All Forum Posts by: Chris Winslow

@Jacob Beg you might pick differently depending if you rent or sell but hard to say without seeing, with a small section of countertop you could make it really nice with granite for about the price of laminate and for larger stretches laminate is relatively cheap compared to other options and could really upgrade the look if it truly looks bad

other options I can think of that would be cheaper would be more like bandaid fixes- painting, epoxy, using a thin veneer etc but I wouldn't recommend it

You could also check habitat for humanity type places for counter tops you could use and buy for low cost

@Connor Lewis- so of course not a CPA so talk to them first etc but what I do is for each property create 2 accounts, a checking for rent payments and paying contractors, and a savings that I use to hold security deposit. I open up a credit card specific to the property and put all expenses that I can on that.

Use an excel spreadsheet to teach expenses, there are plenty of templates around online, you can look for one you like to work with and modify it for your needs and to match IRS expense categories. You can also take a look at Stessa which is like mint for tracking expenses but for real estate. I started with this a couple months ago and it looks pretty nice so far

@Igor Stankevich- I would try signature FCU, I was looking for a HELOC about 2 months ago and they offered 100% ltv on primary/owner occupied and it sounded like they may offer 70-75% ltv for investment properties. I imagine this would apply for second homes as long as the income is there and also may depend on the agent you are working with on how creative they can get

@Abi Cabonita- definitely house hack! It's like reading wheels for real estate investing and you can get in with low risk and low money down, lots of great info about it on BP

@Demetrius Davis- looks like there's some good info here already but I agree with a lot of what has said. I am still pursuing deals and looking at anything that pencils out. Interest rate doesn't really matter as long as it's cash positive since the tenants are paying the mortgage. Good luck!

@Brenton Vineyard househack for sure, it's training wheels for real estate investing. It gets you a general understanding for a lot of aspects of real estate investing without a lot of risk

Hi @Marek Simon, @Nathan G. nailed it- go ahead and get started, you can worry about these details later once your business has some more direction

@Owen Brennan once you have a small base of knowledge and a great realtor and lender then get started as soon as you possibly can. Your first deal isn't about hitting a home run it's about starting momentum.

Learning what you can on forums, books, and podcasts is great and helpful but actually getting in, going through the process, and doing the work is where you learn best.

@Chris Winslow

Whoops looks like I am in the wrong forum... Zack probably won't be able to help too much in Maryland but good luck still!

@Ursula Leake my lender @Zack Karp is awesome, highly recommend you reach out! Good luck!