All Forum Posts by: Nathan Hall

@Allen C Herring at this stage in your life, personally, I'd be looking for a multi-unit close to turnkey and around market value. If you can do better than that, great. If not, you'll have 1-3 other units paying down a significant amount of your mortgage regardless. The remainder, ideally, would be paid from your BAH. You're young and your out of pocket expenses will be manageable due to how the VA loan works. Buy what your BAH can afford, monthly payment-wise.

Keep in mind that the VA loan is intended to fulfill servicemembers' desire to attain the American dream of owning a home. The fact that you don't need a down payment just happens to make it a really powerful investment tool, as the traditional 25% down payment for an investment property is one of the more significant barriers to entry for RE investing. In your shoes, determine what your out of pocket each month would be. Do BAH and rents cover it? If not, are you close? How does it compare with what you'd be paying to rent a similar space?

In my humble opinion, you should ideally be using the VA loan at every duty station, sticking around for two years, refinancing, then PCSing and repeating. I wish I had done that when I was in. Now I'm playing catch up!

Also, get in the habit of using a property manager. You could do it yourself, but you should be budgeting for a manager regardless and right now, your work is too important to be taking calls about plumbing or noise complaints or whatever, plus you'll be changing duty stations so will need one regardless at some point. Pay the 10% of rents per month and don't even tell the tenants that you're the owner, let the manager deal with it.

Just my two cents.

@Dennis M. I haven't looked into this enough, but I'd love to hear your thoughts sometime if you'd care to expound. I'm intrigued by the power of unsecured debt now lol

$7500 for what appears to be ~0.5 acre fenced lot, two homes, one listed as rent-ready and one needing some obvious work just from looking at the outside during a walk-by today.

Just based on perceived square footage of the smaller "rent ready" unit, I estimate that I could get it rented fairly quickly for anywhere from 600-750 per month, depending on the interior and based on what I've gotten for other units in the area. The larger unit would go closer to $1200 a month probably, if I could get it rehabbed (~2000 sq ft).

This is a C-D class property at the moment but with some TLC could be very cute, and based on the price it seems immediately flippable for 20-30k, with the seller still getting plenty of value.

What am I missing? I'm meeting the wholesaler early next week to check out the interiors but barring something cataclysmic, I'm leaning towards pulling the trigger. What are some pitfalls that I might be missing? I've never bought from wholesale before.

Thanks for reading, and I appreciate any thoughtful replies.

@Hai Loc lol

@CJ M. That's super impressive, and congrats on your success! I haven't had any such ballsy move yet with REI. My gutsiest move was refusing to sell my first house when I wanted to move, and then doubling down when I realized the potential of the area and buying yet another property.

I love to read success stories like yours. Thanks for posting!

Also I'd love to pick your brain at some point about brrrr, specifically the refinancing portion.

@Karl McGarvey you spoke about pensions, so I assume both you and your wife have full time jobs for an employer. If by pensions you mean 401ks, you may be eligible for a up to two 401k loans per account, with a maximum of about 50% of your investment account, with a payback schedule amortized at a competitive rate for up to five years and deducted prepaid from your paycheck. Also, all the interest is paid back to yourself, as your future self is loaning the money to yourself. So, not knowing your ages or employers or plans, that may be something you'd want to investigate further if you're looking for more initial cash outlay for down payments and such. I, personally, have had (so far) great success with it, but full disclosure is that I've never once thought that my 401k was a real retirement vehicle since I joined the "real" workforce in 2008 and immediately saw all my new colleagues' savings tank.

@Jason D. How are you going to force appreciation on a residence? I've been led to believe that forcing appreciation is reserved for commercial Magi.

@Jonathan Hulen congrats, hope you get it! We picked up our first three unit last month.

@Julio Cabrera I think that at the end of the day, for all of us it's money/funds. It's really just a placeholder for time and value, so figuring out where you can make more by spending less (or spending others') is the simplest way of looking at it.

@Roy N. Electronic codes let everyone who has one, make another for someone else.