All Forum Posts by: Lisa Irimata

@Pamela Sandberg I think you might be able to help out with some referrals for this.

Thanks for sharing @Gary Crawford I'm in the beginning phases of house hacking my way to a larger portfolio so this was a great read! Best of luck with the rest of your investing and looking forward to seeing what else you do!

@Scott Trench No seriously, thank you for writing the book! Definitely helped to shape my financial perspective as a young professional.

Long-term I am interested in getting involved in multifamily investing and I see that happening in the 5-7 year range, I'm planning on that time transitioning fully to real estate investing. Currently I'm looking at purchasing another property and converting my current residence to a full rental. I'm also simultaneously building up my index funds so that I can have multiple streams of passive income. Not sure if the end goal is necessarily building my own business but I am open to the possibility!

@Shiloh Lundahl I've also read Richest May in Babylon and did find it really insightful/inspiring. Haven't heard or The Millionaire Fastlane so I'll need to check that out, thanks for the recommendation!

I've been meaning to go to the Mesa meetup but keep having work/other responsibilities pop up. I'll make the next meetup a priority so I can finally connect with other AZ investors.

Hi all, I'm relatively new to the FI/real estate investing path but am excited to begin seeing some progress in the journey! I graduated from school about 2 years ago and one of the first personal finance books I read a year ago I read Scott Trench's 'Set for Life' and I'm excited to share my first year results. 

I purchased a 2B2B townhouse February 2018 and converted the den into a 3rd bedroom. I got 2 of my friends to move in and started to net about $100 per month! This allowed me to significantly cut my living expenses allowing me to achieve a savings rate of about 60% post-tax. I've saved up about $24k in liquid capital which I plan on using to purchase another property this year.

I've also been tracking my net worth quarterly have found that I've been able to increase my net worth by about 17-20% per quarter by saving, investing, and taking advantage of my company's stock purchase plan/401K matching/etc.

It's extremely encouraging to see my savings increase so drastically in a short amount of time. I'll admit that I'm a bit obsessive when it comes to tracking my expenses but I want to know if anyone else has other success stories related to personal finance. I'd love to hear them and to get more inspiration to continue saving and investing!

Hi Jorge,

"Beating the interest" just means that if you pay off your principle faster then you'll pay less on interest. You can visualize how the principle vs interest amount you pay per month changes by using an amortization calculator, my personal favorite is this one: https://www.bankrate.com/calculators/mortgages/amortization-calculator.aspx 

Just like Ronald mentioned above David Greene goes through all the different strategies of paying off your mortgage in his book. But a brief overview is below:

1. Make a 1/2 mortgage payment every other week. Typically in a year you'd make 12 payments. With strategy since there are 52 weeks per year you'd end up making 26 half-payments, or a total of 13 full-payments per year.

2. Round up your mortgage. Rounding up your mortgage to the nearest $100 would obviously reduce your mortgage, I think when I calculated mine out it took off about 3-4 years of the total time.

3. Make 2 payments per month, obviously this would cut your mortgage life in half.

4. You can combine the 1/2 mortgage payment every other week and also round up, personally I think this would be the fastest way without causing too much financial strain.

@Minh Nguyen

Glad it’s helpful! Don’t forget that the main point of house hacking is to basically live for free while building equity and maximizing your savings rate, so as long as you are achieving this then you’re doing good. Good luck and keep us updated how it goes!

Hi Minh,

I am house hacking by renting out 2 bedrooms from my 3B2B townhouse just like you are considering and I LOVE it! I agree about the multifamily FOMO but I'd say go with what makes sense for numbers. For my market it's difficult to achieve the 1% rule since there aren't a lot of small multifamily properties available to purchase/they're in C/D class neighborhoods. If a condo or townhouse works for you I'd also recommend that you check out how the numbers work out solely as a rental property if you plan on keeping the property in the future (this is something I wish I had done more research on before buying my current place). In terms of risk I think you also need to consider other factors like your job stability, income, etc to determine what property is best for you. Just from my own experience I put down 10% on a townhouse but would easily be able to cover the mortgage on my own if needed so I don't really see it as riskier than putting 20+% down.

Another thing to consider that I think is the biggest difference between renting out rooms vs renting out another unit is that you will be living with your renters rather than just managing their property. For me, I found 2 friends that rent from me so I actually really enjoy living with them but I don't necessarily think I'd be comfortable living with random tenants.

Bottom line: in my opinion go with the numbers that make sense and don't let FOMO get the best of you! Hopefully this is helpful and good luck!

-Lisa

@Derwin Villanueva Thanks I'll check out the article. Based on all the feedback I think that either fix of flip or BRRRR I'm going to start looking in state

@Anthony H. Agreed that I just need to pull the trigger, thanks for your insights and I'll definitely keep everyone posted!

@Lee Ripma Thanks for your insights, I do think I'll start looking in-state rather than out of state just for the purpose being there to learn. Glad your first deal still worked out even though you went over-budget I'll keep your advice about price point in mind while I continue my search!

Thanks for the responses @Jacob Graul and @Christina Linn. I've been analyzing deals for about 6 months now and have been reading up on investing for about a year and still feel unsure. Not sure if this is natural or if I need more education. It's getting to the point where I feel like actually doing something will be the way for me to progress and learn more.

Will definitely take your advice on doing what I'm most comfortable with/maybe not a flip for the first time into consideration.