All Forum Posts by: Lixmar Moffett

@Nicholas L. Thank you so much for taking the time to answer. We really appreciate it. Yes, we would love living there. Yes, I could bike to work and my husband would short his commutes by half. It would consume cash. We would be spending about 13k with down-payment (3%) closing cost, and a fridge since the fridge is not included. 

That's good to know. If we don't try to pay it fast, we would be saving/investing 40k per year. We want to get rid of the PMI fast though.

Yes, we included HOA and utilities in those payments, BUT not everything else that you mentioned.

Hello everyone. I always wanted to start learning about real state and investments. Last week, I finally decided to start educating myself about real state, and I found bigger pockets! I don't have a lot of knowledge and I'm just barely learning how the economy and the housing market works, so I apologize in advance for my ignorance. 

My husband and I are under contract for a 2bed 2bad 265k condo in a developing area in Utah. A lot of tech companies are moving to this location.We want to potentially rent this property out after we pay it off. We locked in with a 2.95% interest rate for a 30 year loan. We did the math and we think we are going to be able to pay it in 10 years. We would be still be able to save around 25k per year. This obviously won't be an investment and we won't see cash flow until we move out, but we see the potential that this property can have in the long term. Again, the area is booming with tech companies. The monthly payments (without the extra payments) are little more expensive than rent. I would say by $200. We would rent in a cheaper area or apartment, BUT we own pets, so it's super hard to find cheap deals. 

The market will probably crash and we are not sure if we should pull the trigger right now or wait. We fear that a lot of smart investors will have the money to pay properties on cash and it will be almost impossible to find a house... So we were thinking to still buy this property and since we can still save money, be ready to have the down-payment to invest in a duplex or a SFH during the market crash

What would you do? We would really appreciate your input on this! We know that buying this condo might not be the smartest idea with a market crash coming, but we don't think it's a stupid idea. Is it? Especially, if we want to invest in real state in the future? We are open to any suggestion! We literally don't know what to do. 

Thank you for your time!

@Darius Ogloza, thank you so much for answering and for your advice! We actually weren't able to get the $200,000 condo deal and that's not an option anymore. We are under contract for a 2 bed 2 bath $265,000 condo in one of the areas that is booming, but we won't have cash-flow right away since we would live in the property for a few years. Also, it will be a little bit more than rent, but we will  still be able to save around 41k a year, so we can invest in future properties. I'm nervous that we won't be able to rent it for how much we are paying when we are ready to move on and if the market is down, we won't be able to sell. 

@Elise Marquette Thank you for answering. Yes, that's a really good point. Luckily here in Utah most of the students are already married and have families, so I'm planning to rent out to married students. 

Hello! My husband and I are ready to buy a home. We live in UT where the market is pretty competitive. We want to get into real state and we were wondering what would be the smartest move to make as first time home buyers. These are the options that we have:

- Buy a small apartment around $200,000 that's super close to universities (easy to rent in the future). We would be living there for a few years which would allow us to save a lot of money since the payments would be less than rent. The idea is to save money to buy a duplex that we can rent out completely while already having a property that we will rent out in the future, so at the end, we would have 3 properties to rent out. 

- Buy a single family home in the price range of $300,000 - $350,000. We would be paying a lot more monthly, but we would be closer to work and the area is booming because a lot of companies are moving there. Can a single-family home actually produce cash-flow in the future? Would it be worth it?

- Save more money and buy a duplex ($400,000) Duplexes that we can afford are in poor conditions and super old, but since they are close to two universities, it would be easy to rent them out, just for less. We would be living in one side for a few years, which we would be paying around the same as the small apartment. Of course, once we move out, we can rent out both sides. We are just worried that it would take a lot work to fix them up and maintain. Financially, we might not be ready for that. 

Please send your advice. We really want to make the smartest decision that can help us to build our real state business/path/career in the future.  

Thanks!