All Forum Posts by: Kenzie McIlvoy

That’s exactly what we’d love to do!! Thanks for your response. It’s very encouraging!

My husband and I moved out of our SF home to make it a LTR last December to buy a lake house that needed some serious renovations. We planned on doing a year live-in flip which is falling right on schedule and wrapping up within the next month or so. The plan is to have it up and running as a STR in the spring.

We bought the lake house for $418k with a primary residence conventional loan at $390k 3.3% interest. It’s a beautiful property on Lake Granbury with multiple buildings, pool, hot tub, boat slip, two docks, stone patio, and much more all on one acre. Our realtor ran comps in the area today including all our renovations and his estimate came in at $785k, which is significantly higher than anything we ever imagined. If these numbers are correct, we’re sitting on $395k in equity. I’m a little less skeptical about these numbers because a home that needs updates with similar square footage on .25 acres in our same cove sold for $800k a few months ago.

I know we could just sell but we don’t want to sell this property. We’ve put so much heart and soul into this property and want it to be our family lake house for days we want to block out for our family. The property is also estimated to make $100k in gross annual revenue.

I bought my first house at 23 and we've taken the slow route to investing by living in our houses before renting them out. With this new estimate I know we can't just sit on this amount of equity, especially when thinking about our return on equity. We've considered taking a HELOC out and reinvesting some of the money because a higher rate on a HELOC would be better than raising the rate of the entire loan.

I'll also add that we're under contract to sell our LTR that I bought at 23 and preparing to buy a house for us to live in. This will probably be another STR in the next few years or so when we're ready to move projected to make $60k gross annual revenue.

I think we’re more stunned than anything because we never imagined that we’d be sitting on this much equity in such a short period of time.

If anyone has any ideas they’d like to throw around and bounce off we would love to brain storm with you. 

 5% conventional for a non-owner occupancy loan? I don’t think we’ve come across anything nearly that low!

 Even if they did not live in the property? (One side rented, one side vacant).

I’m so glad I asked this question. Our lender suggested it and even said he highly advised against doing an investment loan. Our realtor is aware that we are buying it as an investment and has just told us “people do it all the time and it’s hard to prove.”

Thank you so much for clearing this up. We will absolutely not be doing this.

My husband and I are wrapping up over a year long live in flip at our lake house that we plan to make a STR in the spring. We are under contract to sell our LTR and want to replace it with a second STR. Because we lived in that property over 2 of the last 5 years we don't have to worry about 1031.

We planned on purchasing a property with a DCSR loan but our realtor strongly advised that we do an FHA loan instead. We told him that we do *not* plan on living in this property and we plan on buying another (our dream home) sometime in the spring. He has more than insisted because of low down payment and interest rate, comparatively. We've never heard of using an FHA for a property that's not your primary residence and don't know if this is possible and what the consequences would be. We want to invest the right way but more importantly, we don't want to jeopardize our financing for our primary residence here in a few months. He suggested using a conventional loan in the spring for our primary residence. Our realtor is also on board with this and stating that this happens all the time.

We are on a journey to build our wealth and getting very close to financial freedom but we want to do it the right way. Any thoughts or advice would be so helpful. Thank you!

My husband and I have a house that we were residents of for 2 out of the past 5 years. We know that if we sell we will avoid capital gains taxes but is there other legal issues we’d be benefiting from by still doing a 1031? We would like to identify a property that is lesser in value than our current property and know that we cannot do this with a 1031. We also wouldn’t have to deal with strict deadlines. If capital gains taxes are the only thing we should be worried about saving through a 1031 then it just makes more sense to sell and buy something else with what we’re left with.

Thank you!

We own a SF long term rental that's older and not performing as well as we'd like. We make about $300 in cash flow but are constantly having to put money back in for maintenance. We have about $70k in equity and would like to 1031 it. Our tenants have been in the property since March 2022 but informed us that they are canceling their lease November 15th. We originally thought we had more time to research and prepare for the 1031 but now are forced to move even quicker. We've wanted to sell sooner than March 2023 so we are happy we're able to do it this soon but it does force our hand in moving quicker.

It has been an investment property since March 2022 but was a house hack starting June 2021, which we could use as rental history as well.

My question is: Should we go through a 1031 exchange company  or use our current realtor? I'm aware of all of the rules that come with a 1031 and want someone who's very familiar with 1031's. I know on the podcast people have mentioned using 1031 companies but am a little confused when it comes to actually finding one. Thank you!

My husband and I own two investment properties. One is a SF long term rental that has about $70K of equity. We have a short term rental that we’re doing a live in flip that will be ready early next year. Our short term rental has around $200K in equity and, market depending, will continue to grow by next year. We have two conventional loans with interest rates under 4%.

We are both in our 20’s and want to invest as much as possible in the next few years before starting a family. We’re also both fire fighters so we have the time to put our own work and time into our investments for now, specifically enjoying the short term rental space and would like to continue buying these properties.

My question is, does it still make sense to refinance? The numbers would make sense for the short term rental but would take away some cash flow. If we’re using the money to invest in another cash flowing property, wouldn’t that still make sense to pull our money out? The long term rental wouldn’t make as much sense with a refi because the property is only cash flowing about $200/month as is.

We’ve been hearing a lot about keeping money in your investments and reducing your leverage because of what’s happening and could happen with the market within the next few years. We want to be aggressive but we want to be smart.

Any thoughts or advice is very appreciated! Below is our lake house we have been working on and will be keeping as our first short term rental!

Yes! The house we are fixing over the next year is our homestead currently.