All Forum Posts by: Megan Hirlehey

Hi Amy,

Are you guys planning to live with your son or do you want to buy a place for him to live/househack? Oakland is the neighborhood Pitts is located in, so it is definitely within walking distance, but it is also has a high concentration of college rentals. Southside ("flats" and "slopes" simply denote if you are located on the flat part or hill part of Southside, it's all the same neighborhood though) is across the river, you can't walk but it's a short drive and there is public transportation, also a lot of college rentals here. Squirrel Hill and Shadyside are further away (short drive), less of a student presence, however you won't likely find anything there in your price range unless it's the shell of a house that needs EVERYTHING, they are some of the most expensive neighborhoods in Pittsburgh. Greenfield is more in the price range you are looking for, and most parts are probably about a 10 minute drive from Pitt. There are several colleges located within walking distance to Pitt, so naturally the neighborhoods that are also within walking distance are mostly college rentals, which means it would be easy to find renters in these areas but they are also very busy. Hope this helps a bit, good luck!

I use HELOCs, I like the flexibility/reuseablility of them. You can pull the cash from your HELOC, buy a property "free and clear" then once you get it rented, refinance it into a traditional, fixed rate mortgage. That solves the variable interest rate problem and allows you to pay off the HELOC and use it for the next one.

In addition, most HELOCs have very low fees. I took one on my primary residence, paid no origination fees, and make no payments on it unless I use it, and only pay $70/yr maintenance fee, so if I never touch it over the life of the HELOC (10 years) I'm only out a total $700 in 10 years, which I think is reasonable for the access to the cash. The biggest problem, in my opinion, with Home Equity Loans is that you usually have to make payments on them whether you use them or not. So if you take one out to buy a rental, then the deal falls through you still have to make regular monthly payments out of pocket or pay the loan off in full. And no, you cannot just use the loan proceeds to pay it off right away if you don't use it because of all of the fees associated with loan origination. For example, if you take a $60k home equity loan, you will get $60k in cash BUT you will owe about $65-66k on the loan balance because they tack all of the fees on to the loan and then you end up paying those out of pocket.

Hope that helps a bit and good luck!

For just renting a room, I'd consider bumping up rent to include utilities since there's really no way to tell who is using what. the only other way to break it up is to split the bill evenly between all roommates but that could cause some unnecessary drama in my opinion, "Roommate A takes showers twice as long as mine, why am I on the hook for an equal portion of the water bill?!" 

I've wondered about that too, my guess (or hope, rather) is that not everyone working in the new businesses within the development can/will pay top dollar for a brand new apartment /condo/whatever they put in. There will still be other people who want or need a less expensive option in the area, which is where I think renovated row house (pretty much the whole block is row houses) will come in. In addition,  once the neighborhood is stabilized, I think it will bring in wanna-be city-dwellers who can't afford Lawrenceville/Downtown/Greenfield as well. But that's why I said you have to be feeling adventurous lol.. this is all speculation. I could be completely wrong and be stuck with basically a cleaner sh!thole in 5-10 years if I'm wrong!

Somewhere that I want to vacation regularly or retire to that has "short-term rental" friendly laws. Live the dream and then when it's time to move on, you have a place to come back and visit and can AirBnB it in the meantime

@Tyshana Harris @Ernie Watson @Steven Smith BP is definitely a great starting point for free learning about investing! You can also attend meet-ups to meet other investors, both new and seasoned. Pittsburgh REIA is pretty big and they meet every month (It's run by Josh Caldwell but won't let me tag him for some reason..), and they have several sub-groups that meet up each month in a smaller, more personal environment. There is ACRE as well, however I have not been to an any of their meetings yet but have heard good things. You can also just connect with other investors on here in the area and offer to buy them a cup of coffee and pick their brain. I think you'll find most people in this space are pretty friendly and eager to help. Good luck!

http://www.post-gazette.com/local/city/2018/01/26/...

This is the article that put Hazelwood on my radar, I ended up buying what currently amounts to a sh!thole there, planning to do a low-budget reno to get it rented quickly, then sit on it for a few years and if everything pans out, do a high end reno to attract a higher-paying tenant when the neighborhood (hopefully) turns

There's plenty of listings, especially in the city where storage is tight, that have separately rented garages. However, (without actually analyzing your area) I'd say $125 is pretty steep, especially if it's only half of a garage. Around here at least, most full garages rent for about $40/month, so you might want to run the numbers again with a lower rent projection. Good luck!

Welcome to the RE investment world! I'm pretty green too, but learning is a great first step. Most people in this space are pretty friendly and eager to help newcomers. Meet-ups are a great place to network as already mentioned, and in this industry you can really just reach out to most people and offer to buy them a cup of coffee and pick their brain. Good luck!

If you're feeling really adventurous check out Hazelwood.. That neighborhood is kind of a gamble because the perceived value is based on the Almono development actually happening. If it does, the place will be a gold mine. You can still get in for around $30k, a fully renovated property could probably go for $60ish because there's alot of out of state interest there right now. Many people are buying cheap properties to renovate and rent/hold and banking on the neighborhood turning in the next 5ish years. Like I said though, it's pretty speculative