All Forum Posts by: Roy Gamiz

@Julian Maso

If I had it to do all over again, I would house hack as soon as possible. I'm 40, married with 2 kids and one on the way. It will be much more difficult to house hack as you get older.

You can get into a primary residence with 3-5% down but will need to pay mortgage insurance with this route. Despite paying PMI you can still keep some cash in reserve with this route. If you go this route, be selective with the duplex or triplex you go with. Remember what students like to rent and find a property that meets that criteria or consider making updates after purchasing a property.

I have several properties in the Baylor bubble that I rent out to mostly students. I'm still able to rent my properties out during these times. While it's a bit more unnerving with proper attention and efforts you can keep properties rented.

I'll be glad to help in any way.

I've had good success in the Baylor market over the past 5 years. Most students I've had have not been an issue at all. 

Do you have specific questions or concerns?

I've been investing in Waco for 5 years now specifically in student rentals. The large apartment complexes have had a negative impact on SFH and small MFH properties by stunting the growth of rents. Students still want to live in non-apartment style properties but age of the property and proximity to the university are huge factors.

As far as management, make sure you speak with all companies available and that their goals align with yours. Also if they have their own properties caution as they may be renting their own first before others. It's hard to prove so good luck.

Final comment is to make sure you account for higher property taxes. Waco has been very aggressive the last 3 years in overvaluing properties to pump up their revenue.

With paid off properties, can you still write off enough expenses to have tax free income?

No leverage so no interest to write off. I'm thinking you start to have paying taxes with no leverage, right?

If you own the properties longer than 27.5 years you also run out of depreciation to write off.

What other tax implications are involved with paid off properties?

The Baylor market is struggling since it has been over built in the last couple of years. There aren’t enough students for all the beds that are available. The recent trend is new builds for 6 bed/6 baths but they are difficult to rent out from what I’m seeing.

Hi John Leavelle , Thank you for your service also and for the feedback. I have completed an analysis on the area. Current sales on single townhomes are at the $65/sqft range. Applying that rate to this purchase would make the value around $580k. However, even at this price the rental income does not support the purchase. It's a tough market for buying deals. I'll have to keep searching for opportunities since the numbers on this one do not add up. I will continue to include PM in my analysis. Thanks, Roy

Fellow Investors,

My wife and I are trying to pick up our investing this year and we have decided to house hack if we can find a good deal in our area. We'd like to house hack for a couple of years then repeat. The following opportunity has come up:

4 Contiguous townhomes: Total sqft 8,965

Asking Price: $618K

Rental Income: $5,475 Monthly

Expenses: 

Property Taxes - $8,146 Yearly/$702 Monthly

Insurance ~ $4,200 Yearly/$350 Monthly

HOA - $548 Monthly

*Property Management - 10% $548

*Maint - 5% $274

*CapEx - 5% $274

*Vacancy - 5% $274

The expenses listed above total $2,970 leaving $2,505 to service the debt just to break even which means I'd have to put 25% down to just break even (at FMV).

I have several other variables that can be incorporated. 1) I'm a veteran and would be eligible for $0 down on $424K of the loan. 2) We could exclude the property management fee since we will be managing but I always hear in the podcasts that it's best to include it in the analysis. 3) We would be selling our existing house to tap into the $100K+ of equity for the down payment. 4) We have a current monthly payment of $1,670 on our existing home. 5) We would not be purchasing at market value for this property since the numbers do not look that great above. 6) We have $50K of liquid funds to serve as reserves. 7) We also have additional funds in our IRA's that we can tap into if needed (yes, this brings up a whole slew of other issues which aren't meant for this forum).

Based on all of the above, if I lived in one of the units I would still be paying into the mortgage but not the $1,670 that I pay now. We would be saving around $1,200 which can be saved up to apply to future endeavors. We would also have the other 3 tenants helping us pay down the mortgage. 

For those house hackers out there, what other things should I consider? 

The numbers seem kind of tight in my scenario above, what asking price should I be comfortable with to make the numbers work?

Is decreasing my monthly mortgage payment by house hacking worth the risk above?

This is a long post so thanks for reading and providing feedback to a fairly new investor.

BP Community, Does anyone have suggestions on lenders in the DFW area that are willing to lend on rehab projects or is hard money the only route? I believe some lenders are willing to lend on construction loans for the rehab then finance the full portion when rehab is done. Any suggestions on good lenders in the area? Thanks, Roy

Hi @Upen Patel, thank you for the quick response.

I'll have to look into the rezoning although it may be a stretch to get this accomplished.

Much appreciated.

BP Community, I'm looking at purchasing a fourplex unit of townhomes (the townhomes are next to each other). I intend to use 1 townhome as my primary residence and rent the other 3 out. Does anyone have experience with a purchase of this type? Will the VA allow the complete purchase to qualify or will the VA benefits apply only to the residence I plan on residing in? Each townhome has its own Tax ID so I'm not sure if I can use my VA Benefits for this. Any lenders out there with advice? Thanks, Roy