All Forum Posts by: Paige Laughton

My husband and I are starting work with a property management company to rent out our first property (was our first home that we just moved out of). Based on all the research we've done, they seem like a great company, and we're in talks to officially sign the contract. However, we found they have a standard lease agreement for tenants that we cannot modify due to them keeping it standard for their volume of properties. We read their standard lease agreement and are satisfied with it, but we're concerned in case we want to make any changes in the future. But I'm also not sure how common this is.

Do property management companies typically not do custom leases? Are there any cons we might not be thinking of for having a fixed standard agreement?

My husband and I currently live in a suburb of Austin, TX. We bought a new house to move into in December 2020. We planned on remodeling the house (it was extremely dated), moving in when the remodeling was done in the spring, and selling our suburban house. Long story short, we had some issues with the remodel, we're still not moved in, but we're confident now we will be moved in October.

The fortunate part of this is that during these 9 months, the property values of both of our houses have skyrocketed. Our suburban house, appraised last year at $230,000, now has a Zillow estimate of $372,000. Our Austin house, which we bought for $410,000 in December with 20% down now has a Zillow estimate of $544,000. I know Zillow estimates can be misleading, but I don't think these are far off. We have seen comps listed for similar prices and they do not last the weekend.

While waiting to move into our new house, we've done a lot of research into renting and real estate investing. We've decided to keep our suburban house and rent it out with a property management company (will have a monthly cashflow of about $100-$200). Once we're finally moved in and have a tenant at our suburban house, we want to use our cash and equity to invest in another rental property. We also need to pay off a high-interest loan we used for the remodel that we were originally going to pay off with the sale of our suburban house. We're having trouble figuring out how to best leverage our assets, and where to get started with our first investment purchase.

So once we're moved into our new house and rent out our old one, here's where we'll be at when we're looking to invest in another property:

• Austin house equity (where we will live): $180,000 ($544,000 value - $364,000 owed)
• Suburban rental house equity: $178,000 ($372,000 value - $194,000 owed)
• Suburban rental house cashflow (after prop management, capex, etc.): $100/mo
• Remaining personal loan for home improvement: -$50,000 (8.4% interest, needs to be paid off ASAP)
• Cash to invest to start: $0 (all cash has gone toward the high-interest loan
• Future salary income available for real estate: ~$500/mo

We want to start with one additional property and build our portfolio with more properties over time. We're not quite sure if we want to do single-family or multi-family, but we're leaning toward multi-family for the higher return. Because of the high prices in Austin, we're looking at more remote properties. We have an eye on the Minneapolis, MN area because we grew up there and are familiar with it. We are looking for turnkey houses at the moment to get us started, but aren't opposed to BRRRR in the future.

Questions we're wondering:

• What's the best way to leverage our equity to pay off our loan and invest in another property? We're debating between a HELOC and a cash-out refinance on both houses. Seems like a HELOC on both would be a good choice, but I'm concerned about getting over-leveraged.
• Any other thoughts or ideas about our situation and early research that could help us out?

Thanks!

My husband and I currently live in a suburb of Austin, TX. We bought a new house to move into in December 2020. We planned on remodeling the house (it was extremely dated), moving in when the remodeling was done in the spring, and selling our suburban house. Long story short, we had some issues with the remodel, we're still not moved in, but we're confident now we will be moved in October.

The fortunate part of this is that during these 9 months, the property values of both of our houses have skyrocketed. Our suburban house, appraised last year at $230,000, now has a Zillow estimate of $372,000. Our Austin house, which we bought for $410,000 in December with 20% down now has a Zillow estimate of $544,000. I know Zillow estimates can be misleading, but I don't think these are far off. We have seen comps listed for similar prices and they do not last the weekend.

While waiting to move into our new house, we've done a lot of research into renting and real estate investing. We've decided to keep our suburban house and rent it out with a property management company (will have a monthly cashflow of about $100-$200). Once we're finally moved in and have a tenant at our suburban house, we want to use our cash and equity to invest in another rental property. We also need to pay off a high-interest loan we used for the remodel that we were originally going to pay off with the sale of our suburban house. We're having trouble figuring out how to best leverage our assets, and where to get started with our first investment purchase.

So once we're moved into our new house and rent out our old one, here's where we'll be at when we're looking to invest in another property:

• - Austin house equity (where we will live): $180,000 ($544,000 value - $364,000 owed)
• - Suburban rental house equity: $178,000 ($372,000 value - $194,000 owed)
• - Suburban rental house cashflow (after prop management, capex, etc.): $100/mo
• - Remaining personal loan for home improvement: -$50,000 (8.4% interest, needs to be paid off ASAP)
• - Cash to invest to start: $0 (all cash has gone toward the high-interest loan
• - Future salary income available for real estate: ~$500/mo

We want to start with one additional property and build our portfolio with more properties over time. We're not quite sure if we want to do single-family or multi-family, but we're leaning toward multi-family for the higher return. Because of the high prices in Austin, we're looking at more remote properties. We have an eye on the Minneapolis, MN area because we grew up there and are familiar with it. We are looking for turnkey houses at the moment to get us started, but aren't opposed to BRRRR in the future.

Questions we're wondering:

• - What's the best way to leverage our equity to pay off our loan and invest in another property? We're debating between a HELOC and a cash-out refinance on both houses. Seems like a HELOC on both would be a good choice, but I'm concerned about getting over-leveraged.
• - Any other thoughts or ideas about our situation and early research that could help us out?

Thanks!