All Forum Posts by: Alecia Loveless

@Enoch Wolsey I’ve been house hacking for almost 30 years. The first 25 or so I lived amongst my rent by the room tenants. Now I’m in one side of a duplex which is a much better situation now that I’m older and want more privacy.

I'm currently foregoing buying myself a SFH to be my primary residence in favor of being able to buy more investment properties.

Only you can decide when is the right time to make the leap into a detached SFH purchase as a primary residence based on your finances and personal preferences.

I live in the 3/3 side of my duplex and my tenants side is a 3/1. It’s possible to find a duplex with lots of room for you to expand into, not all duplexes are small.

I'd consider looking for a second duplex and moving into one of those units and fully renting out your current property. Especially if you don't have the 20% down payment to avoid PMI. You can buy a 1-4 unit property for as little down as 3.5%. It might be smarter financially to save up more for a down payment but only you know your finances.

Personally I like the security of having at least 20% down on my purchases.

This will likely eventually lead to resentment from the sibling receiving the lower valued property. 

I'd suggest finding a way to level the playing field. 

Amenities like a rooftop deck would definitely add value in my area. 

I'm not sure what the cost to value would be. 

for the right tenants I would think this could be a big deal. 

Maybe you could try to comp it out based on sales as to what your final value add would be. 

I'd bet at the appropriate price it would rent super quickly. 

If you are a BPPro member their cash flow calculator for rentals is excellent. It does save it by property. 

@Reece Kennedy There’s also usually rules about collecting rent up front that make it more difficult. Such as needing to keep the balance in a separate account and then just transferring one month to yourself at a time as it comes due. And the possible need to refund it if the tenant vacates the unit.

There’s lots of red flags here for me on this issue. It’s something I won’t do in my rentals.

@Musu Dahn One of the best experiences of my life was moving far away from home and being on my own for the last 2 years of my college education.

I wouldn’t rule out this type of opportunity if I were you. If you’re in MA there’s tons of places you could go to finish the final 2 years of your education that would be relatively affordable, especially compared to MA.

In many places you could also simultaneously earn your real estate license and work part time while you finished your education.

I took all my classes on Mondays and Wednesdays and then used the rest of my week to travel around New England primarily while I was finishing school in Manhattan.

The opportunities are endless. But I feel it’s important to have a degree and the life experience that comes with schooling. If I were you I’d consider my options for working towards my real estate goals while finishing my education.

@Massiel Pezzino I’ve always had an excellent accountant to do my taxes. Two years ago when I hit 6 properties and about 24 units he told me I needed the help of a bookkeeper because my system was not sufficient. I was trying to use QBO without any knowledge of the system.

I’ve since hired a great bookkeeper who set systems in place in QBO and it’s been great. She did offer to teach me to do some of it myself but I’ve decided that’s not the best approach for me.

You can easily hire someone to set you up a system. I’d recommend starting sooner than later and you’ll see it makes figuring out your finances much easier.

@Johnathon Asman I’ve house hacked for almost 30 years now. I think you have an inherent advantage when you invest in local markets.

I would recommend saving more before you get started. An $800K property that needs renovation to be rentable is going to cost you well more than $24K.

I’m currently updating 2 units, a 1 bedroom apartment and a 2 bedroom apartment. It’s going to end up being about $25K and I’m in a fairly low cost area. It will likely be much more expensive to do anything in California.

I wouldn’t recommend over leveraging yourself with your first deal.

@Bao Vu it may take a while to get rents up to market value unless you have a significant amount of reserves and can get rid of multiple tenants at once.

I just bought a 6 unit with rents significantly under market value and raised the first rent and the tenant just paid it. So I raised the second rent and that month both tenants moved out. Which triggered renovations which have been more costly than I anticipated due to the rising costs of electricians in my area. It’s taken 3 months to finish both units and going into the 4th on the second unit while I get it rented.

Just be careful to not get too many vacancies at once unless you have enough capital to float the loan and renovations during that time.

@Gavin Henry Agree that you should do your own background checks if the realtor won’t send it to you.

I use MySmartMove.com for mine. The comprehensive check is currently $47 and you can pay it or bill it to the tenant. (Personally if they already paid for one with the realtor I’d pay for the second one and eat it as a cost of doing business).

I’ve had so many terrible applicants for my current listing that I’d definitely want to see that report myself. My last prospect had 20/35 late payments on their credit card and a repossessed vehicle. They then became aggressive with me when I turned them down and I had to block them which is a first in 5 years.

Be proactive and look out for yourself and your investment by running a second check.