All Forum Posts by: Bukka Levy

@Steven Wilson Do you know what to attribute those costs to? I’m not sure how to evaluate this quote.

I’ve seen others post the expect to pay around $500 for an annual policy. Is $500 a reasonable benchmark or is there a percentage of cost/value that I should be using?

I’m about to close on my first out of state rental and am being quoted $1500, so I’m a bit shocked. It is a larger home, a century home, and still has some knob & tube so I realize there’s going to be some higher costs but is this reasonable?

I may be getting too much poilcy. What should I be asking for?

Escrow is hinging on this being in place so I’m in a little bit of a crunch. Also unexpectedly out of town and working from my phone which isn’t at all helpful.

Hi Gabe, welcome to the family! 

@Mindy Jensen

I play in a pop band for corporate events and weddings. It gives me the opportunity to travel and explore real estate all over the world!

Hi Les, As someone who lives next door (Petaluma) I can relate. I started in Petaluma by house hacking and did that for my first four doors. My first question would be your family situation - are you married? Kids? Or are you referring to family in the area? It's not so easy with a live-in family but still possible. 
If you're single this is a great area to house hack as rents are ridiculously high compared to home prices (which are also ridiculously high, but rents are still worse). A cosmetic fixer is easy to add value even while renting out part or all of it.
If you're married or have kids full or part-time, you could always hack a multi-family and still come out ahead in our area.
For the last ten years I stopped house-hacking locally because my family has grown too big and am just now starting to look out of state. Still, I'm always looking locally for that house where the prices and rents, along with today's killer interest rates, line up in my favor. In fact, I'm going to look at one today!
If you decide to look locally let me know what you're looking for. If I see a match I'll send it your way.
Best of luck!

How do you go about starting the process of finding funding for your deals here on BP? I'd like to start working with 'lenders' but I have no idea where to start. I've always done it by myself with traditional bank loans but that's no longer an option.

@Luis Morales I pay my business account from my personal account.

@Luis Morales Ah, AMEX, of course. I used to have $100k with them until the recession. No more.

I’ve used PayPal successfully to pay myself so far.

@Luis Morales I’d love to hear how you got those and where they’re from. I can assure you, it’s not as easy as you suggest if you don’t have the sources, and my sources are not providing those kinds of numbers.

Luis, that’s great! It’s a pretty straight forward move.

I used to do stuff like that but I’m a long way from that lifestyle. I now have a family including five kids at home so living in half a duplex is not practical. 

Also, where I live, 3.5% is about $28,000 and I haven’t received a 0% card for that much yet!