All Forum Posts by: Pawel Cwierz

Hi Taylor. First of all, I agree with Anthony, if this is your first house hack, go ahead and do it. We are doing 203k loan now and it has a lot of components and extra costs but it's a good option for financing renovation. We work with Premier Properties, Marc Santos and Tatiana Pimentel, they are great, knowledgeable and on top of everything. They are located in Lincoln, RI.

We are doing exactly what you are. 203k loan, duplex, live in one unit. We are under contract but it wasn't easy to find, we've sent few offers on different properties with no luck but one day we received an email from our realtor that one gentleman is selling 3 duplexes and luckily our offer was accepted. We are paying more than we'd like to but it'll work out in a long run. Just the reality of today's market. Be patient and maybe adjust your budget a little bit.

*We are in Rhode Island.

@Steve Vaughan I’m glad you shared this story and just proved that what most of us learn here is for a good reason.

I was laid off two years ago, my wife was laid off almost a year ago (same company btw). We had a 7 months old baby at the time.

Our RE investments don’t cover our expenses 100% yet but reduce them enough that we were pretty safe.

Today my wife has amazing new job and I’m a stay at home dad, managing our rentals and enjoying the time with our toddler (which is much more energy consuming than rentals:).

@Goran Kocev if you own both units, deal with this asap. We just had a turnover and we’ve been cleaning basement floor for the last 3 days. We made a mistake and allowed cats, the urine smell is unbearable. If you let it go, it will get much worse.

Exact scenario that me and my wife experienced few years ago. You've got great people sharing their advices already so I will just add: screen your tenants, read the current lease and renew it if something isn't right. Treat it like a business, keep the receipts for maintenance, repairs etc but also treat your tenants well and enjoy being a landlord. 

Me and my wife talked to Morris Invest a year ago. The woman who called us wasn’t very professional, gave us a lot of vague answers, said it’s a cash only deal and we should get the money from our 401k.

When I asked about their bad online reviews, she blamed the PM company Oceanpointe.

Glad I listened to my wife’s gut feelings and we didn’t proceed.

I think I got myself into the analysis paralysis state. Fear of market turning, doing a bad deal and losing money keeps me from moving forward. The funny thing is, when I bought my first two properties I barely analyzed them. Mainly because I didn’t know what I was doing. Both cash flowing since day one.

I guess the more I educated myself the more fearful I became. Stupid huh?

I didn't read all comments above and maybe you have shared more details about the property that would hold you from buying but I will just say this, me and my wife purchased a very similar property almost 2 years ago (FHA loan, 10% down). The numbers were not the best but they were not the worst either. We had the nightmare tenant but now we have a great one. It's a learning process and I would advise you to pursue it. Obviously there are many important factors to be considered in every case but you know it already :) Good luck!