All Forum Posts by: Kiersten James

Need advice...have a potential opportunity for primary residence deal. Short sale bank owned but tenant occupied month to month. What's the best way to go about this where we wouldn't get screwed over with tenants not leaving? Long Island currently has the executive order on evictions. Is it too high risk? REO broker says if we play nice, it shouldn't be a big deal with a financial incentive to get them to leave. What exactly does that mean? Tenants are middle aged parents with 6 kids - one just graduated high school. Asking 579k for a house that sold for 775 in 2002. We'd probably offer 550 because it's occupied. Help!!!!!

@Jaysen Medhurst thanks for the info. Yes, we would never hack with someone actually in our own home. We are looking for a house with a separate entrance single occupancy accessory apartment but as stated above, the rent will only cover our taxes and never cash flow for us. We also are in a weird position where we need more of a “permanent” primary residence because we have lots of heavy equipment due to the nature of my husbands business. We will need to build a large garage to house it on the property. Lots to think about. Thanks!

@Theresa Harris see above. It’s going to be a tough call to make for sure!

@Nathan G. That’s what we were thinking. We were going to try to find a house with a single occupancy separate entrance accessory apartment. The down side is that the rent we could get (~$1200) will literally only cover the property taxes. It’s nice to have a bit of help but I wouldn’t exactly call that cash flow.

Hi all,

My husband and I are one month away from being debt free and will be in a good position to jump into RE.

One issue we're having is the simple question of how to actually pull it off. We're in Long Island and the average one family house price is $400-$450k with $12-15k/yr in property taxes. Utilities are higher, PMI is a thing, we have low reserves but excellent credit and income around $12k take home/month between both of us.

Second issue. We are simultaneously looking for our first house. Do we buy a primary home for us and then a second investment property after? Or house hack the first house and sacrifice a few years? We’re in our early thirties with a 2 year old and dog. Having a back yard and home for them is important to us and we aren’t sure we want our daughter to share close living spaces with strangers.

So....is it a poor area to house hack? Should we be doing this out of state like the Poconos? So confused.

Thanks in advance.