All Forum Posts by: Kaylee Walterbach

I second Set for Life! It's a great starter book for the financial foundations of real estate investing: https://store.biggerpockets.com/products/set-for-life-revise...

I would also recommend Small and Mighty by Chad Carson: https://store.biggerpockets.com/products/small-and-mighty-re...

Real Estate Rookie: https://store.biggerpockets.com/products/real-estate-rookie

House Hacking: https://store.biggerpockets.com/products/the-house-hacking-s...

Here's a recent book we published for self-managing landlords: https://store.biggerpockets.com/products/self-managing-landl...

I'm biased because BP Pros get RentRedi for free, but I enjoy it—and I'm currently only renting one property. As a young self-managing landlord, I feel like it makes collecting rent look and feel more "official" so I am taken seriously... and my tenant set up autopay (score!)

I wasn't sure if I needed it for just one property, but I'm glad I did. Now that I'm ready to rent two additional units, I feel I already understand the software.

If you can get away without providing a W/D, I would go for it. Less to maintain! And you can't price it up much for including the W/D.

But, like everyone else is saying, if other comps in the area are offering W/D, you might have a hard time competing.

Echoing what everyone else has said about seasonality. October is tricky, November is hard, Dec-Jan can be impossible. Finding tenants around the holidays is really tough.

I used a HELOC on my first property to be able to buy a second property. We chose HELOC instead of refi because we didn't want the rates to change (we got the first property during those golden days of 3% interest).

I just recommend making sure the HELOC payment makes sense from a numbers perspective—consider the interest as another "expense" when you're calculating cash flow. You'll need to plan to pay it off within ~10 years, too. We're making substantial improvements to property #2, so worst case we could always refi to pay off the HELOC.

Always run the numbers and have a Plan B, C, and D! Good luck!

Being a realtor is a great start to understand the market and the industry! To learn more about investing, I'd start with books and podcasts. Set for Life is always a great start to help understand the core of investing strategy, and Real Estate Rookie covers the basics of getting your first property. I think Small and Mighty Real Estate Investor is another great starter book, as well.

Once you get a feel for which specific investing strategy you're looking for, there are tons of other BP books on specific topics that can help you dive deeper!

Agree, I also had a hard time making the numbers work in the midwest without house hacking being involved. Buying cheap and fixing up is an option, too!

Link updated, try now all! Thanks for your patience. Q&A is underway :)

Thanks Greg! I have high trust with this family member, but we'll still definitely do all our due diligence.

Zero-interest loan with a 5-year term, with us taking over mortgage payments—Does this mean we'd take over the mortgage payments for five years before actually purchasing the property? Like a lease option/obligation with a five-year term?

Ideally, they'd get equity cash upfront, and we'd keep the low interest rate of their original mortgage. I'm trying to work out a scenario where both those things can be true.