All Forum Posts by: Kiersten Vogt

Hey everyone! I'm from Montgomery County Pennsylvania. My name is Kier, I have 5 deals under my belt, I'm a licensed agent (although I stopped working with retail clients in 2020 and mainly just have it for myself now). My husband is a contractor and we own a remodeling business but are looking to make a career change and purchase an RV park in PA. I also run The Like Minded Investors Community on Instagram and host a virtual monthly meetup on the third Thursday of the month! 

I am at 75% right now and have been told the rest is in the mail so I'm expecting 100% for April. Oddly enough, everyone paid earlier than they usually do... one paid on the 25th! 

I remember comparing my real estate investing parents to my friends non-real estate investing parents during the 2008 recession and wondering why there weren't freaking out like everyone else was. They had about 30 units and knew if they held on through the tough times they would make it out okay. They had savings, they had a variety of tenants (some who were affected some who weren't, some were on section 8,) and they weren't over leveraged. 

I agree with @Joe Splitrock I've learned FROM BiggerPockets that I needed to have cash in reserves to safely invest in real estate. If newbies like myself actually pay attention to everything being taught here on the forums, the podcast and the books, you'll see they don't sugar coat the fact that in order to be successful in real estate you need savings. I think people just like to skim over that part and focus on the pot of gold at the end. Just because you can purchase real estate with no and low money down doesn't mean you should have no money saved. 

If you're only at 60% after purchase and rehab and you're living it, you could most likely refinance for somewhere between 75-85% of the appraised value since you're an owner occupant. So you'll be able to take 15-25% equity out of the house. That's exactly what we did!

I would keep it, refinance it and take some of your cash back out to buyer another cash flowing property.

I love having my license simply to make it easier to have access to the MLS and make appointments on my own timeline. You'll have to decide if the cost is worth it for you. Just because you aren't going to make money off of it doesn't mean you shouldn't get it, it could just be another cost of doing business for you. I've even waived my commission to make my offer more appealing to a homeowner - a good advantage to have in a seller's market.

I'm an agent and investor!! Best of both worlds.

@Franky Aikens I've been reading through this and I like what you said! Yeah, I wouldn't park the money for too long but I'd go out there and make a deal happen! 

@Rochelle Thea Fabrizio Yikes!! That's a scary situation, I'm so glad it worked out for you. Thanks for the additional information. I'm trying to learn all I can about septic systems as a lot of the houses near me are on septic and I used to try to avoid them but it really narrows our search for flip houses! And thank you... we try and do the best due diligence we can, especially when we waive all contingencies and our deposit is on the line!

@Richard Dale-Mesaros It cost us an extra $1400 on top of all the other plumbing work we had to do. Had we only had to replace the sewer line they said it would have been $2000.