All Forum Posts by: Jay Willems

@Dustin R. I'm active duty military and have also looked into the VA loan. I agree that the owner occupancy requirements may be a bit lacking in detail, but the VA site does specify the home needs to be the purchaser's primary residence. I would assume this means you must live there for at least one year (similar to other financing options) but the requirement could be even longer, or you may not ever be able to rent it out unless you refinance with someone else. Definitely worth clarifying before you decide on who to finance with in my opinion. For a home that will be a primary residence, the VA loan is hard to beat with zero down. In our experience there are still closing costs to pay, which will vary depending on location (~$5,000 in the Sacramento area for a ~$190,000 home).

@Nicole Pettis Thanks again for all the info! I didn't realize all the work would need to be handled by a general contractor. Definitely something to be aware of upfront.

@J Scott Thanks for your great response! I'm getting a lot out of the book but it did seem like a sort of "chicken or egg" first scenario. I understand the process a lot better now.

@Nicole Pettis Thank you for sharing your experience here! This is great for me to see in terms of step A to B to C. I have considered the possibility of pursuing a 203k to find a "fixer" and make some improvements to it. This would give me a lot of good practice for different kinds of repairs/maintenance, and may let us find a better deal too. I have heard mixed opinions as far as working with a 203k loan, but it sounds like your experience has been fairly positive.

@Attila Bertalan Welcome to the site! I'm also new and from the Sacramento area (Rocklin). Trying to absorb all the knowledge I can here. Like @Paul Timmins I also purchased J Scott's rehab books. I haven't read too far into either one yet but they seem like a great start and are helping me make sense of the many parts to real estate investing.

@Brandon Gillespie Welcome to the BP forums! I'm also a new member here, trying to learn as much as I can in my free time. Although I'm sure others with a huge amount of experience will chime in here, I'm pretty sure they will be asking you what type of real estate investing are you interested in beginning? Are you interested in flipping properties, buying and holding, or wholesaling?

I'm drawn to buy and hold properties for the longterm cash flow benefits, but I would also like to replace my job with rehabbing/flipping somewhere down the road. Like you, I'm also exploring the best ways to "break in" to either type of investing. There are a lot of great people on here with a lot of excellent advice and experience!

J Scott I just bought your house flipping book and I've just made it to the section on finding a good real estate agent. I'm getting a lot out of it so far. In going through the forums, there are a lot of threads that discuss techniques to use once you're rolling in REI, but do you have any articles on breaking into flipping/rehabbing for the first time? Luis A. posted a couple of the same questions I have. Essentially, how does somebody transition from renting an apartment earning an average salary, to buying their first investment property? Is the first step saving X amount ($25k) to put down on a loan from a portfolio lender? Or is it better to buy your own home first, then wait until you have enough equity to do a HELOC for an investment property? Everybody on here talks about hunting down the best deals, but your book addresses financing before anything else. Is a financing deal for a property typically like a standing offer, where you find a lender willing to lend up to X amount, so when you find the property you want (via MLS, auction, wholesaler) you just go back to the lender and say "Here's the one!" I'm trying to look at where I am, where I would like to be eventually, and then break down the difference into achievable steps. But I'm not sure what the best move to get everything moving would be.

J Martin My wife and I have looked primarily at using the VA loan to buy our first home. I've heard of a couple people even rolling closing costs into the loan, but the market in my area was so competitive last summer/fall our offers were never approved. I recently read somewhere that the VA loan doesn't allow you to rent the property out at all though. I need to confirm that still. If it does, we would likely go that route for our first home purchase, live there for a few years, then rent it out. There is also the USDA loan for rural areas and another income-restricted one whose name escapes me. A duplex seems a lot more economical to me but for my budget ($200k max) they're difficult to find in a place I would like to live. I have a family so there are several things to consider.

Wow- I'm surprised there are this many people who respond to an intro thread! I appreciate everyone's welcome and look forward to learning all I can here.

@Brandon Turner- the beginner's guide was the first thing I read when I found this site. I found it very simple to understand and a great starting point. I'll look into setting up some keywords so I can follow local activity.

@J. Martin - there certainly appears to be a theme of duplex/fourplex purchasing as a good first step in investing. I've been browsing listings yesterday and today and it seems like it may be difficult in my area to find a duplex that A) fits my budget, B) is large enough for my wife, daughter, dog, and me to live in, and C) is located in an area I feel comfortable putting my family. If we weren't living in the unit, there are several units out there that I think would work. I also got curious about 203k foreclosure loans yesterday so looked into that a bit.

@J. Martin - thanks for the tips! I'll make sure to peruse the learning section next.

Good Evening,

My name is Jay. I serve full time as a Staff Sergeant in the US Air Force. I enjoy many aspects of the military but periodically imagine whether or not I could make a decent living to support my family working for myself on my own terms, which is probably why I'm drawn to real estate.

Neither my wife nor I have ever owned any property. Our current plan is to save enough for closing costs on a home for ourselves to live in. We hadn't seriously discussed real estate investing at all until just a couple days ago when I found biggerpockets.com. Since then I have become very interested in learning the various ways real people earn real money dealing with properties. I am a skeptical penny-pincher by nature, and imagine the market in California may offer its own unique set of challenges in real estate.

If I have to choose which types of investing interest me so far, they would be buy and hold, and possibly rehabbing. I am also intrigued by the success stories I've read about mobile homes (maybe because the admission fee is lower than "normal" properties), but I know absolutely nothing about those.

-Jay