All Forum Posts by: Brian Mathews

Ceramic tile first, the entire house. I wouldn't put laminate down because if they have an animal, it will pee and ruin it or liquid will get spilled and bubble it. Carpet is ok. But will have to replace every few years and cheaper than laminate.

While I have no idea how it works in your area. I'm an hvac contractor in Austin. The person doing the job pulls the permit, I don't charge extra, its just built into the price. You have to keep in mind that not pulling a permit if required will probably be an unlicensed individual or side jobber. It saves you money, its more of a liability issue. What if they burn the place down or hurt somebody and you knowlingly hired an unlicensed contractor or bypassed permitting. You could be on the hook for everything. I know that here in Texas if you hire an unlicensed person and they do damage, insurance won't pay and they probably don't have insurance since unlicensed to fix your property.

Depending on area in east Austin. Still lots of drug dealers and prostitutes in certain areas

I would not think you can do anything until you get some money and a job. I'm not sure I would even trust somebody that offers to lend you money with no money, job or experience. They will likely take advantage of you.

I'm with you. If it's less to fix it, I'd fix it. You have a very specific group of people who will be looking for a pool. When you rehab it, I'd gear it towards a house for entertaining. Maybe a moderate outside kitchen to go with it depending on price point of house and some nice landscaping.

I know I'm an old guy with a family. I speak from old guy experience and have had bad things happen to me financially which takes a few years to recover from. Some things I learned the hard way is to minimize bad debt and have protection in place in the way of insurance. Murphy has a way of moving into your house and kicking your butt and you don't expect it. But I also understand you have to take risk to succeed. You have to find that balance. How long would it take to accumulate the $15K in cash in your job? What if you take your cash in your hand and pay off the student loan tomorrow? You've done 2 things, first of all is achieving 6.5% growth in your money immediately + whatever growth you would receive on top of that by not making monthly payments to your loan holder and you've minimized risk on that part. You already have equity in your house and cashflowing. With no debt aside from real estate, money from job and rent on first house. It shouldn't take more than a few months to re-accumulate the cash to move forward. It wouldn't stop your plan, but rather you are pushing pause for 6 months. 6 months vs. several years of paying student loans and the interest lost on that and potential of profits of using that money somewhere else. I'm getting 10%+ on my retirement accounts currently and that's not even trying.

Can't you just give them an amount of time to vacate so you can do "repairs" that were neglected during the last 35 years. Repairs can be painting and a new kitchen faucet. I know that California has some weird real estate laws. I'd get with an attorney.

You aren't factoring in risk. What if you can't rent the first house for $1600 or you get a bad tenant, they quit paying rent for 2 months and do $5000 of damage to the place. Do you have the means to pay for all that? I have a customer that it took 2 months to get non-paying tenant out, when they did, he was using his living room as a marijuana grow house, all flooring had to come out and his pitbull tore up every cabinet in the house. True story that cost owner $5000, not too mention the new roof they put on house last year. If I were in your shoes, I'd get a good tenant in first house. Proceed with plan to buy house with roommates, meaning friends who pay. And start working your way out of debt, especially student loan, you don't want to be 35 with those sitting around and building some cash reserves to mitigate some of the risk. I'm sure you have a job, use that money to start nailing out those student loans.

Some of those areas you mentioned aren't very desirable. But there are some good parts within those areas. Make sure you get with somebody experienced before you buy something and drive by at night.

Leave it in the bank, maybe a money market or Cd as Kyle suggested. So the payment before taxes/insurance is $650 or was $650 before cashing out equity? You are now paying 3.75% interest on that $70K, which is about $2500 a year, (don't have my calculator) or a little over $200 month in interest. So find something pretty quickly, I wouldn't worry about gaining too much, moreso losing.