New Investor- Poke holes in my Plan

New Investor- Poke holes in my Plan

Rental Property Investor · Hudson, WI · Member since 2020 · 6 posts · 3 votes

Hello,

I'm new here and excited to enter the world of real estate investing. I have been taking in as much information as possible over the past few months (including reading some of the bigger pockets books). I am looking for input (please be blunt) on my current thought process with how my wife and I intend to procure our first rental property. 

In the next 6 months we intend to purchase a single family home that needs some work. With that being said we are hoping to get a pretty decent deal on the property. The thought currently is that we will purchase this property with the intent for us to make it our home for 12-18 months, all the while performing the needed (rental grade) rehab. Once we have the rehab completed we would look to find another property that we can do the same thing to, while converting the first property to a single family rental and repeating the process until we have 2-3 rentals under our belt. From that point we would look for a more permanent residence to move into and transition to buying straight up rental properties by hopefully leveraging some of our equity. Is this a worth while strategy? Thanks.  

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Real Estate Agent · Baltimore, MD · Member since 2018 · 285 posts · 228 votes
6y

@Ben Pearce everything looks good. Aim to live there for a minimum 2 years and you avoid paying significant capital gains taxes.

Look up the “2-out-of-5 rule”

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  • New to Real Estate · Ogden, UT · Member since 2020 · 34 posts · 12 votes
    6y

    That sounds solid to me! I'm also pretty new. The only other suggestion I would have to slightly tweak that is a house hack, where you buy a property with multiple units, so that you can live in part and rent part at the same time. That way your mortgage is offset even while you are living there, and then it'll obviously be more profitable when you move out. You could still buy something that needs some work but just rehab the rental unit quickly to you can start earning from that. Me and my wife are currently doing a house hack, so feel free to reach out!

  • Real Estate Agent · Baltimore, MD · Member since 2018 · 285 posts · 228 votes
    6y

    @Ben Pearce everything looks good. Aim to live there for a minimum 2 years and you avoid paying significant capital gains taxes.

    Look up the “2-out-of-5 rule”

  • Real Estate Coach · Salt Lake City, UT · Member since 2017 · 273 posts · 414 votes
    6y

    I did something similar...  I'm military and I bought a few houses as I moved across the country, lived there, then turned into rentals.

    Few things I learned... 

    Getting an owner-occupant loan requires much lower down payment - definite plus for you.

    Make sure you've researched rental rates thoroughly.  One of the homes I purchased never cash-flowed.  Don't make that mistake.

    Also, be conservative on your growth projections - both rent growth and equity.  You can't count on 5-10% growth to carry you through.

    Unless you make a ton of money in your day job, eventually the banks will stop lending to you and you'll have to pick a different strategy.  If you're only doing this 2-3 times, you may not ever hit this hurdle.  In my case, the debt-income ratio ended up getting too high for to get another loan, even though it was also to be owner-occupant.  Banks will count rental income, but unless you're cash-flowing a lot, each purchase will negatively affect your ratio.  There's also the 10-home rule, but you'll likely cap out on debt-income before hitting that hurdle.

  • Real Estate Agent · Tempe, AZ · Member since 2011 · 1k+ posts · 543 votes
    6y

    Certainly sounds like a common strategy. 

    To avoid capital gains tax on the sale, best to live in the property a total of 2 aggregate years during the 5 year period prior to the sale date and you stand a good chance of realizing up to $500k tax free! 

    Read up on IRS Section 121 - https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc701 

    You may also want to consider doing rehab loan such as FHA 203k, Fannie Mae Homestyle, or Freddie Mac ChoiceRenovation.





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