All Forum Posts by: Grace Wang

I can be reached at [email removed]. Thanks Cheryl.

Cheryl,

You mentioned that you specialize in Reston. I just started to work in RTC last fall, and noticed it's a good area. Do you mind sharing some your insight or observations about this area? In fact, I did research on Redfin and focused on zip code 20190. The properties there are not cheaper because they are probably newer. Maybe you have a different investment approach?

During the refinancing process, the appraisal value for this property now is only $505K. This is why I think our neighbor may overprice their house by asking for $590K in current market. If we sell our house at $510K, we probably just get to pay the line of credit back without getting much cash in hand for new investments. The refinancing rate is quoted at 5.125% with no point and no cost if it goes through. However, we are required to put $29K back to reach the 75% loan ratio for investment property.

Unfortunately, the loan officer of my Vienna refinancing case just told me that the case won't go through unless I put some money back to this house to make the loan ratio 75% for this investment property. (Please bear with me if I don't use the right term.) We've borrowed some line of credit from this "alligator" to buy our primary home in Fair Lakes in 2009. Fortunately, we got it at the right time with a below market price,$525K, so our primary home has appreciated. (Our neighbor sold their house at $590K last year and Zillow gives an estimate $625K now for our home since the models are all similar in our community.) This morning, I was chatting with my husband to figure out how to utilize our current financial conditions because our goal is to get some lower value investment properties with higher ROI. Is it a smart idea to sell the current home also to realize the capital gain? Based on our above discussion, we shouldn't even put more money to the Vienna property but get rid of it ASAP, right?

Jim,

We have to pay out of pocket approximately $450 each month without considering maintenance/repairs/utilities. Fortunately, we still have enough savings to cover this and we only rent this house for the second year. We need to make a decision whether sell or own by Sep 2012 because this house was our primary residence before Oct 2009. I am glad to find this forum TODAY, so I can get great input from you guys. Please feel free to share any new ideas which can inspire us improving the current status.

Cheryl,

Do you mind sharing more details about the 1031 idea? We thought about selling this house and get some smaller townhouses with better cash flow. However, we just don't know how to make this idea happen since we are not experienced enough. I will appreciate if you can share how this concept works. Thanks a lot!

Cheryl,

We currently have a family occupying the house and it is under an annual lease. We expect to renew the lease in July if they wan to stay. I am just wondering whether this is a good investment approach even if we can raise the monthly rent from $2,300 to $2,500. According to the rent estimate from Zillow.com, we are supposed to rent it for $2,500 or above. However, the positive cash flow is still not much when we raise the rent to $2,500. I understand we need to bring positive cash flow to make this lucrative, but I am afraid it might be more difficult for a family to pay this high rent if we still plan to rent the house to a family. One solution in my mind now is we should consider rent this house room by room instead of renting to a family. With a two year old child, my husband thinks this idea may add a lot of extra property management work. Therefore, we are still trying to figure out what to do with this house even though it is in a great location.

Thanks for your input, Chris. Coincidently, one of our neighbors there is selling their house now and asking for $590K. However, the neighbor next to it asked for similar price last year and didn't get to sell. Since Washington DC area is one of few areas with moving up trend, I will pay close attention to this neighbor and see if the house can be sold smoothly.

I am a newbie to this forum and eager to learn real estate investment. I am wondering if any experienced investors can share your input about our case.

We bought a split level single house in Vienna, VA at $439K several years ago and the monthly rent is $2,300 now; however, the PITI will be at least $2,525 even though we are refinancing now. The location is within two miles from Vienna Metro, and a new metro station in Tysons Corner is to be built now. We see this property with a prime location for rent, but hate to see the negative cash flow. We've also considered selling this property and find other investment properties to bring in more positive cash flow; however, we figured we won't be able to get much cash back after selling it with the current assessment value, $490K.

I will appreciate if anyone is willing to share your wisdom with us. Thanks a lot!