All Forum Posts by: Kyle Kipka

Thanks for the welcome and for the advice! 

Marc Jolicoeur, I've been working the numbers and I think I am in pretty good shape to try renting. My condo is paid off (have about $50K into it in total) and everything inside is now brand new after my remodel so all I have to pay is $175/month for the association fee plus property taxes (which are extremely cheap). In the current condition I'm realistically hoping that it would rent for $900-1000 a month which would should leave me about $500 profit a month assuming additional fees that come up and could be closer to $700 profit certain months if everything goes well. 

Seems like a good situation for renting but I go back and forth with selling it instead. I could realistically get $70k for it according to what similar units have been selling for on the MLS and end up with around 20K profit for my efforts (around 3 yrs profit if renting).

I purchased my house for $170,000 (currently the mortgage is 166K) which makes the mortgage payment just about $1300/month. I currently rent out the lower level to a friend for $800/month which certainly helps with my payment. If I sold the condo and used the money (plus the 20K I've currently saved up) I could pay down the mortgage and refinance to get the monthly payment down (saving me about the same each month as the profit from renting the condo). 

I guess my question is to the strategy I want to use moving forward. Does it make more sense to purchase more properties to rent (I see you mentioned holding rentals for 10 or more years) or flip properties to have money to use for future investments in my case? I don't know anything about the types of financing available for investment/rental properties but I do know that since I can't use rental income for at least 2 years it might be difficult for me to get enough money to make my next move just going off my income and debt ratio. Any suggestions? 

Hello, my name is Kyle and I'm from the St. Paul area in Minnesota. I have been interested in real estate for several years now (currently 27 years of age) and have been trying to learn as much as possible and gain some experience along the way. My full-time job is working as a design consultant/salesman for a home remodeling company.

About 2 years ago I purchased my first property, a foreclosed condo on St. Paul's east side. This was a cash purchase since I was unable to obtain financing at that time (not enough credit history, 100% commission job, etc). The place was in terrible shape but I managed to complete a full interior remodel while living there with some help from friends, youtube videos and some paid help. It took me about 1 year to do that as I had to complete the work as I could afford to and had the time but I'm now satisfied with the way it turned out. I've learned a lot from that one and and made a couple good connections for future work. 

Late fall of last year I purchased my 2nd property (1970's built, split-level home) in my hometown of Cottage Grove, MN. This was also a foreclosure but was much more expensive then the first so I was able to purchase it with an FHA loan on a 30 yr mortgage.

I now need to decide where I go from here which is the main reason for joining the forum at this time. I'm hoping to gain some additional advice moving forward on what decisions make the most sense for me personally and to figure out the path I want to go (flip the properties, convert into rental(s), etc). 

So far I've really enjoyed learning about the world of real estate investing and I'm looking forward to learning from more experienced investors. 

Thanks

~Kyle