All Forum Posts by: Nicholas L.

@Ivan Fence

Wallstreetbets

@Tatyana Rimar call them all!  There likely won't be that much difference among the big banks, but you won't know if you don't ask.  What product are you looking for - a standard 30-year fixed?  Or something else?

@Bassel Tabbara

first investment = house hack

@Brenda Hopkins pick an area you have a connection to or some knowledge of.

@Matt Sora a lot of the rules and the percentages are meant to be quick ways to screen out properties. Then, if you find something that might work, you should try to get more accurate numbers.  Say for example you see a property for sale for $200K that needs a lot of work and is rented for $1200.  It's probably not going to cash flow.  Move on.  But if you see something that passes some of the screening rules... do a deep dive.  Get the actual taxes.  Try to find out the actual previous rents.  Etc.

@Daniel Kitts congratulations on being in such a strong financial position.  I don't think the options you mentioned in your post are either/or - you may be able to do more than one at the same time.  The best thing you can do in the short term is maximize that W2 income and your savings.  Everyone who finds BP wants to jump in immediately... but I don't think RE is going anywhere.

As others have said, house hacking is a great option in almost any market.

@Samira Schadt welcome.  Put me in the "waiting" camp as well... having more cash almost always puts you in a stronger position.  And, while it seems likely that interest rates are going to go up, they're not going to triple... so if you haven't yet, call a lender and run a couple scenarios and see what a 0.5% or 0.75% increase would do to a monthly payment.  It may be less than you'd think.

Where are you looking to buy?  There isn't much multifamily in Nova.

Good luck!

@Lucas Gonzalez you also don't need to work with a turnkey provider just to get a property that's itself "turnkey." You can simply buy something that's listed on the MLS and doesn't need any work, put it under property management, and rent it out. This likely won't get you the best deal or the best return... but it's an option.

You may know all of that already, but I didn't see in your post that you're too busy to put any time into real estate... just that the NY metro area is too expensive for you to invest there.

Why not pick a market within 2 hours and build some relationships there?  I don't know where specifically you're located, but there should be good markets in PA and CT within 2 hours of you.

@Julia Taylor you are right in that you want to be highly confident that you will be able to refinance - but not that you're actually pre-approved or locked into a loan when you buy.

This means calling banks or other lenders and just going over scenarios with them.

For example, if your DTI would be too high to be eligible for the loan, this is something you would be able to find out up front. Or if you're counting on getting 80% out but can only get 60 or 70%, this is, again, something you'd want to know. If you're in a strong financial position it's highly likely you will be able to refinance - it's just also very possible you'd get a lot less out than you might be counting on.

Hope this helps.  I'm going through the refi process now myself.

@Gideon Pfeffer well... are there other areas of the country that you're interested in?  That you have friends in?  That you have family in?  That you could see yourself living in long term?

I agree with you that you should not buy a place you haven't seen.  So... pick a market, find an agent, fly there, and see as many properties as you can in a couple days.  Seems like a good investment to me.

If you want recommendations on good markets to invest in, people will make them - but we have no idea if they'll overlap with areas you might want to live in.