All Forum Posts by: Craig Curelop

@Ryan Peach - If you are doing a significant amount of work to the property, would you be able to raise the rents? That might make this deal look a little bit different. When are the current leases expiring? If you can schedule the construction to be completed by the time the leases are expired then, you might be able to work something out. 

@Noah Scott - My suggestion would be to go to www.biggerpockets.com/meet and reach out to real estate investors. Message at least 10 per week and try to meet with at least 5 of them on a weekly basis. 

Ask them to coffee and just chat with them. Be sure to be in touch after the meeting to see if there is any way that you can help. 

Another idea is go on Zillow and call on all of the top agents. Ask if they need any help with anything. Just being around real estate will help you learn. I know this isn't the most glorious of opportunities, but it is good until something better comes along. That's the best thing about volunteer work. You can quit when you like! 

@Josh Day - That makes sense to me. I have heard this strategy, but I must admit, I don't know if I agree with it. If your goal is early financial freedom, putting your money into a retirement account where it is tough to access will not do much for you. Sure, you can take loans out against it to help get your next property, but banks will typically only lend up to 50% or $50k, whichever is less. 

Personally, I'm for just being frugal and saving as much as you can, putting your savings into index funds and then use that for a down payment. To do this, I use Betterment. You set your stock to bond allocation and forget the rest. 

@Shantal Lawrence - Welcome to BP! You have come to the right place in terms of seeking out real estate investors who want to help without putting anyone in any financial stress. All of the content on BiggerPockets is free and all of the information you need is on this site. You just need to be sure to be active on it. 

I would suggest listening to the podcasts and reading the Ultimate Beginners Guide to Real Estate Investing. In the podcast there are always book recommendations, read the books that are recommended. They will help tremendously. 

Hope this helps!

@Dalton Fountain - All of the books that @Scott Van Straten mentioned above are great. 

I'd also recommend going to www.biggerpockets.com/books for a list of top 20 real estate books by BiggerPockets. Once you get reading through some of these, you will definitely be ready to take action. 

@Jacob Martin - You can absolutely buy occupied houses. However, I would caution you that inherited tenants can sometimes be troublesome. Be sure to do your diligence on the tenants as well as the property itself. 

If you want to purchase the house yourself, you will not be able to use an owner occupied loan unless you get one of the tenants to move out so you can take his place. 

Hope this helps,

Craig 

@Drew Lamb - I have a friend who prefers the 5% conventional over the 3.5% FHA. His main reasoning is that the PMI burns off automatically on conventional mortgages. On FHA loans, you would need to refinance to get out of the PMI.

@Cynthia Archuleta - I agree with what everyone said above. In addition, cash is not traceable and not scalable. 

What happens when you have multiple properties? Taking the time each month to drive around to each property make sure the right cash is available will be quite time consuming and troublesome. 

@Josh Day - I like where your head is at. House hacking with a family is NOT easy and I'm really glad you are going against the grain and doing it. It will be extremely beneficial to you in the long run.

If your goal is to accumulate buy & holds and to reach financial independence, why are you investing so much into your IRA and HSA? These will not provide you with accessible passive income that will allow you to be financially free.

Maybe invest $1k-$2k into your HSA to be safe. I would suggest not doing the retirement accounts (except for the 401k match). Use that money to invest in index funds until you get to the point where you can use it for a down payment on a property. 

@Khris Clymer - You might run into some issues with discrimination if you just put "good." My suggestion would be to be conservatively specific. If 600 is not "good" to you, then say "650."