All Forum Posts by: Nathan Scarborough

Thanks everybody! 

@Douglas Skipworth that's good to hear =)  I'm assuming all the properties worth investing in that I see now are going to be gone by the time I've talked to lenders, realtors, and am ready to move, but I like running through examples to get a sense of what's reasonable

@Stanley E.- I'm tempted to ask the folks I'm currently a tenant with if they'd manage any property I get.  I live in an owner-occupied duplex now as a tenant, and the owner uses a management company for tenant screening and rent payments, as well as contractors for maintenance. I'm sure it's more complicated than it looks, but as far as I can tell she mostly makes decisions and just drops by every now and then to let us know when she's out of pocket on exotic vacations, haha. 

@Account Closed thanks =) 

Hey there everyone, I'm 28 and getting tired of paying other people's mortgages for them! I'm seriously considering buying my first home when my current lease is up this fall, and from what various calculators are telling me I can afford about $100k worth of house. 

That said, duplexes seem to make a heck of a lot more sense than single family homes, and I'd like to leverage first time home buying and owner/occupancy into something I can pay off relatively quickly and turn into income before moving on.

Is it reasonable to think paying off my mortgage is possible in multi-family housing in 10-15 years?  I've been browsing zillow at work tonight and saw a triplex at $85k with two units rented out for $840 a month in gross income...if I put the $500/month I'm currently paying in rent on top of that, it looks too good to be true.  I'm skeptical as hell of most investment literature, but on paper this looks like it would be difficult not to at very least break even while building equity, and possibly a way to break into serious investing. I've never fantasized about being a landlord or anything, but at the risk of sounding ignorant, why isn't this absurdly popular? 

Is this a good idea? Have you done it yourself? What should I be thinking about as I move forward?