All Forum Posts by: Melchor Domantay

@Account Closed That Book is a great start for your education. I have a few rentals in the West Suburbs mainly in Cicero IL and Berwyn IL. Chicago can be difficult especially if you're not familiar with certain pockets. I would focus on the market that you're familiar with. I focus mainly in my areas around Berwyn because I know every block in it. That can be your unfair advantage and can lead to a good deal.

Hey @Ryan Lopez, 

Personally, I would "House Hack". In my opinion, that's the best way to wet your feet in RE. As far as meetup, BP has a slew of them in your area and meetup.com has a lot too.

@Braden Smith Thank you!

@Chris Mason Thank you!

Free CRM system - What would you recommend?

Investment Info:

Small multi-family (2-4 units) buy & hold investment.

Purchase price: $280,000
Cash invested: $14,000

This is my first purchase!! I use a FHA loan with a wopping 3.25% interest rate:) I bought it newly rehab and this get me started on buying real estate as a income producing property. The strategy is to house hack so i rented 1 unit and rented my extra bedroom to cover the PITI. The utilities in my unit half due to my roommate. This property gave me the confidence to buy my next one.

What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

Just wanted to live for free.

How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

Found it from a non-investor friendly realtor. I did negotiate a 3% credit at closing which helped a bunch for not bringing too much money on the closing table.

How did you finance this deal?

FHA!! 3.5% down and 3.25% interest rate.

How did you add value to the deal?

Didn't add any value on this deal because it was fully rehab. It did appreciate quite a bit since 2016. I believe this deal open my eyes to the opportunities that real estate can give a person.

What was the outcome?

I still own this property. It break even every month. I am contemplating on selling it but my roommate and his friend are occupying one of the units. Still not sure on what to do with it.

Lessons learned? Challenges?

Lots of lesson learned. Learned how to be a landlord, how to buy for cash flow and invest for add value properties. There was not a lot of challenges instead a lot of fear in the beginning because i didn't know what I did not know and this experience made the second one a little easier when it comes to closing.

Did you work with any real estate professionals (agents, lenders, etc.) that you'd recommend to others?

I worked with lender and a agent but learned quickly on how to have a real estate team to close a property. Investor friendly individual.

Hold Hold Hold!!! Unless you have a better way to re allocate that investment to something bigger then hold. Another thing you can do is put a HELOC on your property and buy another one. The BRRRR method.

I started doing house hack and learned how to be a landlord. I'm just starting to look in too small multi - (5-50 units) now after 6 properties. If you have capital I would be looking at investing at syndication to learn how multi family but if you don't then house hack

Hello @Erik Biatti,

Thank you for your post. Is this property still available?

Hello @Jesse Chambers,

In my opinion, I would put an HELOC your property instead of doing a cash out refi. HELOC will allow you to use your equity over a long period of time (Usually 10 years). It will allow you to sit on (Cash equivalent) until yo find a deal.