All Forum Posts by: Wenjing Wang

Thank you @Thomas S.

Should I count the amount of money that goes  towards the principle of my mortgage each month? Even though I don't see it as cash flow, it is building up the home's equity? 

Either way, I need to wait another year for the current lease to end. 

@Russell Brazil The condo is in Derwood Maryland, ~20 mins walk to Shady Grove metro station. 

@Russell Brazil that's wonderful! How can I find more information about it? 

Thank you @Berny Petersen :)

@Dan Perrott We refined a few years ago with rate 3.875% so it's pretty low already. (Before refine it was actually a negative cash flow property)

@Bob Okenwa

Thank you for your advice. The property is a condo in a good stable neighborhood with good schools, and it's attracting good quality tenants, so that's one good thing going for it. 

We are in the DC metro area, and it's hard to find good deals here. It's hard to cash flow on a property with a mortgage. If buying lower end condo with cash, we could get ROI of ~10-15%. However these would be in worse neighborhood and lower end tenants.

So to answer your question, I don't know what we would do with that $70K, possibly put it in a bond and use it to fund our next deal if and when we find one

Hello BP,

I just recently discovered BP, and my only regret is why did I not know about it earlier! 

A little bit of background about me-

My husband and I live in Montgomery County Maryland (DC suburb). We have a 2.5 year old boy and we are expecting our second in two months. We both work full time, he is a consultant and travels a lot for work. I am a systems engineer and I'm lucky to be able to work from home. Of course it may all change when our newborn arrives :) We're still trying to figure it out. 

We somehow started buying investment properties a couple years ago. Without any guidance, it just felt like a good type of investment. We have made some mistakes and learned from them. Currently we have 5 rental properties. Our goal is to eventually be able to live on rental income and reach financial independence. 

I'm very excited to have found BP, it feels like I have finally found home :) It's great to see such an active community with like minded people. Look forward to become part of this community. 

-Wenjing Lily Wang

Hi BP,

This is my very first post here :) 

We need some advice with one of our rental properties. It was not the best investment, (bought in 2007 during peak), the property is barely cash flowing. $76 monthly cash flow, cash on cash return is ~1%. We don't expect the property to have much capital gain, the market price is fairly stable (don't expect it to fall very much either). 

We see three options: 

1) sell the property, we expect to get ~$70K and invest it else well for better than 1% return

2) pay down mortgage ($160K) that would bring up cash flow to over $1K a month, but over all ROI is still low (6%) We don't have the cash now, but could save towards it and may be able to pay it down in a couple of years. If we do this, we would miss out on mortgage interest deduction, not sure how to calculate that.

3) leave it as it, although cash flow is low, it is paying for mortgage (easiest option, but I really don't like that 1% in my spreadsheet)

Any advice would be much appreciated! 

Thank you

-Lily

Detailed numbers: 

Current Market Value: $230,000

Money Invested (down pay + extra payments): $70,000

Mortgage Balance: $160,000

Monthly Mortgage: $1000

Monthly Expenses: $524

Monthly Rent: $1600

Monthly Cash flow: $ 76