All Forum Posts by: Ken Swearengen

@Ozzy Sirimsi That is super helpful, thanks Ozzy!

@Tony DiDomenico

What's your budget look like? I've found decent small multifamily houses and neighborhoods around Parkville/ NE Baltimore City (like Hamilton and Lauraville). If you're looking for more city life for a lower cost, Charles Village and the area around Patterson Park may suite you. If you don't mind spending some $$$, then Canton, Fed Hill, or Fells Point are good neighborhoods for young professionals.

I'm looking to househack myself, but because I have kids we're looking for areas with decent schools and some trees (ie in the county). Hit me up if you need a realtor to work with, we love ours.

@Jeremiah Akindele Whether or not it's worth it depends on whether or not you take action on the information you got. Whether or not you could have gotten the same information for cheaper on Bigger Pockets is irrelevant since you already spent the money. Don't beat yourself up over it, use it as a learning experience (which it seems like you're doing already!) and just keep truckin!

@Bob Jones You're going to be hard-pressed to find any duplexes for sale under $150,000 outside of the city. Even foreclosures in the different counties will generally be at least $200,000. I'm not saying it's impossible, but you'll really have to keep your eyes open for that and it'll probably need a significant amount of work. The only area that comes close that isn't Baltimore city that I can think of is Hanover, PA but that may be a bit more than 45 min. Possibly parts of Baltimore county like Dundalk.

@Cody Hall I agree with @Theresa Harris. Alternatively you could invest in crowd-sourced real estate investment like Fundrise or RealtyMogul, but those may have investment restrictions due to SEC regulations (ex: I think with Fundrise you can't invest more than 10% of your annual income if you're not an accredited investor). 

@Dan L. I've been listening to the W2 Capitalist podcast, I would highly recommend his (Jay Helms, I'm pretty sure he's still an active member on here) stuff (https://w2capitalist.com/). I'm personally looking to do a house hack with my wife and 2 kids. I'm not sure what home prices are in Houston, but that may be an option for you as the $15k might be enough of a downpayment with an FHA loan there.

@Matt Ekoti You can find a lot of RE agents on Zillow. Just tell them what you're looking to do and if they have any experience working the RE investors and you should find one who can help you out. There is also a "Real Estate Agents" section on the "Networking" tab on your BP dashboard.

@Solomon Morris Yup, still looking to househack. Looking from the outside (we're in the process of scheduling a tour) and the neighborhood are probably the nicest we've looked at so far, so for that part at least we'd like to live there. 

From my initial deal analysis...I'm trying to figure out if the rents I could get from it would be enough to offset the price of the water heater install and any price effects the train tracks would have. From using the BP calculator I'd be able to hit 12% CoC if I had rents at $1250 per unit and a price of $210,000. I'm conservative on my repairs/maintenence and capex (9% for each) because it's an older building. They're asking $239,000, but I can't find enough duplexes around there to give me a comp to go off of to determine if that's a good price or if I'm being too conservative in my analysis (particularly the rents).

1) What's the typical cost to install a furnace in the city/county? I'm looking at a house now where the seller already bought the furnace but hasn't had it installed yet. I know J Scott says around $1k-2k for a new furnace in his book, but it looks like that estimate includes the cost of the furnace in addition to the labor.

2) How much does being near railroad tracks affect rental prices? I found a house in the county that's right across from some railroad tracks, however other than that and the size (it's around 950 sqft for 2 bed 2 bath) it's got good stuff going for it (great neighborhood, good schools, close to amenities).

3) What's your typical cashflow threshold for a deal in Baltimore? I know Brandon Turner himself doesn't do anything below 12%, but is that reasonable for the Baltimore small family (2-4 unit) market?

@Theresa Harris 100% agree with this. My wife bought a condo before she met me and in which we are currently living. We're looking for a house hack now and floated the idea of renting out the condo, but at almost $300 a month the condo fees would destroy any profits we would have over the next few years.