All Forum Posts by: Nate Williams

I found the worst house on the best block in a local historic neighborhood. Lots of old houses valuing over 500k and up to 1M (local house price in my market is 167k). I eventually tracked down the lady who owns it, gave her a call, and we had a friendly conversation about her house and real estate deals of her past. She said that she knows that house is worth 300-400k (and she's right), but she told me to bring her a price that would work for me, and she would be willing to owner finance if we agreed on a price-she has done owner financing for other buys in past years. The house needs about 50k worth of work which I could myself. 100k if I were to sub it out.

My question is, how do I navigate this? I know little about owner financing, and to be honest, if I take on a 300k house payment (or even 250k for that matter), I would struggle to make the payment if I had a prolonged vacancy due to my current W2 income. 

My current options: rent out the current 4 bed 2 bath house that I own and live in so I could move into the 300k house and remodel while I live in it. Or I could buy the 300k house, stay in the house I'm in, get the 300k house remodeled asap and get a renter in asap. I have 35k in the bank currently, so I also could simply be over my head going for a deal this expensive. It is just a once in a lifetime find in a such an expensive neighborhood.

Thank you for the reply, Jay. The information on the equity is very helpful and informative! I have not used an FHA loan yet. Would that be a viable option?

A Dothan meet up sounds great!

Hello! My name is Nate, and I’m on my 3rd deal as of now. However, we (wife and two kids) own this 3rd deal and want to keep it as our permanent home. We have lived in our other two deals, made money on both, but I have no idea how to do another deal safely without living in it. We have 40k in cash and 100k equity in our current residence, but we don’t want a larger house payment than what we have already. How do we stay in the real estate game while minimizing our risks?

Investment Info:

Single-family residence fix & flip investment in Pinckard.

Purchase price: $65,000
Cash invested: $30,000
Sale price: $195,000

Live in flip. Did most of the work ourselves.

Investment Info:

Single-family residence fix & flip investment.

Purchase price: $65,000
Cash invested: $30,000
Sale price: $195,000

Live in flip. Did most of the work ourselves.

My wife and I bought our first property in 2021 for 65k. We spent 30k of our own money rehabbing, lived in the property for 3 years, did most of the work ourselves, and sold last summer for 195k. Obviously, we want to do that again.

My kicker is that we now have a toddler and another kid on the way. We bought a foreclosure and are living in it currently and are making it our forever home due to the location. We are on my income only now due to the kids, and have little to invest at the end of the month. 

We have 40k in the bank and 100k equity in our current house (but we can't afford a larger payment on our current residence). We could make a decent down payment with the 40k, but due to us having little money left over at the end of the month, I'm worried about buying another deal with minimal cash left over after the down payment and not having two mortgages. I'd love to move into another fixer upper for two years so we could flip tax free or live in for long enough to use our FHA loan. However, my wife loves our current house and just isn't down with living in another fixer upper with two small kids (I still have hope of convincing her though!).

How do we get back in the game while minimizing our risks on one income and with two kids?