All Forum Posts by: Kenneth Cheston

@Joshua Jacobs

I have an investor mortgage with SECU (7/1 ARM) and a HEL with BCEFCU. Just call around though. I hit all the credit unions with calls (about 15 or so) just to see what rates.

@Al Seward

You've gotten a lot of good advice. Russell Brazil is a big time investor so anything he says is usually great advice. I also especially agree with Michael Smythe's first thought. You can't predict the future. The most important thing is to take action after you have a rough game plan (which sounds like you have).

I house hacked a duplex back in 2021 for $140,000 in Baltimore City (Overlea) with an FHA. Still under the same mortgage. I then took out a HEL against it to keep going to the next one. It was a steep climb to get the next duplex because of the 25% down (this is changing in the near future). Now I flip properties to replenish cash for the next investment. It's almost impossible to BRRRR now but you can do "soft" BRRRR's to keep the locomotive going. Anyways you have a lot of different strategies at your disposal and 120k is great nest egg. I was all-in 66k for the first duplex... pulled out 23k then bought a nicer one that I was all-in 100k but got a 50k HELOC that started my flipping. I didn't have a clue what I was doing when I started!

Hope that helps. Feel free to DM.

@Samson Oni - you got great recs already

I started using Zillow but payments go through slow and interface is buggy. So I advertise and screen tenants through Zillow to start then migrate to Avail which is free. BP use to advertise this platform, but it's great. You can submit maintenance request, manage leases, request additional payments, keep track of multiple properties, reminds tenants that payment is coming up via email and when late, and it's free.

Stessa is also major to have. I use Stessa to keep track of all expenses and comes handy for taxes.

@Sara Frank - great feedback thank you!

@Tim Jacob - What kind of benefits does Chap offer? Looks like some serious tax credit? I'm mostly looking to do something cheap and fast with hard money. Thanks for the response!

Hi everyone,

I'm looking to flip my next property to get some more cash. I've been snooping around MLS and direct mailing for a bit. I usually stay away from condos and HOAs but recently I took a look and it seems like there could be something there. Seems like you have to call the association head of time to make sure renovations are OK, make sure there's no assessments on the horizon, and that the condo fee isn't too high for buyers. Any other things I should know? Love to hear any experience. Thanks!

@Kyle Clover - All great stuff in this thread. If this is your first rental purchase, there's also an option of buying the property with conventional financing then using a HEL or HELOC as second mortgage on the property to get money out. Not as much pressure to BRRRR or sell in this instance. That's what I did for my first two then I'll be doing the classic BRRRR strategy moving forward.

Baltimore Investor's

Just wanted to drop a note that the city does report out some property data with items like owner occupied, date last sold, purchase price, zoning, construction type, etc. You can export your list into excel and filter further. Still not as polished as Propstream if you really want to set out on a direct-mail campaign but thought this was interesting.

Baltimore City Property | Open Data | opendata.maryland.gov

Weirdly feel like an auctioneer :D I'll take $400 for my ticket. Thanks

@Tim Triplett

As other investors mentioned, make sure you understand the different products out there (HEL, HELOC, Cashout-Refi). It depends on your situation. I've done a HEL and HELOC for investment in Baltimore. I just recently got a HELOC for one of my duplexes with TD Bank. I didn't want to refi or HEL to hurt the cashflow but still have the ability to BRRR in the future. For my next deal I will cashout-refi to pay off the HELOC.

Hey y'all - selling my ticket. I'd take $700.