All Forum Posts by: Pedro Torres

Is Baton Rogue a good market to get into? I did a quick search on the prices/condition of houses and they seem very in my price range. 

I've noticed a lot of properties with flood damage. Is it worth the risk? 

@Samantha Miller - A year isn't so bad in the grand scheme of life though. I'm looking at about a year to be able to purchase my first investment property (I don't count my current one, although it does have 50k of equity currently. I just don't have the credit score to tap into it yet. 

I could rent out 2 of my 3 rooms but 1 of them I've turned into a music studio. I tend to practice/play randomly throughout the day and night.  That wouldn't be acceptable with roommates. 

I'm a pretty impatient person so I want to get my first investment property ASAP. unfortunately I live in Las Vegas and investing here is expensive. One goal is to find a partner on the east near Milwaukee or Chicago where I would fund the down payment and they would provide the credit & be local to do the rehab. I can come up with 6k-10k within 3-4 months but that's usually only enough for down payments and not any rehab. 

I've heard about partnerships and building teams but not sure how I can find someone to trust from across the states. 

@Samantha Miller Well I meant that if I refinance and then rent the entire house out then I wouldn't have a place to live. So It's hard for me to get a refinance loan and a conventional loan for my future house. 

So I decided that I will just stay in this house and build up the equity, then use that to fund my next purchase with a HELOC.

So there's always a plus side, you will be building equity (or already have some) while you live in the house. Did you get a good deal on your house? 

I'm in a similar position with my current house. I'm not allowed to rent it out because I used a VA loan. The issue comes because I want to use a property management company which might throw a flag up and I don't want to get in trouble.

My best solution is to either keep living here or refinance my loan into a conventional one then rent it out. (I'd have to move of course) 

Is it possible for you to walk away from closing? I'm not sure how far along everything is for you. It might be better to just stay where you currently are and save up money to get a conventional or FHA loan, whichever one doesn't have the rental restrictions. Yeah the rates might be higher but it's worth it. I'd rather have a 5% rate while renting out rooms than a 3% without it. I wouldn't worry about the rate if you ran the numbers on the ROI. (as long as they aren't astronomical of a difference).

Hello everyone, This is my first post after joining this site. Currently I don't own any properties (besides the one I live in) and I'm looking to get my first deal. I do currently have 50k in home equity which I plan to use for down payments and some repairs on my first property

My question is, is it profitable to purchase commercial real estate to be used as a rental property in smaller towns? The town is a 33 minute drive from downtown Chicago. 

This is what I'm looking at:

https://chicago.craigslist.org/sox/reo/d/mixed-use...

Additional pictures of inside: 

http://www.inexpensiveproperties.com/index.php?act...

What I like about this property:

is that it has seller financing which could get me in the game sooner (without using my personal credit). 

In addition, it has the possibility to rent out to 4 different tenants. 2 residential upstairs and 2 commercial downstairs. 

The annual taxes seem low. 

What I don't like about the property:

Location (possibly, but that's why I'm coming to everyone on the forum for advice)

Possible costly repairs to fix the upstairs units, the bones look good from the pictures but I understand that it would need an inspection from a professional to assess things like the roof, electrical, plumbing, etc. 

Any advice is appreciated.