All Forum Posts by: Howard Jow

Kitchen countertops

Granite is a classic provided you seal it in case someone spills red wine.  Can withstand temperatures up to 350F without charring

Quartzite is a beautiful alternative that we have in our home.  Same characteristics as granite provided it is sealed.  Granite and Quartzite are natural from the earth.  Go 3mm for a higher end look (slab will sit in cabinets).  2mm is more affordable as it sits on a wood slab that sits on top of your cabinets.  Your choice.

Quartz is a man made option.  It won't stain as easily, but will char above 150F if someone sets a hot frying pan down on it.

Agree with others.  No butcher block please.

Did you search loopnet yet?  You won't find much on Zillow.  

UPDATE:

We have been so busy with life I haven't had time to login to BiggerPockets.  After our trusted GC went through the home inspector report and visited the home with the inspector, we found enough problems that we ended up walking away from the deal (they had a backup offer for the same price, but not all cash like us).  After that, we ended up paying off our primary mortgage.  Now we are saving up cash to buy our first rental (either single family with 20% down or multi-family with 25% down).  Keller Williams is offering free classes in my area to become a realtor.  I have been taking the online classes as I have always been interested in real estate.  I am not looking to switch careers at the moment (maybe a pivot when I retire), but I feel the knowledge will benefit us when we are buying homes in the future.  We won't be saving on commissions until I get more experience since I'll need a mentor to help me when we're ready to buy again (co-agent).  But I feel the experience will be worth it and hopefully someday I can represent our family's interests by myself.

A colleague of my wife suggested we can also quit claim the title to an LLC after closing. But I will check with our loan company if this is discouraged for future loans against this asset.

On the first rental home, we have a LLC we each own 50 percent filed as a single (not partnership). I think you're saying the next home would be an LLC just controlled by one of us? Aren't the caps against our income together or is it against us individually? Just wondering how many times we can put down 25 percent for a rental home before we hit a wall.

My wife and I started out paying double mortgage payments in our current primary after she finished college in 2016. We were maybe 2.5 years away from being debt free. Then, we refinanced, pulled out cash, and used the refi money and some of our own to pay cash for an investment property in Glendale, AZ (we also live in Glendale, AZ). We have some options a year from now that we have been debating.

1. Use the cash flow from this property and our dual W2 income to save up 25 percent down on the next property. Once purchased the cash flow after expenses on both rentals would come close to covering our refi mortgage (not that we would use it for that but worst case).

2. Refi the rental and pull out $100K for another rental property.

3. Refi the rental and pull out the max cash. Put $100K for another rental and the rest to pay down the principle on the primary. She still wants to be debt free on the primary in the next 5 years.

We are buy and hold people for single family homes, but eventually would love to buy a shorr term vacation rental in San Diego. I understand some people put aside part of the rental money for maintenance, but is it also okay to just have a $10K slush fund per house that you replenish as needed?

I'm comfortable with any of the options. I know people would buy 3 more rentals after pulling out max cash from a paid off rental property but we are new to the game and that option is too big of a leap for us.

I have been lurking on these forums for a while and hope to connect with other folks in the area. Biggerpockets has already helped me connect with Brock Embree from Trelora who also invests in the valley so it has been invaluable so far.