All Forum Posts by: Denny Robert

David Zheng was this in St. Louis? What an incredible story!

I'm looking for fixer uppers in west county and preferable in Kirkwood. Any wholesalers working this area?

I hate doing taxes and I hate paying taxes. I will gladly cut a check to have it go away.

I got my license young, albeit in a rural area, and found it hard for clients to trust me. Go to every class you can, and go check out every vacant home in areas you want to work in. As an agent if you can get on a team down there that will help you as well. Your SOI (sphere of influence) won't be much help for purchasing for a while, but let them know you can help them with rentals so when they think of real estate they think of you. IMHO the best agent podcast is Pat Hiban's Real Estate Rockstars. Start listening to one or two episodes a day and you'll get a great perspective on all the ways an agent can do business. Find an old real estate investor and hangout with him. Work for him if you can. Offer to post his rentals on the MLS for free or cheap. My old landlord become one of my mentors for the last 5 years. Buy a fourplex for your first purchase. Work your butt off to scrape together enough money to get the cheapest worst condition fourplex you can find in an area you and your friends would want to live. Maybe the area is a little sketch, but not warzone. Talk your friends into moving in. If you have 8 bedrooms have 7 friends move in, maybe give them a little break on rent to keep them happy, and make it a fun place to live. Fix up the units as you have money over the next couple years. Eventually your friends will want to move along. By then hopefully the place is nice enough to rent out for top of market rents in that area. Maybe it will be close enough to U of A to just keep renting to college students.

@Allie Pfannenstiel, I met Natasha years ago in Tempe before she left to Thailand. I can't remember... are you two sisters? Not sure if I met you too it was so long ago. I think I met Natasha right after I had returned from teaching in China about 3.5 years ago.

Have to ask a question: Did you ever meet Fil Wojt in your Asia Crossfit journeys? He has a gym in Qingdao, China and got his certification in Thailand. Big Polish blonde guy.

Anyways, welcome to BP.

I feel different about my tenant neighbors that I've built a relationship with. Yesterday I gave my old Xbox 360 and games to a single mom tenants. She was over the top happy for her kids. It's certainly not even close to your responsibility at this point, but buying one off Craigslist as a gift would be a loving thing to do for an elder you've held a relationship with.

How's your relationship with the neighborhood? Will they care? Also... hypothetical for everyone: what if you have a tenant who is legal when they move in, then have another baby that puts them over? If they qualify in every other way I would consider it.

You have 60 days to move in with FHA. If there is a tenant on month to month or their lease ends soon you can make it work.

@Josh Calcanis

Not sure on MIP tax implications. Best to ask an accountant. MIP does not go away on FHA after getting to 20% equity. You have to refinance to conventional.

Still, for someone starting out you can't beat 3.5% down on 4 units, with 2 or 3 of them paying the mortgage.

Originally posted by @Josh Calcanis:

@Ryan Hurd Congrats on the multi!

I'm curious why you went FHA compared to just throwing a similar down payment at it and paying PMI. From my experience, the PMI drops off at 20% LTV and can be written off if you make under a certain amount (I believe 100k). I know you can write off MIP as well, but it doesn't drop off until 70% or something around there. So essentially you're putting down less in both situations, but realistically paying more in the long run (if it's a buy and hold).

Any other posters on here familiar with that? @Albert Bui @Denny Robert @Paul Cleveland

Josh,

My mortgage banker has told me he can't do a conventional loan on a fourplex with less than 25% down even if it's owner occupied. So it appears if someone wants to do a loan down payment option on a fourplex they have to do FHA, then refinance to conventional when it hits 25% to 30% equity.