All Forum Posts by: Joseph Walsh

Hello BP community, 

My name is Jay Walsh, and I am still tentatively exploring REI here in the Milwaukee area. In my enthusiasm I already got involved in a thread, and realize, I haven't properly introduced myself:

I am a home owner, accidental landlord on my first home, which is under water, but not deterred.  I have learned what I am good at, what I am not, and a good amount about houses in general.  Due to having so many balls in the air right now, I'll be moving a little slower than many here, but I hope to listen and learn along the way, until I can start pulling the trigger.

Thanks, 

Jay

Another thing, in my situation, which I think will help, is switching to a property manager to remove the "hassle" part.  we'll "lose" even more per month, but that is countered by showing that by going in with an investment mentality, we won't actually lose money even by leveraging property management services.  Ultimately, shes ok with whatever I do, but I am not planning to just blaze ahead until I have her on board.

I have an even worse scenario.  We are accidental landlords, as we just had to move, and our old house was triple wammied  by circumstances and is under water (and can't be refinanced).  So, we have a renter (used to rent 2 doors over), and we loose a few hundred $ a month on the property.  If we could refinance it, we could possibly break even, maybe.  On top of that we have a good, long time renter, except for he has become unreliable on timely rent.  The neighborhood has become such that we're better off with him in, than kicking him out and hoping to get a better renter in.  Sigh, so, long story short.  our one "investment" property is a hassle for us to "only" lose $200 a month on....  

I have just been slowly working on her while I look for a really good deal.  I am also committed to staying to better neighborhoods for the first one/few if I can find them.   I am hoping when I finally get that first deal lined up, I'll have her, at least tentatively, on board.  We'll see.