Updated almost 10 years ago on . Most recent reply
Starting out with little reserve funds
My wife and I are just trying to get started house-hacking and I think we may have found a great opportunity. I'm 25 and she's 23. Since we are just starting out, we don't have much for a downpayment, and have only total of $25,000 "life savings." We both just started new jobs and now gross $105,000/yr combined income. My job is not really "new" since I worked as a contractor in the same position and have now been rolled over to a full-time salaried employee. We currently pay $950/mo in rent. I'm also still in school and have ~$10,000 in deferred subsidized student loans, though my new job offers a program that will now begin to pay for my education costs moving forward. This is the only debt we currently hold. We both love our jobs and Kansas City and have no intention of leaving either.
The property we are interested in, is a Quadplex in a highly affluent KC suburb. It was just listed an hour ago for $299,900, so more details are definitely to come. A super conservative estimate would say the property would generate $700/month per unit. Most likely much higher. It looks well taken care of and it's in an area we would be thrilled to live in. We'd have to do an FHA at 3.5%, which is still a little scary to leave so little in reserve fund to me. Although there are great opportunities for investments in the KC market, it seems when trying to house-hack, it's super hard to find a decent deal in a neighborhood we would actually want to live in. The awesome neighborhood is admittedly a bias and a big factor in why this property is so attractive to me. Before we get ahead of ourselves, Is this property even within our reach? I know there are few specific details but does this even look like an opportunity worth pursuing? Is there a rule of thumb for how much reserve cash one should have on hand after downpayment/closing costs? Have we even saved enough to be looking to start buying property? Any advice is highly appreciated.