All Forum Posts by: Bryan Martin

@Justin Phillips I personally prefer keeping the mortgage, but if you want to consider the interest savings like an investment in a bond (savings on interest payments instead of receiving interest payments), there’s nothing wrong with that. You do what makes the most sense for you.

@Lancer J. Finish @David Greene’s Book and if you haven’t listened to his podcasts as a guest on the BP podcast, listen to them. Great info.

@Patrick Flanagan

1. Not starting (I guess they wouldn’t reconsidered investors after so long though).

2. Not knowing your numbers.

3. Buying cheap properties and not understanding the value of equity, paying down your mortgage and appreciation.

@Kiet Ho I get being worried about something going wrong, but look at it this way. If you're buying a house for $200k and that's all your cash, you're going to be stressed out if the A/C and roof need replaced and you need $15k. If you buy the house with 25% down and put in $50k, you'll have $150k in reserves. When the $15k bill comes, you’ll still have $135k in the bank.

Granted that’ll cost you $400+ a month in interest, but the beauty of it is, you could buy 2 more of these houses and still have $50k in reserves. Assuming the 1% rule, you’d have $6,000 in rent coming in, instead of the $2,000 and you’d still have $50k in the bank.

@Deryck C. If you're going to pay it down, I like the Dave Ramsey method of paying off the smallest first if your interest rates are relatively close. That being said, with the low interest rate on all of my properties right now, I'm not paying anything extra to the mortgage other than paying a little extra to round them to a nice even number. Depends on what you want to do though.

If you're not crazy about the house/location, let it go.  Don't want your first deal to leave a sour taste in your mouth because it's convenient to buy.

@Bjorn Ahlblad Yeah, if you like the place, buying the house was my first thought also.

If not, I'd work with your landlord. No sense in having that negative energy in your life. Maybe negotiate with him to pay any difference in rent if your new place would be more expensive. You don't need to make money on this, but no reason you should have a financial hardship for their gain either.

@Kaylee Walterbach Biggest mistake on my first house was getting too excited and felt like I needed the house. I honestly don't regret though. Even with likely overpaying and having a few costly issues, the house still cash flows and the mortgage is getting paid down and the experience has been valuable on acquiring units 2-8.