All Forum Posts by: Rei Reid

Considering investing in St. Louis market, any market news / trends to be aware of?  Or areas to focus on or avoid?

 @James Martin can you share with me too?

@Michael Plaks

Yes, agreed.

My goals are to build a REI portfolio that creates enough passive income that our day jobs become an option.

Just trying to figure out if it’s better to sell and use the gains for the downpayment or refi and use the loan for the downpayment.

Selling gives me an opportunity to buy a house in our current market and a long distance investment elsewhere in a lower value market.

Using the refi cash out gives me an opportunity to buy in our current market and start my portfolio with my first rental - at a higher profit per month than the lower value market.

Just weighing the options.

@Michael Plaks

Thank you for your response. Yes, it did appreciate by almost 200k or nearly double what I bought it for.

Our market is hot right now for selling; but I was thinking of holding it to keep as a rental and using the equity to purchase another home.

Thank you for pointing out the 3 year window.

@Basit Siddiqi

So would you say the 121 exclusion now is better to take advantage of than the longer term tax savings and residual income of having it as an investment property?

I was considering taking a cash out refi on it then using that money to do the down payment on another property.

I’ve been hearing some rental nightmares about renters taking advantage of the current rent moratorium in some markets. If finding new renters during this time period, anything additional you would recommend asking for than the normal tenant screening process?

Outside of the below, anything else you’d recommend checking:

- Credit Score

- Lines of Credit

- Bankruptcies

- Collections

- Public Records

- Employers on File

- Criminal Records

- Evictions

I currently live in a condo that we plan to rent out instead of sell when moving into a home. I’ve owned it since 2009.

I think there’s about 12k of work to do to get it rental ready - bathrooms, new appliances, garage door repair, minor paint, new carpet. I’d like to write off as much of it as I can, ideally all of it.

Is there a time limit between when I can start that work and count it as rental repairs/supplies and when I rent it out to make it deductible? Do I need to have an LLC in order to do so?

@Joshua Elliott I’m in the LA area (Santa Clarita Valley) but also new to real estate investing. Also interested in networking and learning all that I can.

Would you recommend using a property manager to manage section 8 properties?

Looking at a section 8 property that already has long term tenants in place (1 for 15 years, 1 for 5 years). Sounds like it’s pretty much covered through the government so seems I could save on PM costs. Thoughts?

Anything else we should consider when looking at Section 8 properties?

New to the mindset and eager to begin developing my real estate portfolio with the intention of having income from rentals and buy a stable home to live in while kids go through high school.

Current situation is I have 230k equity in our condo in Southern California. The housing market where we live (and where the kids’ school is) is 650-850k. Current rental value for the condo is 2600/mo; but would require some work to get rental ready. Considered refi allows me to pull out around 125k.

Considering selling so I can do a down payment on a single family and still have money left over to do a 1-2 multi tenant rental properties. One market being considered is Tucson.

That’s a lot, I know. But just getting started and want to make sure I’m looking at the big picture. Any insight would be appreciated.