All Forum Posts by: Aaron Zimmerman

I would say that's very typical unless you want to go the hard money route to improve the property and refinance later

@Dan Shallcross you may need to consider a short sale here. All signs point to selling in my opinion, even if you need to bring cash to close. That's too big of a cash flow gap to cover by increasing rents if they're close to market 

On the rents, do you feel like you’re at market rates or not? How much are you cash flow negative by? What is your reserve situation like? How’s the area you’re currently invested in? Is it in a prime location. How old is the house? Would you be willing the make this an assumable loan for a potential buyer?

1. Yes with the caveat that when you move out it should cash flow.

2. With the house hack, you need it to cash flow after leaving or at minimum break even. If there's a way to increase rents or value by doing a value add, 

3. Yes - I would recommend break even but ideally not negative cash flow for a prolonged period of time. 

St Charles is a great area and it's great that you're thinking about house hacking

I'd recommend outsourcing the bookkeeping if you don't want to to do it . However, you should still look to review every few months and there will be some involvement on a week to week basis but would be less than you doing the actual bookkeeping. Always hard to know when to outsource vs remain in house, but if the time savings you have will allow you to buy more properties, it's probably worth it to outsource. 

The key with the real estate professional status is to make sure you materially participate in your rentals. Otherwise, qualifying as a real estate professional will be for not because you won't be able to change the losses from passive to active (which goes against other active income) 

I'd recommend using your va loan to get your next property, ideally a house hack. You can learn the ropes of investing while reducing cash out of pocket. It'd be a great way to get into real estate investing provided you have adequate reserves 

Yes. As long as the property cash flows after you leave the property and rent it out, then you're fine

This is a great deal! Hopefully you can get A refinance soon. Can you make a follow up post after refi?

Thanks for sharing! As always great insights.