All Forum Posts by: Tim S.

If I were you, I would get preapproved for a loan right now while you are still in LE and buy a duplex, tri, or quad. You could live in there, rent out the other units. Then when they are rented out you could pursue another career path. The benefit would be you would be starting your dream of real estate investing with letting your tenants pay down your mortgage while you go through your career transition.

Just something to think about.. As mentioned getting a loan is difficult without a W2 is difficult. Even if you switch jobs to a different W2, the bank likes to see job history in related fields. So if your next job is drastically different then it may give some difficulty getting the loan you want (obviously this will vary from lender to lender). Do you own a home right now?

Personally I wouldn't want to pay someone a finders fee to find me tenants on a place that I'm going to be self managing. Why would you want to do that? Say you do as you suggest. Offer $1000 finders fee but no continued business for them to manage. What do they care who they put in your property? They won't have to deal with the problems. I would much prefer to find my own tenants if I am to self manage the property.

Thanks I appreciate all the responses. Very helpful!

Thanks Kim Meredith Hampton

Kevin Thomas thanks! I hadn't thought about it like that. I've always had a fairly large yard myself but I definitely agree with you for a rental it will be easier for tenants to manage and for myself between tenants.

Thanks for the replies. I'll probably go ahead with it as long as everything else looks good. I'm not too concerned about it but I thought I might as well get others opinions. Kevin Phu as far as sharing walls- I meant not having to share walls like in an apartment/duplex is one thing that attracts tenants to SFHs.

I'm looking at a SFH as a long term buy and hold. My hesitation is the small yard. The way I see it the two biggest draws to SFH for tenants is not sharing walls and privacy of their own yard. So my question is as SFH investors how important is a yard? Am I putting too much importance on yard size?

Just out of curiosity.. How do you handle your renovations? Do you prefer to do the work yourself or do you hire a contractor and why?

I'm soon going to be having to prepare a lease for a SFH. Trying to figure the best route to have the most comprehensive lease and avoid missing important things. How did you begin writing the lease for your rental property? Did you have one written by an attorney? Did you use a lease from someone else and modify it to fit your needs? I do a lot of reading on BP and see so many times where someone says they are going to be adding to their lease because of a problem with a tenant.