All Forum Posts by: Mario Gonzalez

With cash flow being your focus, would love to see if I can help. It is a bit farther away, but if you are open minded to talking about REI in Greater Cincinnati, would love to talk about it. Shoot me a message if so!

@Mario Gonzalez

just to chime in again and then i'll stop... selling off hundreds of thousands in stock to buy a random OOS rental that you would most likely just lose money on makes zero sense.

good luck

@Mario Gonzalez  I started with house hack in PA, and told that story in Bigger Pockets Podcast #82.  I bought a 3 br ranch house that was 17 years old at an auction from the state.  I rented out 1 or 2 bedrooms largely to people who worked at the same place as me.  Most of the time both extra bedrooms were rented and that covered my entire mortgage as well as 2/3 of the utilities.  They were rented on verbal leases with no long term commitment, but there was always a demand for rooms.  Some of the people stayed long term more than a couple of years.

Then the second property I bought was a 3 unit apartment building which also led to buying the 2 unit next door.

One other strategy you might use is to buy real estate within your Roth IRA or your Roth 401K and then all profit from rents and capital gains would be tax free.

Tough love. I'm not a fan of your strategy.   Take some money out and do it right.

BTW, please don't focus on a $50K house.  You will probably have bought in the worst part of town and your experience will be a nightmare.

What is your aversion to selling off some of the VTSAX and using it to invest in real estate? That is the easiest and simplest way to get going.  If you are willing to buy out of state, you should only need to liquidate a small portion.

I'm not afraid of debt, and have tons of mortgage debt.  Taking out a margin loan on a brokerage account is not what I would consider to be prudent debt, because in a down market, the brokerage can force you to liquidate at the worst possible time.

 If you can work remote and find your local market challenging to invest in with your budget and goals consider moving to a market that will produce the results you want. 

Mario, anywhere where the taxes are $14,000 a year does not sound like a rental market. Although there are many places around that rent for higher prices I limit myself to those $2,500 or less per month. Those are not with the taxes that you're talking about. Generally they're $8,000 or less. These are just better rental markets. It's also more reasonable if for some reason the tenant is not paying. Ideally I buy around $250,000 with an after repair value of around $325,000. At this time it's harder to find a deal like that but I can find something close to it. Then I refinance and do it again. I barely even think about the interest rate. It's just one factor. In this time of rising interest rates the current rates are going to look pretty good next year. Think of it as a hedge against inflation for all that capital you've saved. Good luck.