All Forum Posts by: Katherine Tilley

@Justin Cox

I use Fidelity and I have a bank account for each property (I only own 2 currently so it’s nbd) and a separate one for security deposits. Fidelity lets you open as many accounts as you want and you can name them. I use the cash management account so it’s a savings, checking, and investment account.

I invest some of the money in property accounts in stocks because why not. I keep some completely liquid just in case.

Down the line I will have collapse all properties into one account and keep the security deposits separate.

Hope this helps!

@Matthew Irish-Jones

Thank you for the info! I’ll have to do some more research into that but yeah NY is making things unnecessarily difficult.

Hi!

Can any investors in NY help me out with how they charge for credit and background checks. I want to use apartments.com but they charge $24-$29 for the credit/background checks but the new law says you can't charge more than $20. Does anyone have a way to get around this that maybe I'm missing? Or if you can't, what sites you're using to do the checks and how much they cost. 

I really don't want to have to deal with actively collecting fees for the checks, I really want it to be automated through a site. And I don't want to have to pay for them out of my pocket if I don't have to! 

Any insight would be greatly appreciated! 

@David M. 

Definitely helps! Thanks David 

My husband and I are buying a our first two-family house-hack. We have two lenders: one that offers the typical FHA 3.5% down and another local bank that offers a conventional 5% down, both 30 year fixed-rate. The local bank's mortgages never change hand so they are able to not charge any PMI. We feel the 5% conventional is a no-brainer because no PMI will allow for a higher NOI and the possibility of not necessarily refinancing when we move onto our second house-hack, assuming we are able to save up enough for the next down payment and closing costs.

This being our first house-hack, I’m wondering if anyone has any advice or can maybe offer insight to something we might be overlooking? 

My husband and I are new to real estate investment. We currently live in Poughkeepsie NY but are looking to move back up to the Capital Region. We've been looking at properties in Troy to do an FHA loan on. I don't know much about Albany, but would be open to investing there. Anyone have any recommendations on Troy vs Albany?