All Forum Posts by: Mariah Jeffery

I was thinking more in terms of selling them via 1031 exchange than a HELOC.

Over the last 4.5 years I have acquired 28 income-producing rental units. They are about 15 properties with 1-4 units each, with about half being SFHs. I've found motivated sellers wanting to sell properties with deferred maintenance at a substantial discount (about 2/3 of these units came from the same seller). I'm really happy with where I am now, but where should I go from here? Stay the course and keep buying as long as I keep finding good deals? Be happy with what I have and maintain the status quo? Take advantage of the equity I have and try to locate larger commercial buildings and trade up?

I work full time and I used to devote most of my spare time to RE, but I have a one year old now and I have no more spare time! Part of me wants to just be happy with what I have maintain the status quo, focusing on paying off the mortgages (we have mortgages on all but one property, and we owe roughly half of the value of the properties). Given that these are our 401K properties, we'll be pretty much set for life once these 28 are paid off. Another part of me wants to think of a creative strategy to use the equity we have and create real wealth. Any thoughts?

Oh, you didn't make it hard to understand, it was just a complicated topic. Thanks for taking the time to spell everything out for me!

I may possibly need a partner in the future. I'm going to try to digest what Financexaminer suggested, which means I'm going to have to read it 6 or 7 more times, LOL. Essentially if the sellers don't agree to take less than 20% down, I don't think even with my parents' help we'll be able to come up with the roughly $400K we'd need to buy the other 44 units. I'm thinking about this batch now and there's enough to think about, but I may search for partners in a few months when the dust settles.

Nothing painful about it when I went through it. In fact it was less painful because you only have to send paystubs and bank statements for one person, assuming you have individual accounts. If the accounts are joint you'll have some extra steps.

Not true. I've been married since before I bought my first property and all of our FNMA backed loans are in either his name or mine. We both have more than 4. The key to this is to make enough income individually and have a good enough credit score that you both qualify.

No, these sellers move slowly but we close on 7/15! Everything is going well so far. I also have my parents lined up to partner with me in case the sellers want to make another deal in 6 months.

I'm constantly getting those 0% interest balance transfer checks from my credit card company. Most of the time they have a balance transfer fee of 3%, but my husband and I just each received a targeted offer with no fee.

Our highest mortgage rate is 6.75% and it's a simple interest mortgage, meaning interest is calculated daily. The mortgages are through a credit union so we have a lot of flexibility with paying early.

Between my husband and myself, we can take out about $45K on 0% interest and have to pay it back in 1 year. Our mortgage payments with this credit union are about $4K/month. Here is what I'm thinking we'll do.

1. Write the balance transfer checks to ourselves and cash them in our checking account with the credit union.
2. Have the credit union apply $44K, which is 11 months of mortgage payments at $4K/month, to our mortgage and have them suspend payments for the next 11 months.
3. Use the money we would have paid toward our mortgage to pay off the 0% credit card balance.
4. Profit. $44K * 6.75% * 11/12 = $2,722.50 in interest saved.

After coming up with this plan, I realized we could still profit from the offers with the 3% balance transfer fee given that our interest rate is 6.75%. The downside is our credit scores might take a temporary hit, but they're in the 790's now so we should be ok. We're about to buy 8 houses so I don't think we'll buy any more for at least 6 months.

Am I missing anything?

Yes, still working out the details but we're planning to close in July. Thanks!

At the end of the month I'm going to close on 8 properties on the same day. The title companies charge $318 per property each to the buyer and seller. I haven't asked yet if they will discount this fee. If they say no, would there be any benefit to going with a real estate attorney for closing? I assume the title co. still needs to be involved to issue the title insurance, but they charge separately for that, so maybe we could find an RE attorney to handle the signing of the paperwork separately?