All Forum Posts by: Val Ault

Hi Jeremiah, can we send in questions beforehand, or just in the meeting? I have some questions about how ADU's work for a house hacker.

Hey BiggerPockets, I'm a (soon-to-be) house hacker in the Salt Lake City area in Utah. There's a property I'm looking at now that is currently rented out to two different tenants, one on the main floor, and one in the basement.

I've been looking pretty hard for a property that can rent out the basement and is in my budget, so this looks pretty promising to me. The realtor said that the tenants are on a month-to-month lease, and that I would be able to move in right away. What I imagine myself doing is moving into the main floor, and keeping the basement tenants. I have a couple questions though:

- When people sign a month-to-month basis, is this just part of the deal, that they can be kicked out whenever? I'm slightly hesitant to just uproot the main floor tenants so I can move in myself, unless this is something that any month-to-month leaser can expect.

- Should I worry about trying to screen the basement tenants somehow?

- Are there any other general pitfalls I should watch out for with this kind of deal?

Hey BiggerPockets! I'm looking for my first deal here in Provo or Lehi, Utah, and I just read a little about REOs. It does sound nice to offer on REO's, where it's just another business deal for them.

I googled it and found a few sites with REO listings, but they all feel a little sketchy - you know, in-your-face ads and no information unless you put in all your contact info. Are there trustworthy online sources to find local REOs? Or is there a way to tell if a listing on other sites (like Realtor.com) is an REO?

You guys make some good points - if I planned to invest in the property for a long time, it might make sense to go for the lower interest.

And David, we’ll said - I guess it depends on your goal. My goal is early financial freedom, so I’m looking for fastest growth, and it seems like that would almost always be highest if I put as little down as possible so that I can start a fund for my next property.

Hello BiggerPockets! I’ve been studying everything I can find about Real Estate, and I’m finally getting close to saving enough money for a down payment on my first property, so I’m getting more serious about it!

As I’ve been reading, I’ve started to wonder - when buying an investment property, is there ever a reason to put more money down than the money lender requires? 

For example, if a bank approves me for a loan with 20% down, would there be a situation where I would want to put more than that down? The more money I use in the down payment, the less my cash on cash return will be, and the farther I will be from the down payment for my next property. This seems especially applicable to using an FHA loan to buy a house - if I can just put down 3.5%, is there an advantage to putting down more? (The only one I can think of is that I think there are some kind of monthly fees if you put that little down).

In my mind, it would be better to put as little down as possible and save the rest up as a start on the down payment for your next property. Is that true, or am I missing something?

@Mindy Jensen Thanks!

During the webinar yesterday (30 Days to your First Deal), Brandon showed what looked like a workbook, where you fill out something or take a small step every day for 30 days. I’m pretty sure it was called the 30 Days QuickStart Guide. Does anybody know where I can find that? It looked like a great tool!