All Forum Posts by: Tim Shin

Thanks @Kim Giannola and @ben I'm traveling and on mobile so posting is not easy. So if you receive a gift from a friend and wanted to gift them their money back and then some, that would be the way to do it with an FHA loan?

 I'm not sure I understand what you mean about using 75% of the rents. For what? Instead of your credit? Is it a non recourse loan?

also do you know what the houston cap rate is?

@Account Closed 's book to find the answer but I'm unclear on what's allowed for down payments. I contacted a mortgage broker and am waiting for a response. I think I'm going to have to flush out some MFRS that aren't on the MLS. What do you mean by B/C areas? Are you talking about the quality? B or C neighborhoods?

Thanks @Andreas Mirza. Another thing I came across today: there is this great but expensive 4-plex in a hot neighborhood of Houston where you'd have no trouble finding renters. My realtor said that the owners occupy 1 unit and their 3 sets of tenants bring in $3,775. If you paid list price ($695,500), and put 20% down, your mortgage would be $2,654/month, taxes $786/month and insurance would come to about $300/month for a total of $3,740. If you average the rent across the 3 units, it's about ~$1258/unit so if you rented out the 4th you'd collect $5033/month in rent leaving a positive cashflow of $1258/month if you didn't have to do any repairs before fixing it up. Using the 50% rule, you're still cashflowing over $600 a month. 

I don't have $695,500 or even a 20% down payment for this home. What are some ways to finance this property if you know someone who has the cash for the down payment? Isn't there some sort of limit of how big a gift you can give per year? Can you get someone else to pay the down payment for equity?

@Skyler Smith how does that property work? Are they on the same property the sfh and 5 Plex? Did you do that with an FHA loan? Also, I don't know the first place to start to calculate irr with tax advantages. Do you have suggestions?

@Elizabeth Colegrove

Thanks. That's good to hear, hopefully I can pass that on as "Elizabeth said don't try to find the perfect house, Honey" haha. 

Do you guys have an opinion on halfplexes?

Welcome @Elizabeth Davis , I'm just getting started too. I'm excited and I plan on being there. Have you all considered using the MeetUp app to help schedule this and gauge potential attendance?

I missed the posts earlier from @Elizabeth Colegrove and @Skyler Smith because I was typing a response to BT, sorry! Thanks for the tips. It sounds like I need to shop around for banks that won't tell me no. Would you jump on a cash-flowing half-plex first then hope you can figure out the loan situation later with the owner-occupied 4-plex? Or would you sit it out until the 4-plex deal came along since it's your main goal? 

I'm a relative newbie and I just moved to Houston in January of 2014. I really only know 6-7 other RE investors who typically use hard money but I will ask them. I'm meeting with a real estate agent tomorrow so maybe he'll have some suggestions too. 


Steph loved y'all on that podcast and i was like, would you believe I've actually had conversations with these folks on the forums and Elizabeth was one of the first people to welcome me? haha Thanks!

@Brandon Turner that's such a great idea, I hope they take it. If I were in that position as a tenant, I'd be totally amazed you offered me that deal if it weren't in an unreasonable location. The flooded house isn't one of the Cobain units is it? lol

Thanks @Brandon Turner ! Yeah, boy was she (my wife) super reluctant before... I was absolutely shocked that she requested to listen to more BP podcasts even when SHE was the one driving. We listened to probably 6 or 7 shows together. Her favorite so far was the one with @Elizabeth Colegrove whom I think gave her mega inspiration. Particularly in the reluctant spouse department hehe. Thanks Elizabeth! My wife Steph previously didn't even like the idea of sharing a wall with our tenants. Even if we could only live rent free (not cash-flowing), we'd be saving some serious dough.

So I guess that means if I get a loan for the half-plex, I won't have been a landlord for 2 years it will just look like debt added so it will decrease my loanabillity when it comes time for the deal I'm hoping will appear some day.