All Forum Posts by: Mark Belenky

Hello Bethany, 

In regards to your home you could get your current primary residence formally appraised and present it to the bank who's holding your mortgage. If your primary residence does indeed exceed 20% in equity you can then request them to drop the PMI from your payments.

The best way to get the formal appraisal might be to call your lender and ask them what they will accept as an official appraisal and then work with them to get that scheduled.

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On your other topic, I too live in New Jersey and am in the process of remodeling my existing home and then putting it up for sale in March 2018 so that I can free up my debtability to purchase my first multi-family in Northern Jersey (closer to work) which I'll be "House-Hacking".

Good Luck !!  :-D

I've been using using it now for just over a year.  My tenant has automatic payments being withdrawn from their account which then gets deposited a few days later into my account.  So far my tenant and I really enjoy the Cozy.co interface and they're regularly adding new features that truly make this an awesome tool.  

They don't have an app for iOS or Android yet but, I know that they're working on it.

I love that it's free but, if they did charge a small fee (emphasizing small) I'd still use it and incorporate the extra cost into the rent.

Hi Shawn, 

Thanks for your response and encouragement. I actually attempted to acquire a MFR while living in my current home and the lender that I was working with goofed on the numbers and when we were in closing he said that I didn't qualify for the full amount but, could liquefy basically all of my assets (lol), to close on this deal. Lesson learned and this time around I have solid numbers for what I'll need to close on the next opportunity.

Now that you're house hacking have you been looking into additional MFRs?  What approach are you taking if you are?

Hello Bigger Pockets Community, 

Currently I've got a good paying W2 job however, I've been trying to get my foot in the door to become a full time real estate investor.  I've purchased my first investment property in Ohio just over a year ago and though that's doing well, I realize that in order for me to expedite my goal I'll have to make some major life changes.  So, I've decided to prep my primary home for sale in March 2018, find a reasonably inexpensive rental and start looking for a multi-family home which I could move into and  "House-Hack" to free up my income.  This in turn will allow me to build for my down payments and reserves for future investments.

I've also recently been looking around Central East Jersey such as East Rutherford, North Arlington, Kearny, Nutley, Carlstadt, Wood Ridge, and the nearby areas and I've seen a few decent opportunities but, they seem to fly off the market as quickly as they come up. From the many guests on the Bigger Pocket Pod Cast that I listen to every week, they say that if it's on the MLS it's probably not the best deal. Does anyone here know how to gain access to information on properties prior to them being listed on the MLS?

These are my goals in obtaining my first house-hack:

• My primary house is currently being worked on to stage it for sale in March 2018.
• Put my primary home up for sale by owner in March 2018 with a fair market price (I'll get the appraisal done just prior to putting it on the market).
• If I'm unable to sell it myself (I'll give it a good 2 months effort), I will get an agent to sell it for me.
• Rent an inexpensive apartment to free me up from any non cash flowing debt.
• Go at a 110% pace looking for a multi-family primary home in a B neighborhood.
• Once acquired I'll then start preparing for the next multi-family home that I will be house hacking.
• And then do it again.

Thank you Bigger Pocket's Community :-)

P.S.

Does anyone know how to set triggers to send me an email when I get a response to posts?

Thanks!

 The reason is that we're looking at areas that are within driving distance of where my son works.  The plan is to possibly house hack for a bit (see if the bug bites him) to help keep his money in his pocket for the future where the real fun begins.

I don't live in Florida but, my son does.  Him and I are trying to create a road map on how to land his first deal.  So, we're starting out from a birds eye view.  Just trying to familiarize ourselves with which neighborhoods haven't reached peak prices and that aren't crime and drug ridden.  Again, I'm not familiar with the area so if there's a college town nearby or an up and coming town would be ideal.  

After we've identified a few areas we'll then begin to review property types and available financing, whether it's preferable to start off house hacking or with multi-families.  We'll go over the numbers and write up our plan. 

We literally just spoke about this today and decided that this would be a fun project to take on.  So as a first step, I decided to create my first post in one of my favorite Real Estate resources that I know.

Any information would be useful :-)

Even if a single lined reply like "Avoid this town" would be appreciated.

Just begging some research into finding a good area within a 30 mile radius of Miami International Airport for a Multi-Family Residential.  

Anyone have any ideas on where to start looking?