All Forum Posts by: Jake Stone

@Lara White thanks for the quick response! Yes we do own it, and one of the reasons we decided to move forward was because the inspection came back incredibly clean.

Got the go ahead from the county/city to begin our work! Will update/ask questions along the way for sure.

Hello All -

Been a listener of the BP Podcast for a few years now and I’ve finally gathered up the courage to purchase my first home with my wife!

The house is a 4 bedroom 1 bath built in 1939 in Central Pennsylvania. All things considered, it’s in really good shape. New metal roof, water heater, windows, HVAC, etc. all the boring big ticket expenses have been covered for us.

Our plan is to remove two non-load bearing walls to open up the main floor’s floor plan, gut and refinish the kitchen completely prior to moving in December 1st.

We took ownership of the property today and wanted to run what we think our next steps should be by you all…

1. Contact the county offices to see if there are any permits required for our planned renovations.

2. Begin by taking down walls and ripping out cabinets in the kitchen. (Floor plan for cabinets remains the same just with newer ikea cabinets)

3. Hire electrician to move any electrical from walls we’re removing

4. Install cabinets/countertops, etc. to finish kitchen

Some other things we’ve thought about preliminarily include things like testing for asbestos (plaster walls in an older home).

Tried to keep it short here in terms of the actual technical items we need to tackle to get this project started, but wanted to receive any feedback from more experienced renovators on the process we have in place.

End goal is to live in the property for a year or 2 and rent it out once we’ve completed renovations and saved up enough for a second property. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you so much, @Jake Stuttgen. I’ll be sure to keep in touch.

Hi All, 

I'm a 22 year old recent college graduate working in an industry that will force me to move around a lot year to year. I'm very passionate about what I do, but in my free-time I have been reading everything I can on financial independence, self-improvement topics and I've formed many great personal habits through this. And then I stumbled upon the idea of buy and hold real estate investments... and I've become obsessed with filling my brain with everything I can about this topic. 

I consider myself an action taker, but in my current situation I find myself a bit lost on where to begin. So help get oriented I've begun learning everything I can. Reading books, listening to the Bigger Pockets Podcast, and even analyzing deals in my college town, and my hometown in the midwest (the two places I'm most familiar with). But currently I'm living in the Northeast, and could end up anywhere come 2020. So I figure there is no better next step than to start interacting with some people who've already made the jump.

So that is what brings me to Bigger Pockets. I'm excited to get started here, meet some of you people and continue learning.