All Forum Posts by: Tyler Smith

@Chris Baber Thank you for your insight, on a good note my girlfriend is all for the idea (even excited to get her hands dirty) we have discussed the issues we may face and as of right now it seems like something we may very possibly do. We would be living in the house for at least 2 years because my understanding is that is when you are free of capital gains taxes if you decide to sell. So this would be a some what slow process. The idea would be to get a 203k loan which has the same terms as a FHA, I've ran the numbers and financially it wouldn't be too taxing on us to be able to afford the mortgage up to around $325k

Hi Everybody,

I'm currently in the greater Seattle area and extremely interested in a live in flip for my first property (most likely a SFR due to Seattle's extremely high prices). I'm curious on how some of you guys do/would anazlyze a live in flip vs. a regular flip. I've used the house flipping calculator here on bigger pockets, although I'm thinking the nubmers would change a little big given the fact that it would be my primary residence for a minimun of 2 years. Maybe I'm wrong, but considering I wouldn't be paying 2 mortgages, water bills, insurance ect. wouldn't it be safe to assume I could purchase a property with a slimmer profit margin? I do have a construction background so I would be doing almost all of the work myself.

Hi Everybody,

I'm currently in the greater Seattle area and extremely interested in a live in flip for my first property (most likely a SFR due to Seattle's extremely high prices). I'm curious on how some of you guys do/would anazlyze a live in flip vs. a regular flip. I've used the house flipping calculator here on bigger pockets, although I'm thinking the nubmers would change a little big given the fact that it would be my primary residence for a minimun of 2 years. Maybe I'm wrong, but considering I wouldn't be paying 2 mortgages, water bills, insurance ect. wouldn't it be safe to assume I could purchase a property with a slimmer profit margin? I do have a construction background so I would be doing almost all of the work myself.

Thanks for your help!

Hi Jake,

Thanks for responding, it's always helpful to hear from people who are familiar with the area. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but in the research I've done as long as the property you are purchasing isn't more than 4 units which would require a commercial loan and you're planning on living in one of the units then it's "owner occupied".. therefor you can qualify for a 3.5% down FHA loan. I've heard of some other types of loans we may be able to qualify for being first time homebuyers and all although I haven't done much research on it. So my thinking was $20-$30k gives you a $517-$857k property which is pretty doable in Western Washington without going into the heart of Seattle or Bellevue.

Is there something I’m overlooking? 

We definitely live a very frugal lifestyle and are not exactly people who enjoy fancy/expensive things. We budget meticulously, granted it does become difficult because I work construction and the paychecks vary. 

We’ve sat down and punched numbers, although we do make a decent salary with the cost of living in Seattle, $100k a year doesn’t exactly get you as far as it does in most cities. 2 years would be the absolute longest it would take us to save up the money for a down payment

@John Barrett Thank you for your reply! Our idea is to absolutely keep the property long term. Currently our focus is more geared towards owning a few long term rentals where we can manage and maintain them mostly by ourselves. 

We’re not exactly opposed to flipping, but while we’re getting started we would much rather have a more passive income.

@Henri Meli reasonably I believe we could save up $30k in roughly 2 years. 

Did you save up the money for a down payment on your first property? 

@Henri Meli thanks for the reply! We’re more interested in the level of risk with borrowing $20-30k for a down payment in an expensive market like Seattle. The debt we have currently isn’t necessarily the issue, it’s the debt we would be accumulating in the near future in order to buy a property.

My girlfriend and I have been wanting to get into real estate investing for some time. Without boring you guys too much, we have a dilemma. We are looking into 2-4 unit multi family properties which we would live in for a couple years.

I’ve been hearing so much about people getting started with zero money. Right now we have roughly $6,000 in debt and together make around $100k a year. Do we take a year or two to pay off some of our debt and save up some money for a larger down payment out of pocket, or try and borrow money for a 3.5% down payment? We’re both a little worried about if it’s a good idea to borrow the entirety of the $20-30k down payment...is that too risky?