All Forum Posts by: Josh Lovvorn

Ensley and East Lake are areas I don't know well. I grew up in Hoover, and in medical school I lived in the Crestwood area downtown and I was drawn to that area if I decide to invest there.  My parents are still in the area and my brother in law is a contractor, so it's an attractive area to invest once I get together some finances. 

I'm a pediatrician and we have been inundated with requests for "emotional support" animals.  Our group has made a policy that we will not write for these and defer to a therapist or psychiatrist.  If they don't have one of those, we give them a list of those providers.  

This is a loophole that people are using to keep pets that they know are not allowed in their lease agreements.  Docs are sometimes just signing them rather than bothering to refuse and deal with an angry patient/family.  From my experience in my community, landlords can still refuse if it is an aggressive breed.  One of my patients tried to get me to sign for a pit bull; I refused, but her endocrinologist signed for it.  Local laws however allow for a landlord to object to an aggressive breed unless they have been specifically trained and certified, so this person was legally evicted.  

Yeah, it sounds like your cash flow is nice. Eugene has high property taxes, so I'm going from cash neg to barely positive.  It sounds like a great situation overall. Congrats to you!

@Maurice Smith

I'm currently refinancing my single family in Eugene, OR.  It is held privately by my wife's uncle and we pay the mortgage through a trust.  Local lenders offered cash out refi to a 30 year at 4.5% with about 10k in closing costs; this is on a credit score of 688 and had to option to buy points down to 4.125%.  The uncle was actually able to make better terms, so we are going with his offer, but the mortgage company definitely had very good rates.  

Hi Robert.  have you had any success so far?  I'm looking to start buying in the next year or so in the area as well.  

I agree with others, this seems like paying a lot for not a lot.  Do you plan to own it greater than 10 year? If so, maybe worth it, but still seems a lot.  I would shop and make sure they are the best offer you can get.  If another lender can get you significantly lower closing costs, I might go there. 

We left our W/D in our rental because we were buying a newer large capacity W/D for our growing family.  It is in our rental agreement that if it requires replacement, they are responsible to buy their own.  We have had to maintenance it once, but we were able to do it ourselves, so it was not a huge deal.  This is a A type property, so our tenants are pretty responsible.  I think if I had a lower income type neighborhood, I would not provide W/D. 

Thanks Patrick, I'll keep you on my radar. 

Cat, at least for me, I want to refinance so that my property goes from cash negative to cash positive.  Currently on a 15 year, I am losing quite a bit of money per month.  It's not even paying the mortgage.  On a 30 year, I will be doing 100 per month at current rent, and will improve when I increase the rent.  I might be wrong in doing this because, as you say, I'm not improving equity that much, but in my current situation, cash flow is more important to me than the equity.  In addition to 5 years of paying on a 15 year, we have put a lot of upgrades on this property and there has been very nice natural appreciation on it.  Maybe that's the wrong long term play, but It helps our situation. 

Hi James.  Thanks for the link.  I definitely know the neighborhoods you listed and will keep it on my bookmarks.  

Thanks for the invitation Zul.  When we start looking at picking up another property I will keep you posted. 

Hi Lauren!  Nice to hear from you.  I hope all is well with your family.  I'd definitely be interested in hearing how y'all decided to invest out of state.  It does seem hard to get some good cash flow in this environment as Nigel has said.  I can get some very good properties in Little Rock or Alabama for a 1/4 of the price as here.