All Forum Posts by: James Steele

To add to the above, I guess it might depend on how you prefer your expenses in the property.  With an AHS warranty, for the most part you'll have a steady premium, then the occasional extra $75-$100 service call fee to fix issues (except the above A/C example), instead of the potential unexpected replacement of appliances which can cost more in a given month/year, but over the course of several years will likely work out cheaper.

I've read through their contract, @Jonathan G. is spot on about the freon.  They only cover $10/lb for freon.  This house I've had serviced three times in the last 5 years (and it needs it again), and freon (R22) is going up each year, I think $35/lb was the best price I was able to find last year, and it just keeps going up.  It's possible that, since you can't shop around for your own under AHS, that they'll send someone out charging $50+/lb, leaving you with a majority of the bill.  Unless you have high end appliances, chances are you will definitely spend more on service call fees and premiums than replacing appliances when they near the end of their lifetime, and come close to the cost of a new A/C system in fees, premiums, and freon before they'd replace it instead of repairing (especially considering, at $100 per service call and only $10/lb off freon, I can find HVAC contractors to come out and top off freon for less on my own, in Florida).

If you're able to, one of the popular things to do, especially if you're looking for a place to stay as well, is looking into an FHA 3.5% down loan on a 2-4 unit MFH, stay in one of the units for a year while renting out the rest, then after a year you can move out and rent the unit you were staying in.

I would think it might depend on your goals for the house. If you're wanting to sell it when you move, or use it for equity leverage later, the first choice sounds better. If you want to rent it out, the ROI seems to be slightly better with the second one, even counting the HOA fees. If the taxes and insurance are cheaper as well, that's another point in its favor, assuming the HOA fees don't go up substantially. Not to mention keeping the extra $59k more liquid.

Take my opinion with a grain of salt, I'm inexperienced, and what seems to make sense on the surface, may not in the long run.

I've been looking seriously at getting into investing, primarily fix & flip, and a thought occurred to me just a bit ago.

I'm working on my graduate degree with a minor in project management.  Will the time I put into the fix & flip projects be relevant experience to count towards the 4500 hours required to test for my PMP (assuming I'm not using a GC)?

(probably could have worded it better)

I'm interested to hear this as well.  I'd eventually like some rental properties, but I'd like to start with fix and flip to hopefully build a bigger cash base to work with before considering rental properties.