All Forum Posts by: Jami Carnagey

@Sam Lin

Yes the points about the casino are exactly my thinking, and even a standalone seems to have negative consequences, never experienced it firsthand though. I figured the only areas to benefit in the real estate arena would be the Harbor or Alexandria. The Casino will hire locally for low and mid level employees but absolutely must import the talent at the high levels. Those folks absolutely will not accept PG county anything. Alexandria seems to be the best choice for school options and lifestyles and proximity. And that is exactly why I have been looking at Alexandria too. Alex is probably too high for us to get into though. We have great credit (800+) but everything about Alex is super expensive including property taxes.

Primary strategy is wealth generation. In any form. We have some money but don't like the idea of it sitting in the bank losing value to inflation and only earning $84 per year. Our initial thoughts are cash flow. We don't need it so we were thinking of buying one or 2 properties with large down payments and cycling the extra back into the principle. We also have extra money leftover from paychecks and bonuses so we could pay off 2 $250K properties in a couple years, or maybe 3.

@Sam Sharata

The other option is rehabbing. I have no experience here so I would prefer to partner with someone if I were to go that route. But since I am new I am prohibited by the BP TOS from asking for partners or such :). I did hear there is a meetup in Reston that just happened. Might have to check that out next month...

It just seems there is a lot of moving pieces to a rehab and with that many moving parts there is a lot of error that can happen. I don't know if it just me, but the properties I have seen in PG county are so poorly maintained that they require very extensive rehab costs. Thanks for mentioning the Education link, I had forgotten that. 

@Russell BrazilThank you. Intuitively that seemed correct on the house price vs rent you could get out of it. Thanks for clarifying. I will take a look at the areas you mentioned.

Our original plan was to do the crowdfunding thing (Fundrise and POL were the two I wanted to work with and opened the accounts) for a few years to build up a bigger pot. But fortunately for us there is only one state that completely prohibits cowdfunding real estate and it is MD. We are so lucky they have our best interests in mind. :/ The only option there is to incorporate in another state and run the investments through the Corp. 

Thanks for the replies! @Sam LinI agree with you on the Casino moving in. Typically research done on casinos are places like Reno, Las Vegas, or Atlantic City, ENTIRE Cities, all with high crime rates.  I honestly wonder if a standalone like the MGM has the same effect though. No one has effectively researched that yet.

Yes I will need  a contractor to do the rehab work (If I go the fix/flip route). 

I'm really probably more interested in the buy/hold route since flipping really seems to involve a  lot of work to make sure construction happens on time and budget. (No I don't have a contractor already) Time is what I do not have, I work full time, have 4 kids and a side business. I suspect house flips may be beyond what I can realistically do in 24 hours, nevermind the learning curve. I would like some thoughts on that.

I have owned a rental property before so I do at least have an idea of that. Does anyone rent out houses around Fort Washington? What are the class of renters here. Sorry it is just weird to me, folks with our income typically spend  $600K + on a house and we live in a foreclosure that cost $180K, so I have a warped sense of what people spend on houses. I simply cannot imagine spending 2500/mo on a house I don't own, but houses in my area seem to go for about $2k + per month ( according to Trulia and Zillow). I guess My question is whether it would be wise to buy a $350-400K house in a really nice area with newer homes and rent that out. Could I get quality people to rent something like that. I mean we are talking a pretty sizeable monthly rent check Probably $3k +

Or would it be better to take my money across the River to Alexandria?There is very little I could afford right around Alexandria though, Maybe one of those tiny little 800Sq ft houses near Belle Haven for 600K...Lol

Hi guys and gals, 

My wife and I have accumulated ~$160K over the last two years. All liquid but half ($80K) is in Stocks and ETF's right now so not crazy about pulling it out with the market down so much. We are looking to real estate to increase our overall returns and add to our portfolio. I have rooted around on this site quite a bit and rolled around with the real estate thing for a while but I realize what I need is actual experience. 

My initial thoughts are that I am open to rehabbing properties and rentals. I live in Fort Washington MD, and have been looking at my local area for potential. New $2B casino going in right now, National Harbor is 2 miles away. And there is talk of adding a Tech corridor a couple miles away. The area is older(70's era), depressed, and has lots of foreclosures still. Home prices under $300K abound but most are poorly maintained. Super close to DC and Alexandria VA. Where I live has potential I think but I am not committed to one area although my money will go further here vs DC or VA.

Anyone working in PG county or Fort Washington MD more specifically? Any thoughts on the area? I am very wary of it since most houses are so poorly maintained, lots of delinquencies and horrible schools.  But a 2 miles south, house prices go up and houses are much nicer, especially along the river ($500K -1.2M).

Brief Bio: My wife and I are college educated and working full time in Professional careers. I am an economist and data analyst, she is a CFO for a government contractor. I also have a small welding and machine shop (building custom metal furniture for kurtzandatkins.com). I also did most of the work on the foreclosure we bought 6 years ago. We have 4 kids and are looking for a way to get out of the rat race, run our own business and home school our kids.

 Thanks for any advice.