All Forum Posts by: John Doss

@James Carlson

I appreciate the response. You raise a lot of good points, and I am definitely in the same boat with sharing living spaces haha. If I were to section off a basement for tenants, I am guessing you would still share common areas like a kitchen and den? I am not exactly sure how that works. But it definitely sounds more favorable to splitting rooms. Then again, I am not totally opposed to renting out room by room.

@Jason Coleman

Thank you for the comment. Do you know of some good middle class sub-markets in Winston that are appreciating but still reasonably priced for a new investor to look into?

I currently live in Greensboro. I drove through the neighborhoods around WSSU and it seems to be very class C, boarded up windows, dilapidated buildings and such. I also noticed houses in the neighboring areas (5-10 mins away) are still quite cheap (like lower $100,000s). I am not sure how accurate this information is, but when I looked these homes up on places like Zillow, it seems like the value of those houses have depreciated from what they were 10 or 15 years ago. How do scout out a good area to buy in? I definitely wouldn't want to buy a house in one of these areas and it just continues to depreciate in the upcoming years.

Also, the tax-assessed value for some of these are like $20,000-50,000. How does that value actually line up with what the house is actually worth? I read somewhere that it should be within $15,000 of the actual value of the home but I am not sure how accurate that is.

@Sean Rooks

Sounds good, I appreciate it Sean! A house-hack analysis calculator would be great. Although I am assuming I probably should anticipate little to no cash flow for as long as I’m living in one of the units unless I find a property with at least 3 or 4 units that could off set my living costs a bit more.

@Antonio Cucciniello

Thank you. I was wondering, would my first step be to start looking for the property or should I get pre-approved for financing before I start the search?

Also, I'm not as familiar with this but I've heard people mention just forgoing the FHA loan and getting a conventional loan for 5% down on their first house and with less expensive PMI. And I've also heard people mention there are conventional loans that allow you to roll the rehab costs into the loan as well. I tried looking into this more but everything I've read about conventional loans seems to require a 20-30% down payment. What do you know about this?

Hello BP members!

My name is John and my interest in real estate began towards the end of last year. I currently work as a GrubHub driver and listen to audiobooks and the BP podcasts all day while I am making deliveries. I've read several BP books like "The Book on Investing in Real Estate with No and Low Money Down" and "The Book on Rental Property Investing" by Brandon Turner. And I am currently reading "BRRRR" by David Greene. I decided its finally time to take action so I got the PRO membership to start analyzing investment properties and begin to connect with others in the area.

I recently got accepted into the DPT program at Winston-Salem State for graduate school, which begins in January 2022. I found myself caught between wanting to pursue my newfound interest in real estate and following through with my original plan of becoming a Physical Therapist. But why not pursue both? My long-term goal is financial independence and I see real estate the vehicle to get there, while PT can bankroll my investing. But I see no reason to wait on pursuing real estate for 3 years while I'm in school and rent like everyone else, when I could be building equity in a residence of my own. Hence, my goal for this year is to find a small multi-family home in Winston-Salem that I can house hack while attending the graduate program for the following 3 years. I reckon that I could possibly fill the remaining units with other classmates in my cohort. And if that's not possible, I would search for tenants using a more conventional approach.

I am currently working with around $20,000-$25,000 that I have been growing in the stock market from an initial investment of $5,000 in 2019. I was thinking about utilizing the 203k loan to finance repairs and purchase price for a tri or quad in the Winston area. I do have very good credit, however, my 2-year income history is spotty because I was a full-time student less than a year ago. However, my parents are willing to partner with me on the loan so I can get approved for financing. Another option would be to obtain seller-financing. The final possibility that I've considered is holding off on investing this year and just commute 30 min from Greensboro to WSSU, and continue to grow my stock portfolio. Then after graduating from grad school, I should have enough capital to use the BRRRR method for my first property.

A problem I seem to keep running into is that there seems to be a scarcity of multi-family homes on the market in Winston-Salem and the ones that I see pop up on real estate portals tend to disappear in a matter of days. I was reading some comments on other threads and I saw some BP members suggest looking for single-family homes with an unfinished basement, and renting that out or turning it into a BNB. I honestly haven't thought of that, but I am open to the idea. I have really been trying cross my t's and dot my i's these last few months by intensely researching various aspects of REI and trying think of all the possible ways I could go about this, but I believe I am falling into analysis paralysis.

I look forward to hearing feedback from you guys about the feasibility of this goal and some next steps I could take towards accomplishing this. Thanks!

Another option I am considering is possibly holding off on investing this year and just commute 30 min from Greensboro to WSSU and just continue to grow my stock portfolio. Then after graduating from grad school, I should have enough capital to use the BRRRR method for my first property.

Hello BP members!

My name is John and my interest in real estate began towards the end of last year. I currently work as a GrubHub driver and listen to audiobooks and the BP podcasts all day while I am making deliveries. I've read several BP books like "The Book on Investing in Real Estate with No and Low Money Down" and "The Book on Rental Property Investing" by Brandon Turner. And I am currently reading "BRRRR" by David Greene. I decided its finally time to take action so I got the PRO membership to start analyzing investment properties and begin to connect with others in the area.

I recently got accepted into the DPT program at Winston-Salem State for graduate school, which begins in January 2022. I found myself caught between wanting to pursue my newfound interest in real estate and following through with my original plan of becoming a Physical Therapist. But why not pursue both? My long-term goal is financial independence and I see real estate the vehicle to get there, while PT can bankroll my investing. But I see no reason to wait on pursuing real estate for 3 years while I'm in school and rent like everyone else, when I could be building equity in a residence of my own. Hence, my goal for this year is to find a small multi-family home in Winston-Salem that I can house hack while attending the graduate program for the following 3 years. I reckon that I could possibly fill the remaining units with other classmates in my cohort. And if that's not possible, I would search for tenants using a more conventional approach.

I am currently working with around $20,000-$25,000 that I have been growing in the stock market from an initial investment of $5,000 in 2019. I was thinking about utilizing the 203k loan to finance repairs and purchase price for a tri or quad in the Winston area. I do have very good credit, however, my 2-year income history is spotty because I was a full-time student less than a year ago. However, my parents are willing to partner with me on the loan so I can get approved for financing. Another possibility would be to obtain seller-financing. A problem I seem to keep running into is that there seems to be a scarcity of multi-family homes on the market in Winston-Salem and the ones that I see pop up on real estate portals tend to disappear in a matter of days. I was reading some comments on other threads and I saw some BP members suggest looking for single-family homes with an unfinished basement, and renting that out or turning it into a BNB. I honestly haven't thought of that, but I am open to the idea. I have really been trying cross my t's and dot my i's these last few months by intensely researching various aspects of REI and trying think of all the possible ways I could go about this, but I believe I am falling into analysis paralysis.

I look forward to hearing feedback from you guys about the feasibility of this goal and some next steps I could take towards accomplishing this. Thanks!