All Forum Posts by: Nicholas Adams

One thing I learned quickly was to set boundaries & expectations upfront. (When dealing directly with tenants) With my house hack property I have a great relationship with tenants, but wish I would’ve established certain things upfront. Because of that being my first tenant experience, I overlooked this & I now have & let myself come off a little too friendly. This was the first & last time I let this happen.

Hey BP community, It’s my first time installing flooring and I’m looking for suggestions on waterproof vinyl. Do you usually suggest getting the more expensive quality product or something a little bit more in between? Obviously I would like to save some money but I know by getting the cheap product I’ll be costing myself more in the long run. (This is for a duplex by the way) any suggestions on where to go, specific brands, and what quality/ thickness to look for? Thanks in advance! 

Hey BP community, I have a single family home in a C neighborhood. It’s in somewhat rough shape but I listed it last week off market and have a few offers. I started at 15k cash and got an offer from another local investor who offered 7.5k cash or 15k seller financed over 4 years at 5% interest. It sounds somewhat appealing (other than the interest rate) because I haven’t had any cash offers even at 10k yet and definitely don’t want less than that no matter what. Please tell me all possible cons/ worse scenarios to help me have some more insight before deciding! Thanks in advance!

Hey BP community, I have a single family home in a C neighborhood. It’s in somewhat rough shape but I listed it last week off market and have a few offers. I started at 15k cash and got an offer from another local investor who offered 7.5k cash or 15k seller financed over 4 years at 5% interest. It sounds somewhat appealing (other than the interest rate) because I haven’t had any cash offers even at 10k yet and definitely don’t want less than that no matter what. Please tell me all possible cons/ worse scenarios to help me have some more insight before deciding! Thanks in advance!

Hey BP community, I have a single family home in a C neighborhood. It’s in somewhat rough shape but I listed it last week off market and have a few offers. I started at 15k cash and got an offer from another local investor who offered 7.5k cash or 15k seller financed over 4 years at 5% interest. It sounds somewhat appealing (other than the interest rate) because I haven’t had any cash offers even at 10k yet and definitely don’t want less than that no matter what. Please tell me all possible cons/ worse scenarios to help me have some more insight before deciding! Thanks in advance!

The best advice I’ve personally heard is to call the local agencies & ask them to put you in contact with the most successful agents in their office who deal with investors. I feel it’s crucial to have an investor friendly agent, even some of the top agents aren’t all investor friendly. My agent doesn’t close a lot of deals because he works a full time job as well, but he is an investor himself. He also has a lot of time and knowledge in my market, which helped my decision making leading to my first property. Hope this helps!

Sharon, I am a newbie and recently got into real estate myself. I did some research for about a year, then found a better paying job to help with a higher loan amount. I relocated about 2 hours from Philadelphia, where I’m from. After relocating I waited about 8 months to get my pre approval and then put in nearly 15 offers before getting one accepted. The area where I’m located now has been a tremendous help because of cheaper property prices compared to an area like Philly and its suburbs. I started with a duplex to house hack that I am projecting will have me saving enough money to be able to get into a larger multi family next year. Good luck to you!

Hey Michael, I’m not familiar with your area at all but wanted to let you know I’m 24 and just purchased my first duplex to house hack. Cost was 127k, after all expenses I’m about 15k out of pocket. This includes inspection, appraisal, down payment, closing costs, etc.. just wanted to reach out because i struggled for almost a year to find a deal that made sense. This made the most sense for my situation. I’m hoping & projecting to have enough saved within 12 months to purchase a larger multi family in my area to house hack again. Taking all numerical factors into consideration. With interest rates rising deals seem to be just slightly easier to find than when I first started looking. If you want to connect, bounce ideas back and forth, or just help each other with suggestions feel free to reach out! Best of luck to you! 

Not sure if you're looking for multi family or not, but I recently used my FHA on my first rental. I was trying to save it and use the 5% conventional but my lender told me that only applies for single family homes, which is why I used the FHA. If you are considering multi family, look for easy conversions or properties that were previously multi but were converted to a single family. From what I've seen they can usually be converted back with some easy frame work & drywall. Hope this helps, good luck!

More than anything, I struggle with certain long term projections to account for that are more specific to my area. The reason being is that the properties generally are 50-100 years old, making it harder for me to calculate the cost of certain repairs/replacements because of surprises that come up that I fear. One big factor to the numbers is the cost of oil heat, this has been a concern to me. Although I have calculated it into my numbers, I get extra conservative because of the fluctuation of cost. I definitely plan on avoiding some of the calculation headaches associated with these properties by getting more clear on my criteria when looking for my next rental.