All Forum Posts by: George W.

Is the water in house still turned on? Sounds like it's a packing nut on the valve. Most the time packing nuts can be tightened and stop leaking. The curb valve in street needs to be operational though in case of emergency. 

The problem with the logic of always fearing economic turndowns is that you can be wrong on timing by years. Then it's easy to get in the mindset of not investing because it's coming soon. The best thing to do is not speculate but to invest and use caution when leveraged 

First step is to learn as much possible and setup a good monthly budget. 

as far as how much you need, it depends on location and what kind of real estate that you invest in. 

Check toliet flappers. 

Check that no faucets are bypassing water. 

Check that the water heater isn't leaking 

If you have a steam boiler, I've seen the return lines run under slab of basement and rust out draining boiler and making it constantly refill. 

Check for signs of water damage. If no luck with any of those things it's possible that it's a slab leak somewhere. There are companies that can come in and locate underground leaks with very great accuracy. A good plumber will likely know one. Also a good plumber might be able to find the leak much easier than just guessing on a fourm. 

You should try and lower all that debt. Maybe if you can sell your current place, house hack a multi-family property. pay off the auto loan asap. Then buy another multi-family and repeat. 

It's good to get pre-approval and talk to a mortgage company first that way you know what you're able to do loan wise. 

If the building is that old personally I would gut entire bath and change all the plumbing and electric in it will save you in the long term. 

I think your first step should be to setup a good monthly budget. Always save a good part of your paychecks. You should aim to have more savings. Get a credit card so you can build a score. If you have a tough time saving you may need a new job. Learn a valuable skill that helps you invest in real estate. 

Realistically you're not gonna flip a house with 4k unless a private lender lends you the cash for it which to them there would be a lot of redflags. You could certainly try wholesaleling but I think it's illegal in some states. If you decide to go the wholesale route you need to learn more about that process. 

If I were in your shoes I'd save up some more and when I had a nice Chuck of money saved up do a FHA loan on a duplex or triplex. Another thing to remember, is that there are closing costs when you buy a building. It's not as simple as putting 3.5% down on a place. You will need to save more if you want to buy a place legitimately.

when you're done living in third unit and rent it out, the other units are getting market rent would it still have negative cashflow monthly? 

You can get to a point eventually where you make 10k/month in passive income but it takes time and that won't happen overnight. It will take quite a number of units after expenses to acutally make 10k/mo. The thing with any investment really is that if it's "fast" it's probably more risky. You don't want to over leverage yourself. 

What kind of business would you start? You should focus on continuing to save and to have a stable income and focus on more manageable steps because 10k/mo over night with 100k isn't going to happen