All Forum Posts by: Ron Gallagher

This is great. I was trying to produce something similar using Zillow's APIs but I couldn't find parameter that would give the HOA fee. How were you able to pull the HOA fees from the condo listings?

My friend just got a consolation loan from some third party though credit karma to pay off his credit card debt, then since most credit cards report to the credit bureaus usually weekly, within a week his credit score shot up to 740. I assume because the consolation loan hasn't been reported to the credit bureaus yet and since all his credit cards are paid off it looks like he has no debt. So then I would use that sweet spot of having a high credit score and "no debt" to apply for a 0% APR for X months credit card or a HELOC if you are turned down the first time when your credit score was low.

Congrats on your first purchase and keep us posted on how it turns out.

This made me laugh... it would make the bidet attachment potentially very painful.

Argentina was super cheap after the government fell apart and the peso was devalued in 2001. Almost two decades later the economy still hasn't fully recovered thanks to Kirchner banning the buying and selling of the US dollar.  Keep in mind all real estate in Argentina is bought and sold in US dollars since they don't trust their own currency, so imagine what that did to the real estate market.

But when Kirchner banned the exchange of US dollars I was able to buy pesos on the black market with US dollars which became a rare and hot commodity as a hedge against inflation which was out of control and the entire country was on sale at about a 40% discount because of the premium you could get on your money when you sold US dollars.  It was a fun (and cheap) time to be in Argentina if you had US dollars.

Also keep in mind I am a max saver and my monthly spend in an expensive market like Washington DC is still only $2k to $3k a month, since my housemates pay my mortgage (actually I cash flow $1600 a month on my primary residence) and I have no car payment and I clip coupons and I am extremely cheap.  You can easily live in DC or Buenos Aires and have a nice life for $2000-3000 a month.

I've factored in $500 a month for health care premiums in case Obamacare actually gets repealed, which probably won't happen since a republican congress and a republican president couldn't get it done.  If my income is near poverty level (which it will be when I quit my W-2 job)... my ACA health care plan will be subsidized by the government and my premiums will be quite low. But again, I am single with no kids. 

I want to cash flow $5000 a month (after capex, repairs, vacancies) which is double my current monthly spend of around $2500 per month.  I am single and I can easily live off $60k a year and when I reach my goal (I cash flow about $3100 a month after capex and repairs taken out currently) I will split my time between the US and South America.  I used to live in Buenos Aires and I could easily airbnb an apartment in the nicest part of the city and order take out food every other night, take taxis everywhere and still live for under $2000 a month. I would spend the North American summer in the US and then after spending Christmas in the US with my family I would head to South America and spend the winter (South American summer) there.  It was a good life and one that I hope to return to as soon as I reach my real estate investment goals.

I live in the basement unit of a house and I rent out the upstairs to skinny young adults and if you heard the stomping around that I hear you would be convinced they are all 300+ pounds upstairs.  Now everything is hardwood floors and maybe if I had carpet up there things would be quieter but the loudest of the stomping is when they use the stairs which is the only part of the upstairs that is carpeted oddly enough.

My point is the downstairs tenant may have a legitimate complaint and may not be just a complainer.  I am the landlord and I am complaining!  I would ask the tenants upstairs to be aware that their kids running around probably sounds like a herd of elephants to the tenant below and maybe add some throw rugs to the upstairs unit and hope that quiets things down for the downstairs tenant.

 I'm 6'3'' and live in an English basement in DC with 7 foot ceilings (maybe 6'11'' ceilings where there's one inch carpet) and it's fine.  I do not feel claustrophobic at all.  If you can go deeper than 7 feet then by all means go for it, but if you can only dig it out to the legal 7 foot ceilings then it's still worth it since like you said in your location someone will rent it for $1300. Also if you need another point of egress you could have the people digging out the basement also dig out another entrance for a second door.  That's what I did for a row house in Columbia Heights. The basement only had a rear entrance through a sketchy back alley so I had a front door dug out that went under the front porch. Message me if you want to see some before and after pics.

I recently bought a house for $800k and that uncapped the yearly property tax increases and now the projected property tax assessment for 2019 is around $805k!!!  Which is around $200k higher than what the house was assessed at for the previous owner in 2018. 

I want to appeal this new assessment but the problem is I can't think of any good points to make in my appeal as to why the assessment should be lowered.  The appraisal when I bought the property a few months ago came in at $800k, Zillow isn't helping as it says the property is worth $950k, RedFin says it's worth about $850k. I could claim I overpaid at $800k and I shouldn't be punished tax-wise for overpaying but I have no numbers to back up a claim that the house should be assessed lower than $800k.  Does anyone have any recommendations as to what to say in my appeal letter in order to justify a lowering of the assessed value of the house?

@John Leavelle How has your experience with Wells Fargo been? Since Wells Fargo is the worst offender in banking scandals and they operate a pretty corrupt business I'd prefer not to work with them, but they do offer up to $500,000 for a HELOC on an investment property (versus the more reputable PenFed Credit Union which only offers up to $400,000 and a lower interest rate).