All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

the Refinanced amount would be the higher amount.

Location is the number one thing you need to look at as an investment property. If the schools lose their rankings, become average, and you're in a bad location, you're in trouble. Inversely if you're in a great location and the schools improve due to increasing tax base or better administration, then you win.

Also, what are the demographics of people who live in good location? I have plenty of friends and clients that live in terrible school districts but their kids are go to private schools.

@Daria B. Hope this helps!

The appraisal is relevant to the property in it's current condition and does tell you what the property could be worth with renovations. In my example, my house was a foreclosure that had not been updated since the 80's, but other homes in the area were fixed up and selling for 150-160. By renovating the property, and brining that value in line with other updated homes, I was able to build in the equity.

A bank will let you refinance after a party has been on title for 6 months. 

What ends up happening is that rather than selling the house to someone else and having the equity provided to me as cash, I "sell" it to myself and use the equity as the down payment for the new loan. This allows me to regain the cash I put into the property originally and keep the property in my portfolio. 

I think you're being a little to smart on the numbers. as Josh mentioned indirectly, the most important thing is to find out how far you can make your money bounce and your ROI.

Personal example, I bought a house for 100k, dropped 15k in renovations, and did a cash out refinance of 150k. After closing costs were rolled in I had about 30k in equity and it cost me 5k for the refinance.

so: equity (30k)/ cost (5k) : 600% ROI.

Now I can take my original 110k, add in the cash flow from this property, and buy another house. Long story short, find out which option gives you the most immediate cash on hand to add to your portfolio.

Are you looking for short or long term goals? 

Short Term: Team up as a financier with a pro from your local REIA and flip a house: learn their steps and what they have done wrong in the past.

Long Term:  House hack; buy a house to live in, do the work yourself and build a rental portfolio. it takes a ton of effort but learning how much and how long for a job to complete will help down the line.

*Side note, I bought my first house at 22 with little construction experience: if you're willing to live in a construction zone and spend nights and weekends working on the property, the information is invaluable for later projects.

I live in Austin Texas, and Forbes just ranked us as the #1 investment city in the U.S. (One one of the many polls out there,so take of that as you will) but our average home price is about $275,000 and only going up as long as the tech sector is strong. My suggestion is find a major city with a price point you can maintain and then start narrowing the list from there. I have friends that are making a killing in Flint Michigan doing buy and hold: there are deals anywhere.

Before quitting your job realize that by living off the income of the multi family properties, you will be consuming your income rather than re-investing. This slows your long term growth. Perhaps build a more sustainable portfolio then go full time into real estate?

An FHA loan will allow you to buy a 1-4 family property and use part of the expected rents to offset your debt to income ratio. You have financing available for either option.

If you are looking for appreciation and less risk, then go with a single family home (like I did.) I'm in Austin Texas where our appreciation is ridiculous: as in my 5 properties have all doubled in value from when I bought them a few years ago.

If you want more immediate cash flow and are fine taking on the task of being a landlord of adjacent units, then go with the multi-unit. 

Either way, do your homework and make sure that the property is undervalued when you buy. They are all different paths to the same goal.

Colleague chat me if you have other questions.

My suggestion is Realtor because you can always take classes on appraisal techniques and, for the most part, appraisers gain a smaller skill set since they don't have to do marketing and sales. However, if you get with an appraisal company then you would have a more immediate income source. (It took me 6 months to close my first sale)

I live and invest in Austin and looked into the San Antonio market but decided to stay local.  SA is a strange market in that while it has a downtown proper, there is not the development and central job market you would expect with a city of that size. NE corridor has a lot of potential with the growth between Austin, NW has the nicer and more expensive areas, W and SW have good growth from the shale oil fields. South and SE are the lower priced homes, but also higher risk. Stay near some of the many military facilities and you should do fine. Look at Networth Realty and New West realty as they are the big players in wholesaling.