All Forum Posts by: Laura Williams

@Brian K. Just had my first one today. I bought a house in KC at auction that needed work. The construction crew I am using to fix it up, I have used for another house and no issues at all. Good reliable crew. As they were cleaning out this house this week (which was a mess and had leftover furniture and clothes etc) they said they found lots of voodoo stuff in the house. One being a statue of a man and woman with their heads cut off. They threw it in the middle of the dumpster and next day it was sitting back inside the house when they returned for work. I'm not sure what else is happening in that house but the crew is so freaked out they have called in a priest. Not sure how much I believe in all this but hoping the priest will take care of the "issue". Don't feel to have future tenants moving out in the middle of the night lol. Thinking to maybe burn some sage in the house on my next visit…not sure what else might help to be on the safe side or maybe the renovations will help clean the energy. Any thoughts??? 

@Sean Mcguire 

I've heard that 3 bedrooms and 2 bath are the generally the easiest to sell or rent. I agree with @Kirk R. In that safety is most important and also good schools are important. I would also look and google all the first time homebuyer government programs to see if you qualify for any. Some programs have where you can get a great interest rate or put very little money down and in some cases you can even get a grant for the down payment. 

I like both @Richard C. and @Andrew M. suggestions. Leverage if done correctly is going to be more rewarding for you. Richard has a good point in that if you are new to investing there's a big learning curve so best not to buy everything at once cause you learn so much with every deal. Also can take a while to build your team and that can be painful cause you usually find the good ones from dealing with the bad so if you start small with just 1 it will be easier. You can get great deals buying all cash especially distressed properties. So depends on how much time you want to put in.  If you want to stretch your dollar and get more for your money buy cash at a discount and then refinance. If you want a place more rent ready then buy them traditional mortgages. 

If your student debt is a low interest rate I probably wouldn't pay it off. The first thing that comes to my mind would be if you could buy a little investment rental in a decent area with a good return and good tenants for around 50k. Put 10k down or 20% and save the other 10k for emergencies etc (as there always can be in real estate). If you're handy I would buy somewhere that needs minor cosmetic updating (or worse if you can do the work)  and fix it up to force appreciation. Once your cashflowing and your savings are back up to 20k I would then get another investment property and keep repeating the process. For most banks you have to own one year to cash out refinance for the appraisal value (not what you paid for it). So after some equity is built up with a few places then refinance the properties to buy more with a portfolio loan. 

The key is to buy well and undervalued and cashflowing and  try to avoid places that have serious deferred maintenance issues or bad neighborhoods where high chance of tenant or theft problems as that could take you off course from your goal. I'm not much of a fan of flipping as I feel that's a lot riskier although some people have done well with that. 

Anyway that's my 2 cents :) good luck :) 

Hi @Jesse Reese ! I don't know anything of your situation but have you looked into first time home buyer programs. That might be a way to at least get your feet wet and build equity ....start with the home you live in. In a lot of places owning is cheaper than renting plus you get a tax break.  If you buy right you'll save money every month which will help you save for a down payment for a second property. You could also rent out a room for extra income. There are lot of government backed programs where you can put very little down. I had a real estate agent tell me she got 5K free from the government for her down payment even (this was in New York). It was some kind of first time home buyer grant for low income people. I really wish I has known about all these government  programs before I bought my fist place :) good luck. 

@Andrey Y. 

I believe if you can buy quality cash flowing properties it's better to use financing and have leverage.  Sometimes you can find much better deals paying all cash or buying a fixer upper and then renovating it. Might be a possible strategy to buy cash (discount) from a motivated seller and then refinance out afterwards with a higher appraisal value. 

@Jerry Poon 

It's similar to a condo but instead of owning the property directly you own shares in the corporation. In exchange for the shares you are given the right to live in your unit. The shareholders elect a board to run the co-op. There are different types of co-ops. Some only allow owner occupants, some are investor friendly and others elect to be run the same as a condo ........called cond-ops. It's not a popular type of ownership except in NYC where 70% of the housing is co-ops. Here condos are about 50-100% more expensive than co-ops so they seem to be a popular choice for ownership. In general a condo is more preferable form of ownership than a co-op. But both greatly depend on how well they are run by the board/associations. 

@Jerry Poon I've owned and rented out co-ops in NYC for a few years which is similar to a condo but worse in ways. In some places (like New York) you won't have a choice of what to own as all are either condo or co-op. But from my experience I would go with a SFH if you have a choice and all else equal. The whole structure of these is a major pain. The dumbest most power hungry people will always be trying to get on the boards and run things and get in your business to tell you what you can and can't do. Even if you have a good association currently that can change in a second. Assessments are very common and most of the time it will be for something unnecessary. And they can change HOA rules at any time which you have no control over. Also you have to think about refinancing options if you want to grow your real estate empire. A lot of banks won't refinance condos or co-ops if not enough owner occupied units. I've even heard of condos in Florida that had a waiting list of people wanting or needing to rent their units as the condo association would only allow a certain amount of people to rent.

The only good thing I can say about owning a condo is that if you want to self manage it's easier. You don't have to worry about anything but what's inside your apartment and if any emergencies there's a super in the building that can take care of it or if you are out of town etc. 

But all in all unless it's a really amazing deal I think you'll do better with a property where you have more control. My opinion. 

@Ralphy Rosado 

Hmmmmm that's very interesting. I always heard it was a nightmare here. Good to know

@Ralphy Rosado I know in NYC we have very unfriendly landlord laws and tenants have all the rights here. I'm assuming it's the same all over our state? I would think if you are wanting to invest with a possible lower quality tenant base for higher returns you might want to look into another state where you can more easily evict and have more rights. One bad tenant here could be catastrophic.  My lawyer told me it can easily take a year to evict a tenant in NYC and possibly longer if they play the system or have kids. I personally would only want A or B class tenants in this state of New York.