All Forum Posts by: Michael K Gallagher

house hack is a great way to go!  I'm not necessarily against living with my friends but I'd want them to be on leases even if it was reduced somewhat from market rates if that works, but the idea of having them somehow involved on the ownership side I think will create more issues than its worth.  

You'll likely also run into issues with the loan when trying to do something like that.  your best loan products are going to be for owner occupant.

@Ashley Colston welcome to the forums!  as others have touched on here, the highest and best use for the land can be many things depending on the end use.  

If your local agent you love is a commercial agent they should be able to walk you through this and provide some insights.  If they are not commercial then I'd ask them to refer you to a commercial expert in your market, I anticipate they have one at there office.

For instance, we look all over the country for .6-1 acre grocery anchored lots to build single tenant buildings on.  There could be a mix of uses or tenants that could maximize your value.

There could also be an argument to lease the land to an end user and get some income but retain ownership if you'd like.  

@Josh Williams I've seen grocery stores in my area converted to climate controlled storage facilities.  Because its essentially all enclosed, I believe the idea is that they can charge a premium.  I'd anticipate that along with the grocery store comes the parking lot and you could potentially do some kind of fenced in boat/rv storage potentially also.

large big box retail stores can have quite long leases.  To avoid the issue Henry points out above, you could simply get a long enough lease or have enough options built into the initial term so that you can fully get your "worth" out of that buildout.  a 10 year initial term with 2 x 5 year options is quite common in the leases I see in the 3K SF retail arena, so I'd anticipate the 10K SF arena could be longer.

@Roy Logan congrats on the deal.  Is this something you when through and purchased?  or something you are still considering?  either way what is the plan as far as use case? is it a house hack? pure investment?  are you going ahead with the addition of the bedrooms downstairs or is that just a nice to have for later?

@Eshe Harvey oh man great question.  I think the biggest change in me personally and mentally is the realization that you can take control of things and impact your situation more than you think generally or more than the normal person is educated on.  Once I realized a "Nice secure w2" isn't all that secure especially in this country these days then I was really able to flip things around and gain some confidence myself.  

@Justin Hwa this is hilarious, I don't have that exact issue but it does seem to be "one of those weeks" for sure so far.  

@Jon Lester very nice deal! you say you pulled all your cash out, can you talk a little more about the refi process and how that ended up going for you?  loan product you chose etc?

@Desiree Rejeili good advice in general thanks for putting this together.  When I'm on the listing side of things especially of an investment property I don't necessarily mind getting a low ball offer, the issue I have is the "un defended" low ball.  If you can walk me through your offer and why it came to that etc, then I know its not a legit or strong offer.  But if there is logic there, I can at least talk to my people about that and explain it and we then know how to counter to what levers to pull to pull it together.  

@Ben Bond welcome to the forums and I love that you are thinking like this.  Its a great way to leverage the best loan products out there.  

If I understand correctly you are considering moving out of your current single family home and turning it into a rental.  You are then planning to downsize and purchase I assume a multi family property to live in one unit?  If correct than I have the following thoughts:

- I know I have a lot of crap still at my parents house so for your first point I'm thinking making your kids actually get there stuff out of there is going to fix most of that.  Otherwise Yardsale it.

- "same general area" if you are considering this distance wise then you may have more flexibility than trying to stay in say the same school district, but if thats the tenant pool you are going after it could be strategic also.

- if you do LTR or corporate housing I think is up to what you want to deal with management wise. If it were me I'd spend some time up front finding a well qualified tenant that wants to sign a long term lease with automatic rent increases built it.  I'd have them pay all utilities and have them do all the lawn and snow.  That way its the most passive, you don't need a manager at that point, and you basically don't touch it again for several years ideally.

@Mike Schorah I do most of my business via video calls or video walkthroughs. If you are saying they can't get you access to the property at all because of being out of state that seems like a red flag and someone trying to sell something they perhaps don't have the right to.  

But in general if they can get you access do you see an issue with video calls etc
?