All Forum Posts by: Kate Gagnon

Hi Folks,

I just was curious what other people would do. I have a long term tenant in a duplex. I have let her paint her walls and when she wanted to upgrade ceiling fixtures, I had them installed for her and she paid for the fixtures. 

Currently her daughter wants to pay to have her linoleum floor upgraded to tile, and she has asked if this is OK. My thoughts are do I allow the upgrade with the condition that I approve the materials and contractor OR just say no? 

What is everyone's thoughts?

KG

Yep - Minus the brokerage fee. I did this with my first purchase.

Welcome! This is a great place to meet like-minded people with loads of experience in your community as well as across the country! Good luck!

@Michaela G. I really like this thread. It shows that there are always different ways to be successful and that success can't always be quantified with how fast you grew. It also shows that by being patient you can still make a great living and find a niche for yourself. Great share!

Hi,

I love this thread. I'm "single" with a boyfriend. He does not support my investing financially or has any say on the properties I choose. He does support what I'm trying to do though! But I'm more open to finding and connecting with female RE investors. I'm just starting out but acquiring my second property either the end of this month or early next month- as soon as the title company clears the deed! It's definitely not easy but it can be done! I would love to see a whole blog forum dedicated to female REI's!

@Michael Guzik- I bought my first car when I was 19 and it was one of the worst decisions I made, but a lesson in itself. I live in NH, where everything is very spread out, little to no transportation, and having a vehicle is a necessity.

I was making around 25K a year, (with overtime), I didn't have any credit and somehow I was able to finance a 20K car- mind you this was 2006 before the crash. The payments were $420/month, insurance was 350/month, gas crept up to 450/gallon for 93, oil changers were $100 every 5,000 miles, and I still had to pay rent, feed and clothe myself, and still manage to enjoy being 19.

Not only was I breaking my back and working to death for a depreciating asset, in a year my needs changed completely! I ended up going to college and to keep my car I had to work part-time which took a lot away from the experience- there was no Uber back then or that would've been a good gig. I missed a couple payments which was stressful but I was able to somehow always make it work out.

I graduated in 2012 and still had about 8 payments left and it was tough. I struggled to find a job in my field and was making roughly the same amount of money as I did before college- ouch. It was still a burden and the first summer I had the vehicle in the shop for a huge engine over-haul, and the day I got it back I was rear-ended! 

When the vehicle was paid off was when I was finally able to start saving up for an investment property. It wasn't much at first but it was something. Not having a car payment is the BEST! Even if I had to replace wear and tear items the car wasn't costing me more than $1200/year to maintain. 

I finally decided to sell the car in September after I kept the car for 10 years with no payment for the last 4 years. Because I had a reliable car and no payment I was able to save more money that a lot of my friends who drive new cars and have nice things, (actually I'm the only one with property too!). 

If I had to do it all over again I wouldn't have stretched myself that thin. I learned a lot on how to be frugal but I missed out on a lot always having to work. Yeah, you could take over your dad's loan, but $450/month is 1/5 of your overall income, (Net?/Gross?)! Not to mention insurance, gas, and maintenance! On paper your loan/income might be low, but realistically you're really taxing yourself with 1/5 of your income dedicated to a vehicle. To put it in perspective, my new car now costs me maybe 150 more than my old car, but I also make more than triple what I did when I bought my first vehicle.

Just my experience!

RIP GTI

Looks awesome! Great job! Great breakdown too.

@Kyle Joseph

I appreciate your comment and just tried to answer as best I can in the little hashes below, let me know your thoughts.

Interesting comment about tech moving to NH. What tech companies are you seeing move to NH? Are they tech companies, tech divisions of non-tech businesses, or something else?

-Quit a bit actually: Dyn is in Manchester- Deka, (which is biotech), Oracle has a large office in Burlington MA, and Siemens as well, just to name a few -Burlington is about a 35-40 minute drive from Nashua. But there are quite a good amount of other companies like Sophos setting up offices north of Boston.

 Sometimes I struggle with southern NH and if you can expect any rental growth above inflation -

 -Finding the deals where you can get good rent is hard. The RE is very inflated and certain areas like Merrimack, the rents are very healthy however the upfront costs reflect that. 

I understand it's proximity to Boston (but you're looking at least 1+ hour commute) and that prices in Boston and surrounding areas are continuing to drive people further from the city. It'd be great if they built a train or something to make the commute more reasonable, and then I think the city could be more attractive. 

- The rails are there, they just need to be utilized and maintained. There have been some companies that have plans to put a commuter rail in Nashua and the state has been working to make this a reality.

But you look at downtown Nashua and there doesn't seem to be much to draw in millennials and younger people to it.

- Nashua has invested millions in the downtown area to draw small businesses and shops. It has a college-like feel to it with restaurants and a nightlife- I would check out Peddler's Daughter, Martha's Exchange, or even The Garden on a Saturday night.

Are renters really moving to Nashua to commute down to jobs on route 95 or Boston? (renters is key word, I think there's more of an appeal for homeowners and those with families - I'm making an assumption that the majority of families in southern NH with an adult commuting into Boston are buying and not renting, but please correct me if I'm wrong) To me I think the draw to southern NH needs to come from growth in southern NH (such as the tech you've mentioned), or growth north of route 3/95. That's why I'm interested in what you're seeing in terms of tech moving to NH.

- I think it's a mix of both. If you look at the statistics, when I was in college in 2012, NH had the highest median age per capita than any other state- in the mid 30's... That;s a daunting number and I'm not sure if that still rings true today. However being a millennial I think Nashua and southern NH is finally catching up and trying to draw a different type of individual to NH. However with the median house in MA being 400k, I would not be surprised if a lot of families working north of Boston would move to tax-free NH to save on some upfront costs- But I'm not sure if paying income tax and a high property tax really offsets the upfront. I do see single family developments and large apartment buildings going up which means there is the demand. Also, if you've tried to buy anything whether it's a SF or condo, everything is flying off the market in the middle to upper-middle class area.

---Anyone agree or disagree?

@ Kyle Joseph- I have seen the rental market tighten in Nashua. It's a very sought after area- commute to Boston, tech moving into NH etc. I've been seeing investors make good money in Manchester as well as a little more north where there seems to be less inflation in property pricing and people still need good affordable rentals.

@Emmett Harris - how has your search been? I'm finding that southern NH is very high unless you have a lot of capital to invest in repairs.