All Forum Posts by: Chris Gillins

Careful with the Michael Lush character, he's another GURU who wants you to send him money to get access to his special list of "HELOC" mortgage bankers. I found this to be a bit of a joke. Better strategy IMHO is to use a traditional HELOC on a property you already own to get access to capital needed to purchase additional rehab ready investments. Do your rehab, then refi and pull your cash out, paying off the HELOC and pocketing the diff.

Thank you all for the informative post. We are currently looking at refinancing to get out of the PMI on our first and primary residence, and I saw a "scam" on replacing your mortgage with a HELOC and you'll pay down your mortgage in 5-7 years without doing anything! So I looked into it. Essentially he's (Michael Lush) peddling using a HELOC to completely refinance your mortgage and then using it as a checking/savings account. Thought I smelled fish, and not just cause I'm from the PNW. Turns out the guru wants me to pay him $$$ to be my "adviser", and get access to these "special" HELOC's banks that could do this. As I suspected and found here on BP, it's the same as just applying additional payment to your loan, despite what he was saying about your money working while you sleep because your checking account interest rate is zero, blah, blah, blah. The only way to pay down a loan, is to pay down a loan. Thanks for all the information, glad BP is here to fact check!!!

Agreed. Always get line item bids and detail out the scope. Remember, Contractors are busy right now, at least where I'm at, so you may need to get more specific in your quote request to make it easier for them to bid.

@Rohn Falter Welcome to BP! I'm a little further south than you in Woodland, WA. Best of luck going forward. 

Welcome to BP!

Welcome to BP!

Kevin Elwood You might want to revisit your rental rates in this area. You'll be very lucky to get the rates your looking at. While it looks good on paper that doesn't mean you'll get renters at that price. Check out Craigslist, and also cal around to local property management companies to see what the rates are going for.

Yeah, sounds like she knew he was going to be denied and so now, oh he doesn't need to be on the lease, but we'll just move him in. Like Marcia Maynard said watch it like a hawk!!

Hi Cristal, 

Purchase went through very clean once we got through all of the hoops needed by Fannie Mae. Working on drawing up plans and developing the budget for renovating the shop apartment currently. 

Welcome to BP!

Originally posted by @Matthew Rembish:

I totally understand and appreciate your input. Above anything else, I consider myself a realist and I don't buy into any of those get-rich-quick schemes. You all can obviously tell that this is still new to me but real estate is something that has always fascinated me even more so than engineering, which is my current occupation. I'm working on rehabbing an REO property I purchased back in April as a primary residence but am looking to sell it soon. In conclusion, I'm just a guy looking to prepare and invest for his future and value any input the BP community can offer me. I've learned a lot just from this thread and want to thank everyone who has contributed

 I'm right there with you, rehabbing my first flip-in, with a separate rental. I also truly believe in Real Estate as the best means to building passive wealth. BP is by far the best resource I've found for great, realistic information. 

Good luck to you!