All Forum Posts by: Steven Torrez

@Account Closed

https://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/The-Best-Real-Estate-Books-Ever.pdf

check this out

Welcome to bigger pockets!

Being able to save that much money a year is awesome and will sure come to good use when buying your first house. Have you considered house hacking? Sounds like a great route considering you want to own rental property. Also, have you gotten a preapproval for a home loan? Once you have that it'll help you narrow down your criteria.

I am in a similar situation as well.

Good luck @Justin Turner

My wife and I were looking for a bigger place to stay while she was in college. As our one bedroom apartment just didn't have the room we'd like. So we went to our local property management company and grabbed a list of rentals they had available. After a couple hours of driving around the different neighborhoods we found a place that looked exactly like we wanted. A quick trip and a signature later we had the keys to look inside.

When we opened the door the musty carpet smell hit our noses immediately. I could tell that the carpets had been steam cleaned recently. As we walked in the doorway and looked around every wall in the living room, kitchen, (common areas) were painted a different color. It was hideous. But even then I was trying to keep an open mind. My wife and I started down the hall to see what the rest of the house looked like when I noticed the carpet. About an inch from the wall on both sides throughout the majority of the house the carpet was green, moldy green. It was easy to tell that was the same distance the steam cleaner wasn't able to get close enough to clean.

Even though there were three bedrooms, they were all tiny. Master bedroom included. A queen bed would only fit if you didn't have any furniture in there and you only needed a foot or two around the edges on all sides.

Anyway, the property owner obviously didn't look at the property before the PM put it back up for rent.

Spend the money and get matching paint, don't cheap out and buy whatever paint rejects the local hardware store has. (and make sure your handman knows this too) And most importantly, don't leave any mold behind.

He would have saved a considerable amount of money in vacancy had he not cheaped out, and kept tabs on how his property was being managed.

Just some thoughts I had

Hello,

I have a 401k with 30k in it. I can take a loan out from it for 15k for 5-10 years. The interest rate is 3.5% which gets paid back into my account. So the question is, should I take out the loan on my 401K to help with the down payment on my first house so I can potentially avoid the PMI. Seems the PMI would be as much as my 401k loan payment.

Also, do you think that you can earn better returns on your money in buy and hold deals than the same amount of money in your 401k would earn you?

Im not saying I want to stop my 401k, just that I want to use it for my first house to get the ball rolling so to speak. I'd still be investing in my 401k as I don't want all my eggs in the real estate basket.

Hello,

What costs are involved in Refi? Aside from realtor fees, are there any closing costs savings when doing a Refi vs the initial purchase.

Have you considered house hacking? Buy a duplex and rent out the other side. That way you could use a FHA loan, with less than 20% down.

Thank you @Allison Karrels

That was exactly what I was looking for.

Quick question.

What is the average cash flow on a property from Memphis invest (if any).

I see on their website that the median house price is 99k in memphis

I could put up 10%, so with property management vacantys, capx, P&I, PMI ect

What is realistic?

I want to document it as professionally as possible so I can go to the bank or potential partner and use it to help me get financing/ credibility.

Hello BP,

For those of you that have deals under your belt, how do you document it?

Do you have a folder with before and after pictures with a copy of all the contracts? Or do you just have a simple excel sheet with the basics? Basically, how do you like to show other investors your track record when partnering on deals?

I'm thinking a nice binder with a printout of the BP calculator when you started. A list of expenses throughout the job and then a final sale price would great. How many people have something like that?

I want to be ahead of the game when I start this journey. I appreciate any input.

Steve