All Forum Posts by: Brant Richardson

I was just watching a video on youtube last night about buying short sales and foreclosures from the bank.  Check out Phil Putejovsky's channel he makes great real estate videos.  Basically the bank has the property inspected and value assessed.  They will be willing to take a certain percentage of that amount.  Each bank has their own percentage, it changes and it is not public knowledge, 84% is the example he used in the video. They pretty much won't budge lower unless you can show why their assessment was wrong.  With that said, my real estate agent in Kansas City was able to get the price way down on a short sale that had foundation problems, about 66% of their asking price.

@Marcus Johnson

Which do you think is a better choice?

  A.  "if you took a couple years off before you went to medical school you could live on nothing, rent and save up as much as you possibly can" as a waitress making 50k per year.

 B.  Take out a $200k in student loans to get through medical school.  Then "live on nothing, rent and save up" and pay back the loans while making $200k per year as a doctor.

Hint: You wont be able to save up $200k as a waitress.

I agree that it sucks to take on that kind of debt and not have tangible assets to show for it but education can be an extremely important investment.  It can be a terrible trap too, as a student its easy to think that your student debt will easily be paid off when you graduate and start making the big bucks.  All those psychology majors that end up with a career that has nothing to do with their college education really feel the pain of those student loans.  In the case of an MD or other highly paid professional getting their graduate degree, it makes sense, especially if they love what they do.  

To add to Mandee's idea of doing both.  If you figure out roughly the purchase price you will be investing in (sounds like around 200k) then keep the necessary funds to do a deal like that in a savings account (+2%) and you could use the what cash you have left over for student loan pay down.  You will need around $50k depending on how much of a project you are willing to tackle.  20% down + closing costs + minor repairs. Be patient for a great deal.

Have you researched or made a phone call today about getting those student loans refinanced?

Ouch, those are some harsh comments and ouch those are some harsh interest rates.  Unless mommy and daddy are paying for it, that's the reality of going into medicine guys, hundreds of thousands in debt, so give Ashley a break.

I was all ready to tell you to invest until I read the rates you are paying on the student loans.  My student loan is %2.75 so I'm paying it down as slow as possible because I know I can do better than that investing or paying down my 5% mortgages.  I would put serious time into getting your student loans refinanced.  I'm not even joking when I say to make it a top life priority.  Spend an hour or two per day doing internet research and making phone calls until you succeed.  Your next move will depend on what rate you are able to get down to.  The real estate and stock market are both due for a correction (in my personal crystal ball for what that's worth) so I wouldn't be too worried about missing out if you end up doing some debt pay down for the next year or two. 

Do you own the home you are currently living in?  If not then it could make sense to buy something with two units and live in one if you find a great deal and you get the student loans down to a much better rate. 

I am no expert in this but the first thing I would do is go to public records and find out if your name has been recorded as the owner of the property.  Just because you don't have the deed in hand does not necessarily mean you do not own the property.  Did you work with a title company at all?

Once you are sure of the facts then stop waiting for them to reach out to you and aggressively start reaching out to them.  

I haven't entered the short term rental game yet, just researching because it is one of my goals.  Here's a couple I remember from a video I watched.

1.  Provide blazing fast internet.

2.  Doing shorter rentals.  A lot of people try to do a week at a time to simplify the management but miss out on a lot of income.  David Roberts makes a good point about avoiding single night rentals though.

@David Roberts I have read about locals using STR's while they get their house tented or remodeled or doing the booking for relatives visiting from out of town. You might want to only limit locals doing single night stays.

I am not sure how a small amount of cash flow is going to help you when you have to pay it all back with interest at the end of the year.  With your plan you will pay 5-10% per month on the last $100 payment of the year.  

What is your goal?  Are you trying to make your debt to income ratio appear better?  

What is the purchase price?  An 8k difference on a 200k property is a lot different than an 8k difference on a 50k property.  

Do some snooping on Zillow/Realtor/Redfin and see what other properties nearby have sold for or are offered at.  Doing that helped me have some confidence when I started out of state investing.  Like Joe Owens said, it is okay to get a second opinion from a BPO.

You need to buy a place with a two car garage, preferably detached.  Convert the garage to a rental unit and have that $1500/mo start helping you pay your mortgage.  It's the only way any normal person can afford a house here in Santa Barbara.