'm suggesting we shouldn't be saying "steer clear of historic homes" 

Better feedback would be "steer clear of homes that have foundation problems & structural issues"


In my case the foundation is good. However they do not inspect every beam, nor do they look at covered old sub floors. They don’t measure any sag in a 150 year old beam. The methods of construction then was no code and build with what you got. That stuff gets buried behind walls and and add ons. I am half way handy and have remodeled a couple houses. In one of my bedrooms I had two ceilings one that you saw and one underneath it a foot above that hid a whole bunch of stuff. Once I ripped it out and the wall i discovered there had been a fire. The top plates for the wall was so bowed and bent that it looks like the wood is smiling. That’s because they are scraps 1x4s. My point is the whole house is this way. No inspection could show that or would an inspection show my joist beam with shims on top of it that is buried beneath 3” of sub floors. 
I’m not saying not to buy an old house but just be prepared that things are hidden and that they didn’t use 2x4s as we know it nor was any code followed in 1880. It can be done but give me a 1950s ranch any day of the week.  A lot of these problems with floors and such will never arise until you tear things apart to really see it, or until you live there for a few months and noticed a spongy spot near where the dogs bed is in the corner. 

Post: Older houses (1890-1940)

Jeremiah DunakinPosted
  • Posts 185
  • Votes 188

I would steer clear as Patricia said. I live in a house that was made for n 1880. I just got a quote to help reinforce floors that was 2500$. The main beam in my basement still has bark on it. I see square nails. The framing to the house is all balloon framing. The house has settled over 150 years  and the rooms all have a nice slant to them. In order to get that slant out you would have to gut the entire two store house as the drywall would all crack, windows and doors would not work. Not to mentioned when I opened a wall up nothing is remotely to code as far as structural. All that said the house has made it for 150 years. But to improve it is challenging. I also lost track of how many different sub floors I have in kitchen under tile. The house has been “worked on” for 150 years of people. Most of which were poor farmers at the time just trying to get by. 

Quote from @Dominick Johnson:
Quote from @Jeremiah Dunakin:

Not sure if this is what you’re asking but here goes. I have used my retirement 401k to get a loan to get funds for my first rental property. I paid for 20% down payment and rehab cost with it. I am paying loan back over 5 years. At the end of that 5 years I will have at least 20% of principle paid off. I was fortunate as I took my loan and then the market crashed so I would have lost the money anyway. Now I pay back weekly out of my w2 check. I plan on having it paid off 3 years early. I also plan on taking out a second loan as my plan allows. I know most will say that taking funds out will hamper growth in the market. I agree. That said next spring when I pay off my loan I will put an extra 400$ in pocket from paying off loan early. Couple that with the cash flow from rental and I couldn’t be happier


Hi Jeremiah, I appreciate your response. This isn't quite what I was asking about, as you took a loan from your employer sponsored 401k. The topic is about solo 401k, which is a retirement plan that business owners can do for alternative investing that doesn't have to be stocks. Best of luck with your REI investing!


 Ahh ok well I’m curious now too. 

Not sure if this is what you’re asking but here goes. I have used my retirement 401k to get a loan to get funds for my first rental property. I paid for 20% down payment and rehab cost with it. I am paying loan back over 5 years. At the end of that 5 years I will have at least 20% of principle paid off. I was fortunate as I took my loan and then the market crashed so I would have lost the money anyway. Now I pay back weekly out of my w2 check. I plan on having it paid off 3 years early. I also plan on taking out a second loan as my plan allows. I know most will say that taking funds out will hamper growth in the market. I agree. That said next spring when I pay off my loan I will put an extra 400$ in pocket from paying off loan early. Couple that with the cash flow from rental and I couldn’t be happier

Quote from @Chris Seveney:

@Trevor Richardson

Amazon to northern Virginia was to bring up to 65,000 people to the area. 3.000 jobs is not a lot

There are a lot of other things that can have a greater impact

3000 jobs is a lot. It may not be 65000, however it will have an im pact on the local housing market.it looks like Reno has a steady growth of 1-2% a year. 

Dave is good for helping people develop a plan. Dave can help focus and guide a person in getting thier life straight. Dave has helped 100s of thousands of people. I don’t necessarily follow his investing but listening to him help me get motivated to get out of personal bad debt. I think that is amazing and the most beneficial thing a person can do to build wealth. It relives a lot of stress. Being debt free means not worrying about layoffs, a boss you don’t like, or in my case a union contract going south. 
That said I have took on debt to invest in real estate. However I took on debt that I could pay for the rest of my life even with no tenants. We all view things different but his advice is sound and if followed a person would be hard pressed to fail. A person can also take on leveraged debt and be successful as well. There is more risk but also much more reward. 

Quote from @Tabitha Bean:

@Marcus R. and @Jeremiah Dunakin

Thanks for your encouraging comments. I need those right now! My partner and I have both scraped up all our options, and the cash/borrowing power we have doesn't get us near the number we need. Initially, we thought we were looking at repairs to the unit. But upon the tenants vacating with 6 hours' notice, we quickly learned repairs had become a gut job instead.

I was hoping someone would mention an experience they had with Fund&Grow here because a foray into business credit seems to be our best option.

Again that you both for your encouragement and great suggestions.

You are welcome. Sometimes we don’t need kicked when we down. I love this forum, but to many times I see all the buzzwords get thrown out. I see people will criticize others when they already know they in trouble. I think they like to point out the obvious so as to throw shade at someone else. I will be perfectly honest on my first property I got in over my head a bit. Thankfully I work a job that I can work 16 hours a day seven days a week to out spend my mistakes. I have never heard of Fund and Grow. I will look into it. Let us know what you come up with. It sounds like there are a couple options to at least give a glimmer of hope. 

Sounds like you in a tough spot. You shouldve would’ve could’ve a million things. But you didn’t and that’s ok. Don’t beat yourself over it. Have you considered taking a loan on your retirement account assuming you have one? That has been a source to help me get started in investing. I took a loan on my 401k. Yes you might lose some gains, however it’s a source of non credit income. 

Quote from @Carlos Ptriawan:
Quote from @James Hamling:
Quote from @Carlos Ptriawan:
Quote from @Colleen F.:

@Account Closed @Jay Hinrichs   If you want to run the numbers from the census data where all these sites are getting the it: 
 

Should you subsidize downpayments because people can't afford to live in the town they grew up in?  Is it really house price vs wages or house price vs where people want to live?


 I have tons of idea how to solve the housing crisis, ready ? :-)

1. Create people to people lending with the spread thinner than bank. So lets say Fed Fund Rate is 5%, bank spread is 2.8% , now folks are able to lend to folks with 6% rate. This is similar to like HML but rather than to company make it between people and the spread is as thin as 1%. Also this is not similar when bank is buying other bank's MBS portfolio.

2. Create 5,000 unit apartment 600 sqft size, in every big city with ownership of one company. Lets say it's owned by Amazon. Then Amazon is reselling those apartment to FTHB for a flat base price of 300k for example, with the rate below Fed Rate, lets say 2.99%. They can live in the apartment as long as they're worker of Amazon.

3. Allow the development of large apartment complex just like in Hongkong, very tall building small space, deregulate the super-complicated requirement and permit process.

I know I know many folks would not like the idea LOL


In #1 your creating a security, or someone is creating that security. There is a cost associated with creating and managing said security. Who's eating that expense? 

In #2, we have a lot of data on that, it's call "The Projects". With density of low income, comes disproportionate increase in crime. I know, we all want to wear the rose colored glasses and say people will lock arms and sing along but they don't.    And in this day and age, people will cry out prejudice, that they are being "stuck" into this housing lessor than the nice neighborhoods, which yeah, it is, but for a reason, a financial consideration, but nobody ever looks at causality anymore or wants to own that accountability, they just want everything everyone else has there looking to reguardless of having earned it or not. 

Reality is, were on a bullet-train too socialism verging into communism, but, can't say that, I mean it's the facts but just can't use those words, they will have new words, but it will be the same. 


For #2 , it's basically moving the job of the gov to corporation, so in the futur it's corporation that suppose to do the socialism, not the goverment.

I don't see crime rising if the whole 5,000 unit apartment is all owned by Amazon employee. Amazon could have their own rules in managing those apartment. 

Amazon also, in relation to number #2, can work as lender in position #1 as well. So it's the same concept, the socialism act that supposed to be done by gov, we move it to Amazon. Why ? all business is being taken over by Amazon anyway, they make too much money, gov. doesn't make much money anymore even after taxes. 

To answer your question for #1, Amazon could act as lender/servicer and they would perform better than banks as they have the tools ready.

So lets Amazon/Apple/Microsoft/Google/Chevron fix  the damage that they created at first place LOL 

We need to disturb this system from its core, James.


Having corporations take on the role of housing is a recipe for disaster. Where I work there is a huge neighborhood named after the founder of my company. He tried this little experiment as well. He built houses for employees. He kept them close to work. I will tell you that you don’t come to this neighborhood unless you work here. It is dangerous. The company he built has had to have city police snipers on it more than once for crime in the houses he had built. We have fenced in parking lot. We watch from windows as the neighborhood destroys cars and breaks into vehicles steal vehicles start fires. It is a huge problem. There are times when you come into work in middle of night that security escorts you in. My company is good at making a product doesn’t mean they are good at running a housing authority. 

Whenever someone steps out and tries something people always think they can have a vocal opinion. If you change diet,exercise,real estate, sport,money, lifestyle there will be haters that know absolutely everything. When I started trying to invest in real estate I had a bunch of people telling me how to do it, where to do it, who to rent to, prices to pay. None of them have bought anything yet. I’ve been living by the words of 50 cent “if they hate let me hate and watch the money pile up” as someone else pointed out people will make fun of you then after a while they ask you how u do it. You got this don’t let the naysayers live rent free in your head