All Forum Posts by: Kelly N.

Hi everyone,

I am new to the site and new to real estate as well. My husband and I closed on our first rental house last month, a 3 unit MF. We are waiting to close on a second 3 unit. Both are currently fully occupied :)

I am looking to learn all I can while we continue to build our real estate portfolio.

Kelly

Hi Caleb,

Here's my advice:
1. Stay in school.
2. Get a job when you graduate.
3. Pay off your student debt. Pay off any other debt (credit cards mainly)
4. Invest in your own home- or maybe a multifamily home that you live in and rent the rest out.
5. Invest in rental properties.

Hope that helps,
Kelly

Hi-
I'm in Michigan and here we have to provide a pamphlet on lead (pdf available from EPA) to every new tenant, and have them sign that they received it, for any house built prior to 1978 that might contain lead. I think you don't have to if you've been certified lead free, I haven't looked into that yet. The pamphlet describes how to handle lead based paint, what not to do, what the risks are, etc.

As far as dealing with it, we will need to hire lead certified contractors to perform the painting and renovations where there might be lead present. Most of the houses have wood exteriors and are painted in lead based paint, so when they need painting we plan to pay the extra money to have them scraped down to wood, sealed, and repainted. Some have resided with vinyl in our area, obviously this is more expensive short term.

So, for us, we'll deal with it as it comes up, and everyone gets the pamphlet in the meantime.

Our home was built in the 50's, so when we purchased it we signed the same paper saying we received the pamphlet. The only place we've seen the suspected lead paint is on the old siding, which is under the newer vinyl siding, when we added on to the house.

Hope that helps,
Kelly

Wow, beautiful house! But ugh, I thought our taxes were bad! Yikes!

We did a refi on our home last year, also in Michigan. Chase and Quicken seemed to be the only ones out there doing the HARP loans. We were all set to go with Chase, then they came back and said we weren't under water enough to qualify- the appraisal came back too high. They'd still do the loan, but we were going to have to pay a chunk to get the lower rate. We went with Quicken, which saved us money at closing even after eating Chase's appraisal fee, and ended up with the same interest rate.
Good luck!
Kelly

Michelle,
I think it depends on your goals for that property, and where you are at in life.
Personally, taking advantage of these low rates for as long as possible makes complete sense to me. Use the money that you save vs. the 15 year mortgage to reinvest in more property, or make 15 year payments on your 30 year loan with the flexibility to pay the lower payment if you have a bad month.

We refinanced our personal home from a 30 (we had 25 years left) to a 15 last year, for us the case of your own home is different.

Hope that helps,
Kelly

Great question Blake!

We are waiting to close on our second property, and I was wondering what the max number of loans is going to be.

Arthur, for the 3-6 months mortgage cash reserves, is that JUST the mortgage? For instance, both our properties have taxes and insurance being escrowed, one of them we pay all the utilities and the other we pay just water. (Both multi unit properties). Would I be safer having a 3-6 month reserve of actual expenses? Also, where does our home fit in to the equation? Here we are required to put 25% down on investment properties, starting with the first!

Thanks for your input!
Kelly