Purchasing my first residence and renting out rooms to get started in RE Investing
Hey Everyone,
This is my first (long overdue) post on BP after finding it about a month ago while reading everything I could find on real estate. First off I want to thank everyone who posts here. I have already learned so much and love how people with so much experience are willing to teach what they know and still be open to learning more themselves.
I have so many questions to ask but I’ll start with one at a time. I’ll try to be as concise as possible.
I currently live in Northern VA (the DC area) and am trying to get started in real estate in addition to my full time job. To start off I am looking into purchasing a property to live in while renting out the rest of the rooms to cover expenses. I'm trying to evaluate these places as an investor (e.g. factor what my room would rent for into the equation) to ensure the deals make sense.
With DC being so expensive I am looking to put 10% down on a 3 or 4 bedroom townhouse in the 300-400k range (since a multifamily here under $500k is unheard of). Also I am fairly young (24) and don’t mind living with my target rental demographic (young professionals out of college). I plan on going with a 10/80 piggyback mortgage unless there are better options.
I’m hoping my status as an owner-occupant buyer might make finding a deal easier since this market is so saturated with RE investors who I can’t compete with. But even sites such as homepath have a very limited inventory in this area.
I guess my biggest question is “What should my next steps be?” I’m thinking I should find a RE agent with rental property experience to help me get started. A 3 bedroom townhouse I really liked just went under contract and I’m kicking myself for not acting on that one sooner. I know I wrote this post terribly and it will probably get me more questions than answers, but thanks in advance for anyone who takes the time to read and reply.
If anyone is interested I could post an example of one the few properties I am looking at. I could also make a new thread in the Analysis forum section if that would be more appropriate.