All Forum Posts by: Brian Garlington

Your location is your dilemna, plain and simple. I grew up in Fairfield...........and when I was in the Navy I was in San Diego for awhile. There are not many duplexes in Fairfield/Vacaville compared to....say Oakland.....and there aren't many duplexes in the San Diego area unless you want to go to San Ysidro, Chula Vista or Imperial Beach. I've refinanced out of a VA Loan, multiple times and househacked with multiple properties. You may need to take some of the money and put an ADU on a house......or.......find a duplex in your area(s) that have been on the market for awhile....I guarantee you there's a couple of duplxes that have neem on the market in your areas for at least 4 - 6 months but they may be in areas you may not want to live. If I was your agent I would tell you to write a lowball offer on some of these that have been sitting out there and see what shakes out,,,,,,make sure there's an appraisal and inspection contingency in your offer......If your offer gets accepted and you ultimately purchase the place then you only have to live there for a year....then simply move out and put a renter in the side of the duplex you were living in.....at that point your biggest problem will be finding another place to live. If your offer doesn't get accepted....well.....you're right where you are right now anyway.

Poster A.  You can't do "that".

Poster B. Why am I going back and forth with someone who hasn't done what I'm already doing? 

Thanks @Matthew M. 

However, you are wrong. Google it, you can take the Series 65 exam with out being sponsored by a broker/firm.......and when you pass it, you do not have to hang that series 65 certification with a particular broker/firm. I've had several syndicators that literally told me this in writing.

Your Realtor should have told you what I am going to tell you, here goes....

If you close on that property and then give the tenants 60 days notice to move out, then YOU as the owner will have to pay a relocation fee to the tenants....assuming that they even agree to move out. Yes you are the owner and want it to be your primary residence, but the tenant laws so overwhelmingly favor tenants and not landlords in San Francisco that it is comical.

Or.....

You could ask the owner to deliver the property vacant. Your Realtor can put that in the offer. I also suspect that if you put that in the offer the LA (Listing Agent) will consider that a non-starter because at that point the current owner will be responsible for evicting the tenant and paying their relocation fee.

All of you are correct. You can go for and pass the Series 65 exam without a "sponsor". Once you pass that series 65, you are considered an Accredited Investor, irregardless of income.

I sus pect Allan already knows EVERYTHING we are all telling him......redfin is the garage sale that "charges you nothing" (A big misconception)....gives you instant cash on the spot for your property.....in a Seller's market.....only to find out that had you had a local realtor market the property and you had waited another weak you probably could have got about 40-50% more.

We're closing deals with 3 different house hackers that are using FHA loans right now.

One is a duplex in Vallejo and the other two are triplexes in Oakland.

If you literally go to meetup and type in Real Estate Investing within 50 miles of SF you will find that there is one in person each month in

Dublin

San Francisco

Milpitas or San Jose. 

Do not do negative cash flow 

A very long time ago I made a “sacrifice” by buying a duplex in deep, deep east Oakland to house hack. It didn’t have a washer dryer on-site and parking in the area was worse than San Francisco. I put a Section 8 tenant in one side, and I lived in the other side. My friends and colleagues were talking all kinds of “nonsense” to me. Over the 5 years I lived there as the duplex in the hood kept appreciating in value I refinanced 3 times, took cash out and paid off all credit cards, my car notes and started buying (serious cash flowing) rentals in the Midwest.  

Moved out of the hood….. still own the duplex (as well as many others) and put a Section 8 tenant in the unit I used to live in. 

Your first step should be to get pre-approved with a lender. @Chris Masoncan help you out with that.