All Forum Posts by: Forrest Williams

Depending on your budget, I would look at the western suburbs like Berwyn and Oak Park as well. Places there are cheaper and can cash flow quite well. I'm doing a house hack for a 2 flat in Berwyn now, and the renter covers almost all of the mortgage. Definitely worth the sweat equity.

I would use this as an opportunity to house hack, and save yourself the rent. You could potentially get it for less money down and have more for the rehab too. My second house had a gas leak when I bought it, so I didn't have hot water for a couple weeks when I lived there. Since it was October, I showered at the gym every day. 

If it is a total sty you may want to be careful, but if the plumbing and electrical work and there isn't a gaping hole in the side, save yourself 10k and live there. 

I started house hacking 6ish years ago and met my girlfriend 4 years ago. She was also skeptical about the process. After I sold the first house she saw me working on, I bought her a new laptop with some of the proceeds. She became a little more involved with the next one, and we started living together when it was finished. Sold that, now we're doing a house hack together in a two flat. We spent the weekend painting the bathroom together.

House hacking isn't her favorite thing, but she is now on board with rental properties. One thing that definitely helped this time was having rental income put directly to the mortgage. We pay $9 a month on this place, and when we move out it should cash flow well. Even though I do most of the work, she has input. She helped pick out this place, helped with kitchen design, and budgeted improvements with me. We're a team, and I try to include her in whatever she wants to help out with.

If you want it gone, bring it up to the seller. Your lawyer or agent can remind the seller of the items. If it's still there at your final walkthrough, you can make a fuss about it to maybe get a couple hundred bucks out of them, since it will cost you time and money to remove it.

According to this study on happiness, $105k is about all you need per year. I'll take the 10k a month, and enjoy my life.

Hi Ammar, welcome to BP! I flip in the suburbs of Chicago. Is that where you normally live when you aren't at school? It's a bit of a trek to ISU. I think the best thing one can do to further their own education is house hack. You learn so many skills and how to deal with a variety of situations. Watch youtube videos on how to fix faucets, patch drywalls holes, painting techniques, etc. Buy a fixer upper and fill it with roommates while you still don't mind having roommates. 

Feel free to reach out if you want more tips and/or advice. I'll probably have some bigger projects I could use a hand on too this spring/summer, maybe you can help out with those.

I say, "help you out," because it is a non-threatening way to indicate I am on the same team as you. I wouldn't help out an adversary, would I? It's a customer service thing; exactly the same as "I can assist you." I wouldn't sweat people's turn of phrase that much. I live in the Midwest, people are very polite and verbose around here. Unless they are using racial or homophobic slurs, I don't think it's worth the brain power to can someone over friendliness.

Venmo is my go to, you may also want to look into Paypal but they have fee issues I believe. 

I invest in the Chicago area, I'd be curious where this building is. From the numbers you're talking about, I'd be concerned the neighborhood has issues.

House hack, house hack, house hack. If you can get a multi family that's great, if not, a SFH where you rent out the rooms will suffice. Find something that needs some work, learn the skills, and you'll be good to go. You don't need an LLC until later.