All Forum Posts by: Joseph Gary

@Joe 

@Joe Archbold what's too much coffee? Not enough coffee you mean! I really appreciate your advice as well. House hacking is the way so having a peace of mind and make it doable for myself is probably the best way. the money I would put into the backyard I probably should save that and put that in the basement and make it look nice for myself cause that might be my new home tbh. 

@Jeffrey K. I like your thinking! Yeah long term and focusing on optimizing cash flow will be it for me. I am going to really look into making the basement a livable space to really increase my income. I definitely think its doable, but I probably just need to shop around for an inexpensive/reliable contractor. Thank you for your advice. It really means a lot!

@Account Closed that is a great point. I totally forgot about Fort Meade and I definitely can get a military family in this house. I mean anyone with no kids is fine with me. Thanks for the tip! I appreciate it!

@Kimberly Marshall Thank you for that rentometer advice. Definitely using this tool!

@Kimberly Marshall

Yes. My plan is to house hack, in which I think is doable. There are people who are renting in my community and apparently there's a daycare diagonal from me lol. The ARV after I fix it up $335K. So far I swapped out the appliances, re-did the floors, painted over the cabinets, added quartz countertop(was very cheap since its a small kitchen), added recessed lighting in the living room, painted the entire first floor, added a ceiling light for over the steps up to the second floor, and that's pretty much it for now. I've spent approximately $11K so far. So I have $6K left to spend on master bedroom, paint the entire second floor and I honestly think I am not going to touch the basement because that's just way too much money. I was thinking making the backyard look decent for turf and a patio area for grilling. A lot of the work I've been doing myself. I'm an interior designer/somewhat handy with paint and my full time job is an Electrical Engineer so I am knowledgable in electrical construction as well.

@Kimberly Marshall - Buy and hold. Would like to generate some sort of residual income. 

@Ozzy Sirimsi I was thinking about renting $900 for bedrooms 1 & 2 upstairs. The master bedroom I was thinking it should go for $1000 and if I decide to re-do the basement and turn it into a studio (which will probably cost me somewhere around $5000-$8000) I will let it go for $1100. So in total I would rent the entire home for $3900 a month. To me I honestly think that is outrageous, but I guess my question is...Is this doable? My expectations is to buy and hold. I want to always have residual income.

@Kimberly Marshall Buy and hold. Fix it up and rent out the rooms to have residual Income is my goal.

So I bought my first property in laurel, md for $315k. It is a 1306sq ft. 3bd 2.5bath townhome. It was $310k I had to go $5k above the listing due to the kind of market that I am in. After watching a few videos of Brandon Turner after I bought my home. Lol I realized that I did not get a deal. I just bought at the right time. I purchased in June 2021. I am planning on starting to rent out one of the rooms to help out paying my mortgage. I was thinking of doing it for 6months so I can get a feel for having a roommate. Last time was college, but hey I am older now and I would rather less bills as much as possible. My concerns/questions are as follows:

1. Should I fix up the small backyard? (Cut down the tree, flatten the ground, create one side turf and the other side concrete for patio/grilling purposes). 

2. The entire basement is old and I was told to turn the basement to a kitchenette, but I honestly think that is way too much money, but the space is really big and someone can literally live in my basement and go in and out of the house as they please without me seeing them. The only time I would come downstairs is to use the washer and dryer, but I still would not see them because there is a door closing off the room for their kitchenette/studio area. 

3. Rent out 2 separate rooms upstairs or just 1 room and keep the other room as one of the roommates entertainment/lounge area?

4. Should I re-do my master bathroom? It seems as though the other full bathroom in the hallway of the second floor was renovated, but they left the master bathroom work for me to do. 

Sorry for the long thread of questions, but I am a little unsure what to do and need some advice. I already got new floors, re-did the entire kitchen(painted kitchen cabinets, installed new quartz countertops, new backsplash, painted kitchen pantry doors, painted the entire first floor a nice color white, installed recessed lighting on the first floor).