All Forum Posts by: Steffan Daus

I would say the area is fairly shady (referring to the amount of sunlight,  not the quality of people that live there). I could grow grass, my only apprehension is the upkeep, mainly water. grass needs water to grow, while personally I like a nice clean lawn, I don't think I could count on tenants to keep it watered. I'm no stranger to doing yard work myself, I used to own and operate a small yard helper business in college. 

My budget is not huge but I can do a lot with a little considering my skills. 

My biggest concern is that garden thing in the back yard. Back yard is not big and is cramped by this garden. It is also tiered going down hill. Do you think it worth the dogging to flatten out out? 

I'm about to purchase my first home period, the plan is to live in it for a year then start renting it out (I got USDA Financing, hence the occupancy thing). The question I have right now is, what should I do with the landscaping? 

The current residents had a big herb garden in the back and it has a fairly smoth down hill incline as well. The front lawn is covered in weeds and looks like it was never treated with seed or fertilizer. The front flower beds have some standard bushes in them, or at least they would be standard if they did not have those wire Christmas reindeer planted in the middle of them (bush and ornament are now one). Other than that it is in a state of disrepair. What should I do with this and how should I handle it's future upkeep?

I am trying to find information on the rules regarding occupancy for USDA Loans and would like to hear from anyone who has used one in the past. My concern at the moment is that I cannot find anything on the USDA site that actually says you only need to live there one year before you can rent it out. Everything I have read on the loan app, and on the USDA site it must owner occupied. Can anyone explain why this one year rule that I find quite often on this site?

Hello everyone,

I am working on getting my first deal under belt. This first deal will be done using a USDA Loan on a 3/2 single family which I will have to live in for a year (according to the loan). During that year I want to rent out the other two rooms. I have had a long standing agreement with a good friend to rent a room out to him when the time comes. He does have a stable job, pretty good credit, no criminal convictions (that I know of), and is generally a honorable person (as in I lent him money in the past and it was always paid back with interest). So I have no qualms what so ever renting to him, but he also knows that I would only do so under the conditions of a lease.

So my question is, what does that type of lease look like? What types of provisions should I include in it? Also would a house rules list be wise to work with him on and include as a part of the lease?

Some more technical questions:

• Do you include provisions for added utility costs if he gets a girlfriend?
• Are there any sorts of well known traps I should protect against (myself or him)?
• Would you do this on a month to month basis or would you do a year contract?

Any wisdom you have to share would be greatly appreciated.

I first posted in this forum a little over a year ago. With high ambition I was semi determined to try something. Sadly though I let the intimidation of getting off the ground get to me and I fizzled out fairly fast. I had also chosen a path that was not well suited to my strengths.

I am back again with new resolve, a healthier outlook on life, and most importantly a deal (hopefully). I decided that it makes no sense to pursue a goal via an intermediary, just go for the goal. I wanted to wholesale my way into buy and hold, I realize now that wont work for me. Instead I am going feet first into buy and hold with maybe a wholesale deal or two on the side as run from a deal flow that finds buy and holds. 

This past weekend I put my first property under contract and am starting the due diligence process. Gonna start getting that on the job experience by house hacking a bit by having roommates to pay my mortgage. After a year I'm moving out and transitioning it into a full rental. Finger crossed that everything goes well.

The last thing I have learned is that we need to be honest with ourselves and keep track of the things we want. I don't have the responsibilities of most people. I am 24, I graduated college with no debt, I have a decent a job, and I am single. Right now I want to get better at my passion, which is game. I recently read 7 habits of highly effective people and want to adopt many of the ideas it presents to simultaneously get better at my game and invest in real estate. 

These goals are lofty but I think I have the thing I was missing before when I first started and now I am ready to roll.

My self actualization speech out of the way, a bit about my business. I am living and operating in Charlotte, North Carolina. I did get my real estate license mostly out of curiosity, not sure how I am going to use it though. I plan to focus on the northern part of Charlotte, mainly Huntersville, Cornelius, Denver, and Mt. Holly. I already had made an offer on a different house, later figured the numbers wouldn't work. Then upon a follow up analysis with my dad we realized I was wrong and that it would work, but it was too late it was gone. I was proud of myself for being able to walk away in the face of the numbers I had at the time I made that decision, I regret that my numbers were not accurate enough to realize that it was actually a good deal though.

TL;DR: I was here before, I couldn't get started. Now armed with a fresh perspective I proceed once again into the fray.

Thanks for your reply @Marc Jolicoeur.

The interest rate is 3.5%, and the lender is including everything in that grouping in the monthly payment. I usually end up about $20 short of what they total which is why I was curious if there was something I was missing regarding USDA Loans.

Also yeah I ended up way overestimating the insurance cost too. I spoke with another investor who owns a townhome and he agreed with you that $170 a year is closer to the mark.

That looked a lot cleaner in preview, here you go:

I just got off the phone with my Realtor on this home, and it was put under contract because I initially thought I could not make it work out. I was talking it over with my dad @Alex Daus prior to that where we trying to find the error in my numbers.

Not wanting all the work we put into the numbers to go to waste, I would like to post my analysis anyways and get some feedback on what you guys think.

Some Background: I have pre-qualification for a USDA 0 down loan and planed to use that to purchase. The townhouse itself is a 3 bedroom 2.5 bath that was in decent shape. The plan was to live in it for a year with a roommate to keep costs down, then transition to a full blown rental in a year (per the conditions on USDA loans). We were having some trouble getting the Loan payment to sync with the lender's, was wondering if you could find the difference as well.

@Nasar Elarabi Thanks, I will check it out.

@Britt M. And @Sharad M. Thank you for pointing me in the right direction.

Can someone who has done a double closing tell me what happens in this scenario. Do I just have the seller fill out a purchase and sale agreement with me as the buyer; then I have the buyer fill out another purchase and sale agreement with me as the seller. The two being identical with the exception of the names and price. Does that sound right or did I miss something?

I am finally getting ready to make my first steps into a larger world. I am tired of sitting on my hands doing nothing. So I am gathering the list bits of information I need so that I can start my marketing campaign. But, first I need to get a contract put together.

I have not had too much luck finding an example of one, but I have also found a lot of BPers saying that you need to get one from an RE attorney. Is that only way to get one? What questions should I ask/expect to answer? Also about how much do think it will cost me to get them setup?

I plan to work in the Huntersville, NC area (the area I like and know best, northern Charlotte) if that was something you wanted to know.