All Forum Posts by: Laura Hines

I'd love to be included in a meet up as well. We live and invest in Lawrence, KS but have been looking seriously at investing in Topeka. 

Trent, depending on what your down payment is and PITI, it could cashflow a tiny bit or even just give you enough from reserves. The sooner you get started the better- we bought a househack (duplex) last year in Feb, our tenant was great but way under market values. Bought it for $168k PITI $965/month and were renting the other side for $675 (when closed) then $725 when resigned the lease, but it allowed us to save so much money instead of renting. We recently moved into another house hack and renovated both sides are rented for $875 so its cashflowing for us once we moved out. That doesn't even take into consideration our equity with the renovations or the knowledge we gained by house hacking. My advice is as long as the numbers work, do it.

@Chris Dawson Would you be willing to give me that recommendation as well?

I am also 24, so I feel like I have good insight to the desire of being a young person and wanting to grow your portfolio. My husband and I both have boring W2 jobs in order to grow our portfolio. I would sit down and really think about your goals and how you're going to get there. Write out the cost of your health insurance (also you may be able to stay on your parents till 26) and PTO, You said you're going to buy your parents house- will you put a mortgage on that or just pay it off for them? 

Also I would suggest another option. Try to find a higher paying W2 job that is 40 hours and work for this guy another 20 hours a week. Totally doable and that's how you're going to grow your portfolio like crazy!

It is pretty typical for lenders to over estimate closing costs on worksheets like that. I think our last property we purchased they estimated around 5.5k closing costs and we paid 3.5k when all was said and done. Looking through that I would ask about the underwriting fee and the "settlement fee" as well. If you don't know what a fee is, or why it is so high, I would call your lender and ask them to explain it to you and if that is an estimate or the actual amount. There is no harm in asking!

I need to purchase a lawnmower for the duplex that I am house hacking. So we would be mowing both sides with it, including the side we are living in. I know typically with expenses for a duplex whatever money you spend on your personal residence unit is a non-deductible personal expense. Would I be able to deduct the lawnmower as a business cost for our rental side or just half of it? Any thoughts on this?

@Jack Zheng if you do an FHA loan you should be able to move out after a "seasoning period" which is typically a year and still keep the structure of the loan. I would make sure to double check with any lender about what their seasoning period is if they have one. If you are upfront with your goals lenders will want to work with you. However, if you move out before the period where you are required to be there, it is loan fraud. So make sure you are communicating with your lender to know what is required of you. One thing to keep in mind with an FHA is you can only have one FHA loan.

@John Hunt my husband and I are in the the first year or so of our first "real jobs". I did my masters immediately after undergrad because it was inexpensive. We bought our first house hack at 23 and after a few renovations are moving in this weekend. While there are moments where I think "what are we getting ourselves into". Overall it has been so worth it. I think a disadvantage of being young is lack of experience and knowledge but you'll only get that by just jumping in and learning all you can and just doing it. If you are worried about being taken seriously by lenders, agents, brokers, etc. just making sure you only work with people who treat you with respect . One of the reason I chose our lender was that he treated me with so much respect and made himself extremely available to me and was willing to answer my questions. Working with people who see you as valuable too is important because if you're going to keep investing you want relationships. 

I personally have felt like house hacking is a great way to get started. It has been fairly risk free for us. It feels so much safer because if something goes wrong or other unit is vacant for a few months (hopefully this will never happen) we could afford to foot the mortgage without the other sides rent. It has also been nice to learn how to be landlords with little effort since the unit is right there. For us it was also an "upgrade" of living conditions with more space and better finishes than our previous apartment. 

@James DuBois my husband and I are in a similar situation. We started out with a little more student debt than that. Around 12k and have paid off around 40% of them off now and we have similar interest rates on our loans. I don't know what our minimum monthly payment is, but we pay around $250/month on them just to try and knock them out. We made combined that much last year (as we both switched to better jobs mid year) are also 24. We just closed on a multifamily a few weeks ago. It is completely a personal decision, but we decided that by saving $500/month on where we are living to also build equity in a property is much more worth it than the interest on our loans.  

I agree with everything said above. I have my masters and work as a scientist and my job is just fine, but what I really crave is flexibility. I want to be able to work less and still make the same amount. My husband and I are really happy with our income level right now, but we are living off of 50% of our income in order to purchase more properties. Because I want more flexibility 9 months ago, I thought about going back to school to be a nurse. I could get my degree in 12 months and it would increase my income slightly and be a great long term option. After lots of self scrutiny, I realized the reason I wanted to be a nurse was for a sense of security. Real estate sometimes doesn't feel secure (especially when you are starting out). I wanted to be a nurse because it would provide long term for our family, but not necessarily provide more happiness or add joy to my life. I am so glad I didn't drop the 40k on school for a sense of security for myself. 

I would encourage you to really write out what your goals are in life. Or talking with a close friends if you are a verbal processor. If you pictured your perfect life what would it look like? How much would you make? What would you be doing? Then try to make a map for how to get there. Ultimately only you can decide if that includes school or not. Don't be afraid to swim upstream. Good luck!