All Forum Posts by: Neha Shah

Thanks! Yes, seems like HELOC makes the most sense. Our rental property is a condo in a large multi family unit. We paid all cash for it so there's not mortgage on it. I know HELOC gives you 70% of the equity you have in it. How is this equity calculated for a rental condo? Is there a formula? Or would we need to get it appraised?

Secondly, what's the general timeframe that you should pay the HELOC back? My understanding is that HELOC is only a good idea if you pay it back in a relatively short time frame. Do the steps go like this? Take out HELOC --> Buy property with HELOC as down payment ---> add value through rehab --> rent out -->refi with another HELOC and pay the first HELOC back? Am I understanding this correctly? What if I decide to wait awhile before getting another property? I'll have an outstanding HELOC that's just sitting there?

Thanks in advance - I know, i'm very new to this so just trying to learn!

I'm a Newbie and still learning. Would like to understand more about the refinance in BRRR. We're starting to think about investing in multifamily and I'm wondering what options make sense. We currently have 2 properties, one that we live in and one we rent out. Can you do a cash out refi on a property you paid all cash for?

Property 1: We rent out. Bought at $250k all cash. It's probably worth just under 1m now. This is in a super high growth market and I bet in another 5 years this place will appreciate a ton more.

Property 2: We live there now, but will probably move out in about a year or so. 15yr fixed at 3.15% bought 5 years ago at 650k. Put 70k work into it. Now worth about 1.1-1.2m.

We also have a decent amount of liquid cash in savings, but a lot of that will be going to our new primary residence that we will purchase in about year.

Does BRRR make sense for us? What do we have to think about when doing a cash out refi? Does it make sense to do it on property 1 or 2? Thank you all so much!

We are thinking of buying a long-term primary residence family home (in Lamorinda) but since we aren't in a huge rush and I've been reading a lot on this forum, I'm wondering if there are other options we should look at.

Some context: It's just me and my husband now, but we're planning to have a child in the next 2 years.  We own a 2 bedroom in SF. I work in Oakland. Husband works from home. Long-term, we know we want to raise our family in Lamorinda and when we move out of our current condo, we'll rent it out (which will cover our mortgage). We have the means to buy a Lamordina house we like right now, which would be about $1.5m-2m.  Ideally, by the time we have our first kid, we'd have moved out of SF, but it wouldn't be the worst thing to have an infant here. 

Some questions/options:

1) Is there any benefit of waiting to buy a house? The area isn't particular high growth and I don't see us being able to buy a nicer house if we wait 2-5 years (nor do we necessarily need a nicer house!)

2) Would it make sense to buy a place, fix-up, rent out in another bay area market before buying our long-term home? We could do this while living in SF or at the property (only if it's a safe are that's easy to get to Oakland), but given how much capital is required/how expensive everything is in the bay area, i'm not sure if this is worth it? Is it worth looking into? 

3) Focus on  buying a home with an in-law unit that we can rent out. Also, there are a lot of homes with big backyards where we could possibly build an in-law unit attachment or stand-alone.

4) We would be nervous about buying any properties out of state/area because we don't have experience or the time to invest in really understanding an out of state market. Is it worth considering?

I'd love to hear what you think we should think consider before diving into purchasing an expensive home. Thank you in advance for any advice. 

Thanks all! Would you recommend getting a realtor given that we are already familiar with the area and live close by? In the past my husband has been able to use the "not having a realtor" to his advantage when buying properties before, but just wondering what people think. 

Totally makes sense. Just the whole IPO craze has gotten me really nervous  and I don't want to get priced out if we wait a year. so thinking about buying now since it seems like the market has "cooled" a bit (just from my tracking...houses staying on the market for longer time, not going for much over listing...which was not the case 6+ months ago)

Thank you! You're right, I meant 10k, not 10m. 

We actually don't work in SF. I work in Oakland (right off bart 3 days a week and 2 days a week from home) and husband works exclusively from home. Does it make sense to buy now or wait? or is it impossible to predict? 

Hi All -

New to the BiggerPockets forum. We have a condo in SF but are looking to move to the Lamorinda area of the east bay anywhere from now to in the next couple years as we start a family. We would rent out our condo when we move. Our condo is exempt from rent control rules and is higher-end. We also have another rental unit in the south bay. We won't be selling either of these condos anytime soon. 

With 5 IPOs in SF this year and a projected 10m new millionaires in SF, we're wondering if it makes sense to buy a house now since the market is potentially "cool."  I know it'll definitely impact the city itself, but not sure what the impact will be like in the Lamorinda area. Anyone familiar with the east bay that may have insight? Wondering if the bay area will be largely protected from any normal recession cycle because of these IPOs. Should we buy now? Wait?  Totally understand that Lamorinda isn't a high-growth area in terms of a good investment, this is more about quality of life and where want to raise our kids. Just trying to time it right with the current market dynamics.

Thank you!