All Forum Posts by: Shawn Mcenteer

Hi @Curt S. vacation related tends to not be as easy.  Very much town by town and community by community.   I am going through process right now on one of my properties and really the only reason I am doing it is becuase I have an extremely good relationship with town and becuase I have a clear MTR side step if needed.  Taxes are high in New Jersey but I will follow that up with so are rents.  On top of this rents go up much faster than taxes.  

Do you intend to use yourself or strictly investment?  If you want it as strict investment I would focus more on MTR catering to business professionals.  

Hi @Jennifer Katherine De Loughy please see below.  :)

-What I expect from broker:  Access to them at a minimum of 9am-9pm 7 days per week.  This is really for the sole purpose of needing answers on compliance issues that may come up

- non- negotiable:  I must be allowed by brokerage to also be a mortgage loan originator and be compensate for, I am NOT sending my business to broker owners lender when I as the agent can show up in that capacity.  With that being said majority of real estate commission must go in my pocket and there must be a clear way to allow me to work at greater than 100% commission each year with opportunity to receive re-occurring income 

-deal breaker: mandatory meetings that are frequent, majority preferred vendors i.e, lending, title, attorney, home warranty etc.  Any office hours as a requirement

-Access to broker is most important for me.  Even when I was new coaching, education, classes never impressed me becuase you can get them anywhere so I always outsourced coaching to top producer some of which were other brokerages even though my brokerage offered it to agents.

-I switched in the past becuase Brokerage put majority of fees on the agent in form of high splits and brokerage had to many rules/major push to use their in house people which was essentially an extra income stream for owners.  Also could not stand the brand element, meaning the push to get realtors to believe their business was from the brokerages brand. No one has ever worked with me becuase I was at XYZ realty, to this day many don't realize where hang my license.  At previous brokerages I was always told "if you leave so will your business"  It was always BS

I would meet with another brokerage if there was compensation structure that was substantially better than what I have now but with that being said I am I'm in a spot where I have golden hand cuffs,  I would be leaving tens of thousands of dollars of re-occurring income to make a switch. When I have conversations like this normal the math does not add up for me personally.  All this being said I want to let you know I am in unique position, although every realtor has ability to have what I have I know very few take advantage of it.  Most agents focus on buy/sell hamster wheel

Hi @Mike Smith the property is located in New Jersey?  Self managing can be very easy,  bulk of the work is screening tenants which you can hire realtor to handle and require tenant to pay realtor fee. Everything else is having well defined lease that breaks down expectation of tenant clearly.  When issues come up most agents with half a brain should have team in place to fix items/ tenant turnover.  All my clients get full access to these people as a white glove service for working with me.  Long story short self managing is worth $3k+ saved for maybe a few phone calls each year. 

Hi @Nicholas Minich Not sure if this would be a help for you or not becuase it requires a different approach compared to traditional renting but cash flow is not a problem, just normally requires creative renting strategy. 

Hi @David Fals small multi in north jersey rents fast.  I have turned over all my units in the past few years. Vacancy is under 1 week.  Most of the time it is same day. Meaning lease ends on 31st and new tenants come in on 1st. I am over a decade in with under 1% vacancy and not a single missed payment of rent with consistency rent increases of $100-$300 each year.  Living in a "Tenant Friendly" state has been a dream :)

Quote from @Vaughn Jennings:

Hello,

in terms of house hacking in northern New Jersey (or in general) which type of property is more likely to appreciate in a good area, a single family home, duplex, triplex, extc. Or if the area is top notch (A/B class neighborhood) will they all appreciate relatively the same ? 
Also, I understand that you can rent by the room house hacking a single family home, but how likely is that? Is it easier/more realistic to house Hack multi family unit 

 Hi Vaughn. Appreciation for single family and multi family ten to be similar. Both are in very high demand in North Jersey.  Very few single family and small multi family homes are being built. Finding distressed properties  A/B type neighborhood tend to work well especially with regards to rent increases year over year.  A/B type beinghoods are great but really the main focus should be landlord friendly towns vs tenant friendly towns, North Jersey fluctuated town to town.  There are towns that are wonderful and others that you should avoid. 

Rent by room works, I have done it both ways and I have plenty of clients doing single family and multi family.  SF vs MF is very important early on, I will let you know I have purchased many house hack in north jersey using low money down loans. HUGE hack.  In order to do so the type of property you buy prior plays a large part.  Purchasing single family then multi can be extremely tough but going from multi to single tends to be much easier.

With this being said, this is just small part of implementing a successful house hacking strategy but plays a massive role.  

Hi @Kevin Dzikowski i see you have this posted in the house hacking section so my guess is you are planning to rent out rooms.  Not a bad idea, this can be very enticing especially when reading the house hacking books and listening to podcast on topic.  Single family/ 1 unit strategy tends to work well in other parts of the country.  In NY it can be very tough especially with the wacky laws always changing in the city.  

What's stopping you from starting out with a small multi family property?  Not only inmost cases will the number work out more favorably but you may find the laws work more so in your favor.  Also it worth mentioning, buying multiple properties with low money down loan is much easier when going down in unit size ie triplex to duplex or duplex to single family.  Its very tough to go up in units using low money down. 

Hi @Frederick Martinez  Not sure if what I do is even a help for you but I specialized with everything house hacking.  I am a mortgage loan originator with house hack specific style loans and I am a real estate agent that has on market and off market multi family properties.  My niche is helping new and existing investors get to Fi via house hacking by leveraging the strategies that my wife and I used to get to Fi. 

@Shi-Feng Lin every town is different.  Town websites tend to be best, anything unclear I would call them on. Also keep in mind laws change year to year, especially in regards to rent control.  For example right now rent control laws in JC are more favorable t landlord compared to what they have been in years past.  But keep in my JC tends to flip every few years so good laws today could mean cap on rent increase net year or in future. 

Working with a multi family specialist in the market you are looking to invest in really plays a huge part. Not saying your agent is or is not multi family fluent but it makes a huge difference.  They should know these laws and be a guide for you.

Quote from @Brandon Stanberry:

What is the typical downpayment on a house hacking property in my area or how can I find out? I'm at about 100k in savings looking to start buying mid way through 2026 as I'll be at around 150-180k in savings i want to atleast hold on to 40k-50k still in saving and also will be a first time homebuyer so I qualify for a grant I think. My wife and I want to be able to put down 150k as a downpayment is that too much and should we just be looking to buy our main residence with that high a downpayment? Honestly we just want to afford the house we live in. Or start with house hacking which will afford us to eventually have our own home together before taxes and medical and so on we clear 200k a year. 🤔 

I Brandon, My wife and I have purchase many properties using 5% down owner occupant loan. One of the reason we were able to get to financial freedom so fast via house hacking in new jersey is becuase we kept as much liquid cash as possible in our pockets then use the money left over to put into the property which in turn increased rents and equity substantially. 

Our first house hack we had approximately $100k in savings, property we purchased was complete gut.  Turned a $500k property into a $800k property  double the rental income.  In your case having 150-180k you will be in a very good spot if you open to renovating.  

What's most important with house hacking is mapping out a way to get to your next property.  How you purchase the first properties plays a huge part in this process. Where you buy, type of property you buy and type of loan you use matters big time when mapping out plan.