All Forum Posts by: Matthew Hetrick

For the past couple years, I have been financially positioning myself to get into real estate (ex. paying off student loans, increasing my earned income, lowering living expenses, etc.) and am now at a point where I need to take action. 

I would love the opportunity to work with an experienced investor in my area (Raleigh, NC) and am eager to learn how I could give back to them in return. I'm new to the area and quarantine has limited my ability to network face-to-face, so I've decided to take to BP!

Does anyone have suggestions on how to meet a mentor? Or even better, if you are in my area and have a few years of experience with buy-and-hold rental properties, perhaps we could meet for lunch or coffee?

Any suggestions you may have would be helpful! Thank you in advance.

After spinning my wheels on the MLS looking for my first duplex house-hack (that could cashflow even a little bit), I've changed my strategy and am considering going through a wholesaler.

Being that deals through wholesalers are first come first serve, speed is key. With this in mind, I understand there is no 'due diligence' period and therefore an assessment of what work (if any) a potential property may require, needs to be determined quickly; ideally on the initial walk through of a property (in order to get it under contract quicker). 

The best way I can think of going about this, would be paying a GC to do a walk through with me to determine what work needs to be done and how much it might cost. I would pay for the walk through to compensate the GC's time instead of expecting a free estimate and then going elsewhere for the actual work, if for whatever reason I didn't go with that GC. Ideally, I'd love to have a 'go to' GC that could do the walk through and the work, but in this case my first priority is determining what work a property may require. My questions are...

• - Does anyone have experience using a similar strategy?
• - Would there be a better way to accomplish the same goal?
• - Are there any recommendations for finding a GC for, at the very least, the sole purpose of an initial property assessment?

Any other thoughts or suggestions you all may have would be greatly appreciated. 

BTW- I'm looking in and around the Raleigh/Durham, NC area (if that makes any difference).

I'd like to execute my very first house-hack through an FHA loan and need to begin shopping for the right lender. Does anyone in this area have any good suggestions for lenders to look at?

@John Warren thank you for your thoughtful response. That is a helpful perspective and I’ll add those questions to my list.

BACKGROUND: My goal is to purchase a duplex with an FHA loan and occupy one unit for at least a year (i.e. house hack).

QUESTION(S): Everything I have read on getting the best FHA loan emphasizes the importance of 'shopping around' with multiple lenders, and that makes a lot of sense to me. However, I am extremely new to this and have not been able to find anything on what 'shopping around' looks like. Does this entail filling out a bunch of applications with prospective lenders? Does it make more sense to start off with a brief email that contains a snap shot of my qualifying info (i.e. credit score, annual gross income, monthly debt, etc.)? How many lenders should I look at? And are there any particularly good ones that I should narrow my search to?

Thank you for any and all guidance around this.