All Forum Posts by: Tyler Shane Martindale

I live near several vacant lots that are not on the market. I would like to contact the owners about making an offer, but encountered some issues with my county records.

The first set of lots belong to someone who passed away 15 years ago, and do not list the current owner or a living family member's contact information. How can I go about finding who to contact?

The second set of lots shows up on records as owned by a Nevada-based LLC. Searches for the LLC though yield results saying that the LLC is "permanently revoked." Who could I contact about purchasing these properties?

Thanks in advance for any help.

I recently heard of something called "velocity banking" where you use a credit card to pay off large portions of your mortgage or other loans, then use the credit card balance like a checking account. The idea is that the credit card is more controlable because it is not amortized, and the strategy supposed to help you avoid paying as much interest on front-loaded loans.

Is anyone familiar with this or used it before? Did it work for you? What did you learn? What can you share with us about your experience?

I am a university student and I'm super excited to get started in investing, and I found a duplex in my market in a great location (close to work, two universities, shopping, church, park, etc.) that I'm interested in. The asking price is $325,000. I'm looking into house hacking, I would be living in one half, and renting out the other. I would use an FHA loan since I would be living in it for at least 2-3 years while I finish school.

I used the BP calculator, and it shows that as long as I lived in one half, I would have a monthly cash flow of approximately -$250, which is obviously bad. However, if I were to live in an apartment with roommates and a shared room would cost me $350-$450/month in this area. So it would be cheaper for me to live in the duplex.

Another option would be to rent out rooms in my half of the duplex to roommates to make up the remaining $250.

Once I finish school, refinance, move out of the duplex, and being renting out both units, I would then have a monthly cash flow closer to $300/month ($150/unit).

My questions:

In your experience, is this a good deal? Should I pursue this or keep looking?

Would it be reasonable to offer $299k?

Any other thoughts or advice y'all have would be appreciated as well. Thanks!

My name is Tyler Martindale and I am brand new to real estate investing. I'm originally from Boise, ID, and now live in Utah County, Utah.

I've had a passive interest in it for quite some time but decided it was time to actually do something about it! I am eager to learn all I can and hope to buy my first investment property by 2019 at the age of 22. I'm interested in buy & hold investing in both Utah and Idaho, and also have some interest in using wholesaling to get kickstarted in investing.

I'm here on BiggerPockets to learn, and I'm eager to soak up all the information I can, and plan to participate as much as possible. Hopefully someday soon, I'll be able to pass on the things I learn to other young investors.