All Forum Posts by: Cassandra Boyett

Thank you everyone! This has all been very interesting (in one way or another lol) and has given me a lot to think about :)

@Wilson Churchill 

I would absolutely consider a fixer upper if we were local. However, my husband works full time and I am a stay at home mom to 2 very small children and there is nothing in our area (Southern California) we can afford- not even fixer uppers. So it seems that either we buy out of the area (but it would have to be hands-off since we won't be able to be around), or we move out of our house, rent it out, and purchase another home for us with the FHA loan.

We live and own in California where we can't afford to do much, so we'd like to invest in a rental property somewhere else and this will be our first purchase (aside from our home). 

Can anyone break down how Turn-key property companies work, what they charge and such? We have a lot of family in the Tennessee/Arkansas areas and Ive read Memphis is a good area to look. 

Any tips and info would be much appreciated!

@Elizabeth Colegrove 

So, this is where I have a hard time deciding how to financially swing this. In order for us to put a down payment on a new house, we would have to do a cash out refinance on our current house (bummer, but this is our only accessible big chunk of money). This will leave us with about 30k and the houses around here that we would live in (have to be in right school district and be comfortable for our family of 4) go for between 250-350k. Is it wisest to buy a fixer upper for, lets say, 250k and just put the bare minimum down and use the rest for improvements? That way there is built in equity (at least a little) in one of the properties? 

@Elizabeth Colegrove   I tried to tag you above and it didn't work. Here it is :)

I should have tagged you in my last post, @Elizabeth C.  :)

Thank you everyone for your helpful comments. Elizabeth, thank you for your story- my husband and I have considered moving out of our house but haven't thought about it recently. Your comment has caused me to revisit that idea. We want a house with a pool anyway :)

We own a house and want to purchase our first long term rental property. We live in California so real estate is pretty expensive here and we only have about 30k to start off with. I have no idea where to start looking?! 

Thanks!

Casey

Hi, I am Casey and my husband and I live in the Antelope Valley (Palmdale) in California. We own our house and have built up some equity in it and since I am fortunate enough to be able to stay at home with our 2 little ones, I figured I should spend nap times/preschool time investing our money (real estate) but I have very little idea how to do it. 

We will be doing a cash out refinance that will be giving us about $30k to work with and I am trying to decide where I should look. We are thinking either locally (prices here are much cheaper than in LA- an hour from here), or Hot Springs, AR. We have family there so we visit that area but I have no idea where to get started. Open to looking anywhere, but I hear distance rental properties are tricky.

Any tips would be greatly appreciated!!!