All Forum Posts by: Andrew S.

I've been house hacking a duplex for 4 years now and I couldn't recommend anything above that. I think it depends on your savings rate and your goals. If you can purchase a house (PITI, maintenance, decorating, furnishing, etc) and saved $1000+ plus per month then get a house first. However if you can reduce your living expenses to as low as possible (house hacking is a common method), then your options will be greater than you may imagine. Living in a duplex is NOT as cool as many of my friends houses. However I can live off my rental income after 4 years; all due to no living expense has allowed me to save additional down payments. The rest of my life, my rental income (not my W2) will pay for whatever house I want. Which I think is cooler than living in a cool house in my 20s.

+1 for any of the house hacking BiggerPockets books. Set for life, Housing hacking, etc. 

S&P500 index fund

The importance of the minimal / zero / temporarily negative cashflow also depends on your monthly P/L & balance sheet. 
Does it matter if you (not your rental business) have to pay for new appliances, roof, furnace, month of no rental income during vacancy? 

Can you easily pay that with your 9-5 job excess income? 

Do you have a rental emergency fund of ~$25k or whatever you think is reasonable?

Are you interested and confident in having those abilities for the long term? Are you willing and able to hold that during a market down turn? Security of other assets/ income during a bear market? 

Are you buying this rental to quit your job or to grow wealth in many years? 

You could make 2 offer contingencies: one for a price with that unit vacant. (Seller can figure out how to get them and their stuff out) or a different price for them to do nothing ( you deal with the tenant)

If it's mutually agreeable you can do anything

Use concrete as a good subfloor and put down LVP

Hey everyone, I have separate bank accounts for my rental business. The properties are owned in my personal name. Since I don't have an LLC, is there any concern/ caution/ potential future issue if I transfer funds to my personal brokerage account? My cash reserves has excess that I'd like to invest.

To protect myself, I have an umbrella policy versus the LLC. I do a lot of the work myself, so I don't feel I can argue that it's "separate from me".

Thanks in advance!

I would recommend getting a signed estopel agreement with the current property manager/ owner and the tenants. Once their current lease is up (hopefully a month-month) then provide them your new lease. They are currently shorting the current landlord so there is a reasonable probability they will do the same to you. You're probably already the bad cop to them. So just play the role and terminate their lease when needed. You'll have to wait for them to not pay you to evict, I'm pretty sure. 

Thanks guys

We have a group that meets monthly in Helena. Typically the last Wednesday of every month. Let me know if anyone is interested. Can search for Helena real estate investor meetup on Facebook or meetup. We are seeing similar high prices in Helena.