All Forum Posts by: Charles Alexander

@Jonathan Taylor I currently own a house hack in Seattle, WA. I live almost free right now but even counting rental income I’ve got a debt-to-income ratio of about 42%. I’m interested in acquiring more real estate and wondering what financing options are available to me. I can come up with:

*Seller financing with seller carrying the note rather than a bank

*Partnering with a high income individual who will put their name on the mortgage

*Private money

*Possibly portfolio or commercial loans? It seems that the portfolio loans I've found have a max DTI of 50%

If there are other options available to me, especially for working with banks but without needing partners, I’d love to hear them.

Thanks so much for doing this!

Charles

@Danielle Wolter I must say, that sounds like potentially fertile ground for a partnership! I've been in contact with a few folks operating in each area already including a wholesaler and turnkey provider. I'm planning to undertake a serious research period over the next month or so, if you'd like I could get in touch once I've gathered and digested a bit more information.

Thanks for the welcome @Mike D'Arrigo and I really appreciate the offer of a bit of insight into the areas. I'll definitely be in touch!

I'm loving all of the activity, this has to be one of the most active first forum posts I've ever made!

@John Barrett I appreciate your perspective, it is interesting to balance out the risks associated with doing a deal with poorer margins in a known area vs healthier margins halfway across the country. With that said I'd probably be driven up to Everett or at least Shoreline if investing locally and I know Everett about as well as I know Moscow :) It would be dramatically easier to do research on the ground in Everett, however.

If you don't mind, what are your thoughts on the investment prospects for Everett? It seems if the area keeps growing home prices and rents in Everett are a good bet to rise, although I am a bit worried about how much of an impact the 737 Max grounding will begin to have on the rest of Boeing operations, including up in Everett.

Hello, BP community! My name is Charles Alexander and I'm a mechanical engineer currently living in Seattle, WA where I design automated aerospace manufacturing equipment. Although I'm new to real estate I'm hoping that my analytical skills and creative problem solving experience can be leveraged successfully in this arena, especially with respect to buy-and-hold deals for income replacement. 

Given the cooling but still relatively hot Seattle market I'm especially curious about out of state investing. Seeing people producing tidy cash flows in areas like Indianapolis, Kansas City, or even the Tri-Cities area of Washington has certainly piqued my interest in areas with good cash flow where my savings dollars could potentially go further.

I've recently attended my first local real estate meetup and plan to make a habit of doing so in the hopes of meeting folks with whom I could potentially partner in the future. As someone with some free time and good analytical horsepower who lacks a large sum of capital I'm hoping to connect with experienced out-of-state investors to whom I could provide value in exchange for knowledge and experience and potentially some equity in deals. Looking forward to getting to know this community!

-Charles