All Forum Posts by: Kelly Bellini

@Nirmal Khanderia thank you!!! We're gearing up to start looking for the next one, too...

@Jason Spicer thank you!  I hope you guys do, too!  Renovating a house is definitely a team-building process.  We learned a lot about each other through the process, and we're still together!  Success!  Ha!

@Derek Walker thank you, Derek!  Looks like you're just around the corner from us!

@Joel Swanson  thank you!  Yes, I feel like that first one is such a huge hurdle and the learning curve is steep.  It feels really good knowing that we didn't totally screw up, and that we were capable of actually doing this!  Truly a dream come true.

@Ricardo Murph II Ha!!!  I thought the same thing with that ridiculous name, "Bank of Internet."  My mom already had an account with them, so I trusted it.  But, yeah, sounds SO freakin' fake!  Yes, they required 6 months before we could refinance, which obviously wasn't an issue for us, since we took forever.

@Bjorn Ahlblad--thank you!  I love spice, so this works :)

@Jaron Walling Hey Jaron--So, we purchased the house in August, 2017, started renovating in September, and finished up in April 2018.  So, no mortgage payments that whole time.  Then we decided to get renters in BEFORE starting the refinance process.  So, the tenants' first rent payment was May, then we started the refi, which finally just closed last week.  So, we had the May rent, June rent, and we'll get the July rent, all before we have to pay our first mortgage payment, which starts August 1.  Since we closed in June, the first mortgage payment is August 1 (which is a nice little perk).  We had considered possibly waiting even longer to start the refinance process, just so we could pull in more cash, BUT ultimately, we got a bit antsy, and wanted our chunk of change back.  It happened to time out pretty nicely, with us making $3600 the first three months, basically paying off what we have invested in the property.

@Chris Purcell thank you so much!

@Ricardo Murph II  Thanks, Ricardo!  Yes, we were patient (with a little bit of scared thrown in there).  I was on Zillow daily, probably quickly analyzed 10-ish properties per day, and then weekly, we probably drove by maybe 3-5 houses (I'm big on peeking around and inside if at all possible).  We only pulled in our agent a couple of times.  We took our time; we were not in a rush.  We just wanted to find something that was not going to overwhelm us or stress us out.  I'm glad that we did not just jump into some of the earlier possibilities.  I think it could've been a nightmare.

@Brian Garrett YES!!!  I love it.  I can't believe I didn't start doing this sooner. Thanks, Brian!