All Forum Posts by: Chirag Parikh

Hi Folks, 

I am a resident physician at Columbia University in NYC and will be moving down to Miami, FL on June 15th of 2018 to start the remainder of my residency in anesthesiology (3-4 years) at Jackson Memorial hospital and surrounding hospital systems. 

I am looking to find an agent who is completely familiar with with the process of getting a resident physician a home. It is somewhat different since fresh graduates of medical school tend to have a very heavy loan burden. That being said that are a number of lenders who work with residents to get them a loan at 0%-10% down no pmi (see physicianloans.com and suntrustbank.com). I am looking for an agent who who is thoroughly familiar with this process so that if we need to do things ahead of time to make sure we qualify, that we take care of it now. 

Thank you for your consideration, hope to hear from you all soon!

Chirag

 If the appliance is covered and they cannot fix it, then they will cover the cost of the replacement (brand new too)!

Kyle, 

Many of us are in this boat. It is true that such constant negativity can drain some of your "life force" so-to-speak. If you have not already, read Rich Dad Poor Dad. This book definitely touches on what you're experiencing and will help you understand exactly why you should ignore them and keep moving forward. Once you do so, you have to have the clear resolve to push forward and follow through on your plan. There will always be naysayers. 

I am a medical student and I was speaking to my colleagues about my future career plans. Though I am training to become a doctor, I have a plan to use real estate as an investment vehicle that will free me from any bond I feel to work as a doctor because i need to do it to pay for my life and the associated expenses. I want to be able to practice medicine with no monetary strings attached. 

When i explained this to my colleagues their initial reaction was laughter. That's it. They laughed at me like it was some kinda joke. I proceeded to explain to them how I have successfully acquired and am now maintaining cash flowing rental properties and all of a sudden their tune changed. It went from laughter to question after question on how the whole process works. 

People who have never successfully done or even attempted what we are attempting to do are certainly not at all qualified to tell you whether you'll manage to be successful or not. Remember that. 

Also remember that biggerpockets is a huge community of people who are successfully doing what you are attempting to do, every single day. It is most definitely possible. 

Find people who are successful in what you are attempting to do, educate yourself relentlessly by talking to them (and reading as many books as possible about real estate) and push forward with all the determination you can muster. 

Good luck!

Chirag

Hey Brad, 

I actually have a property right now that is under American Home Shield (AHS) home warranty. I'm currently out of state so I find it very convenient for me to be able to put the service request in online immediately after my tenant reports an issue, and they arrange for a reputable local company that they have a contract with to come out and assess the issue. Following that if any repairs are covered under the warranty, it is covered in it's entirety.

For example: My fridge breaks and my tenant calls me up and lets me know. I place a service request online, AHS emails me details and the company that is going to send someone out. That company will then contact you directly to set up an appointment.

One thing to note, as an "absentee" owner such as myself, I call up AHS after the appointment has been made but before the servicing takes place, and I pay upfront a $100 "service fee" with credit card. That way the tenant doesn't have to deal with it, just has to be at the house when they arrive. The person taking care of the issue will call you up and discuss any further repairs. This service fee is due for every service call you set up.

Pros: Relatively easy to use online service request, pay upfront and tenant gets it taken care of. If you have relatively expensive appliances that would be very detrimental to cover the cost of yourself if it were to break, this is a good plan for you. For a mere $100 the problem can be fixed in it's entirety, including replacing an entire appliance! They cover major issues with plumbing and electrical too.

Cons: Cost to cover major things in your household is about $635 per year. I would say if your home are relatively expensive, it is worth it to go with AHS because if an expensive fridge (or any other item) breaks it's replaced in that $100 service fee and you end up saving a ton of money. My unit is not that upscale so in 2-3 years if only 1-2 problems occurs then it really doesn't pay for itself. Right now I use it for the convenience and peace of mind of having that service available while I'm not near by.

My suggestion, and something I have been seriously thinking about now is perhaps start with AHS and save money as you go for future incidences that require fixing. The beauty of AHS is they tell you exactly what company they're going to use to deal with whatever problem you have. Collect the names/numbers of the companies they send out and keep it for your own future reference. Eventually you probably will have enough money saved that you wont need AHS and can manage to just call up these companies yourself and take care of it.

One issue I find a little frustrating is they'll occasionally call me during a service request and tell me certain things are not covered, and they'll ask for an additional amount to repair the entire thing (though it isn't usually some ridiculously high amount, maybe another $100-$200 depending on the problem). This doesn't happen all the time but it can be annoying. Be careful to read through the plan policies and see what is covered and what isn't so that you know exactly what you're getting for your money. 

Sorry for the lengthy post but I hope the information I included is useful to you!

I'm gonna go ahead and echo what almost everyone has said. Use local means to find the information you need. Zillow is not reliable. I'm fairly certain tax records are public knowledge as far as I know so there is always a way to get this information and it will be 100% accurate if you get it from the source. 

Wow.  Where to begin.

When you are screening for a tenant, legally you are supposed to have a written set of criteria that you must follow when screening. This written criteria should be provided to the tenant and signed so they understand what your criteria is. Whoever FIRST qualifies under this criteria is the person you should be accepting into your property. 

Specifically mentioning the race of both potential parties is quite possibly the most stupid thing I have read on BP. If you had no intention of using their race in the selection process you would simply leave it out of your description/question. A useless statement at the end along the lines of "of course i'd never use their race as apart of the selection process" isn't going to help. Again if you had no intention of using race as a part of the process you'd leave it out. 

For the sake of hearing it from a second person, I too have been told from lenders in the past that changes like the ones you mentioned take about 30 days to show up on a credit report. Good luck to you!

Lets not forget that we're heading into the end of the year... there are fewer people moving around this time of year so that may play a role. 

Though I am not entirely experienced in this subject, I recall from some of the podcasts that larger banks like BoA can sometimes offer lower interest rates on their products under certain circumstances compared to a smaller bank or portfolio lender. 

An issue I ran into a while back with financing smaller properties is that some of the local lenders I was trying to work with would not finance loans under 100K. I'm not sure how many people ran into this issue but smaller lenders would explain to me that it wasn't worthwhile for their company to lend on such small loans. However, when the broker I was working with suggested Chase bank I had ran into no problems there. 

That being said my brother bought a condo a while back and used a local small bank and had no problem getting a loan for under 100K. Sometimes i think it just ends up that you use what you find worthwhile for your project. That may be large or a small bank depending on the circumstance. 

You'll hear all kinds of things from all kinds of people. As long as you do your research and are thorough in your process don't worry about what people have to say, be confident in yourself and your process. Gotta have a thick skin in this game! All the best to you!