All Forum Posts by: Cuong Le

I am also looking for a good real estate CPA that will help us reduce any tax liabilities and not someone who just processes our taxes for us. Please PM me if you have someone you trust and can vouch for. Thanks.

Welcome @Veena R. to BP and glad you signed up. Be sure to listen to the podcasts (my favorite are #33 and 37). Be sure to write down your "why" since this will help pull you through any moments of doubt.

Stay connected, engaged and ask lots of questions. If you see a post that you find helpful, be sure to click on the vote button. Let us know if we can help in anyway. We'll see you around!

@Chris C. , let us know what you ended up deciding to do for your next step and how it turns out ok?

Sarah,

Due your due diligence on the property. When people say turn key, I always verify if this is truly the case. It maybe good for a few years and then suddenly your water heater goes out, this is your money out the window. If you know the water heater only has a few years of life left, you can roll it into your loan (if it's within your lender's Loan to Value).

Are you going for cash flow only? If you're not looking to get any capital gain from this and you're alright with that, then ok. We try to look for at least $10k in unrealized capital gain.

Ask your agent for comps on this to get an idea of the ARV. It's good to know whether you are flipping it or buy/hold. If nothing else, you know what to expect on your purchase loan and how much out of pocket money you will need to bring to the table even with the 25% down payment.

Hi @Sarah Lam . Base on the 50% rule:

Rent ($1300)/2 = $650 - mortgage ($435) = $215 so you should be ok here.

Are you anticipating any upfront repairs? If possible, better to fix/replace the major items (AC, foundation, roof) if need be upfront so you don't have to worry about it as much.

Not really a fan of home warranties and better to save that money as part of the maintenance budget. If you set up your lease agreement right, tenant would pay up to a certain amount before it comes out of your pocket for items that the tenant damaged (ie clogged plumbing, broken windows, etc).

What's the ARV on this property? You can ask an agent to get this for you so you can determine if $105k is a solid offer price.

If ARV is $150k, 70% is $105k but this doesn't take into consideration the profit and rehab.

Hi @Nilay Shah and congrats on your first house. I usually do 8.3% for vacancy which is one month out of the year but you can be conservative and make the math easy by doing 10%.

It's great that all the items are new but a 10% of the rent for maintenance is recommended. Some people put more but it's up to your risk tolerance.

Assuming you will self manage this property, still a good idea to allocate 10-12% for property management. When you blow up and have lots of houses and you want to get a PM, you have some wiggle room to get one and still have positive cash flow.

@David Robertson what you did is the right approach. If you got several contractors that came pretty close, then you wouldn't need a structural engineer but when they are so far apart and you want to do it right, you want to make sure you don't spend too much on foundation if you don't need to.

We did this for one of our rental homes and was able to reduce the numbers of piers on the house so that saved us some money. Having the warranty and the engineer's report will help you flip the house. Keep us updated on how the flip went.

Hi @Charlene Blandon and welcome to BP. New local investor here and I'm with you too in regards to wholesaling. To me, it's easier to rehab and rent but would like to do this eventually. Please keep me updated on your progress. Who knows, if you got great wholesale deals, we can certainly talk. Get engaged, participate and have fun!

Hi @Gina B. and welcome to BP! You came to the right place. Be sure to read biggerpockets.com/ubg and listen to podcast 33 and 37.

Have you written down your "why" yet? This is an important step that will get you through any tough moments. Get engaged, ask questions and have fun! Are you looking for single family homes or more like duplexes, etc?

Hi @Chris C. . Have you looked in hard money or private lenders? These are great ways to save your $20k as emergency fund for your houses while getting more properties.

We used hard money and then refied to conventional so we don't have to put a 20% down payment. We would just pay earnest money, closing costs and anything above and beyond the LTV (loan to value).