All Forum Posts by: David A. Santana

@Jermaine Perry, DTI=total monthly expenses/pre-tax income. $62k over 10 years @ 6% would carry a payment of $688/mo. That leaves almost $2,000 for other expenses before banks start looking at you funny. Also, you could amortize your loans over a longer period for lower payments. This is doable as long as you keep your expenses low.

@Geordy Rostad@Cassi Justiz@Constancia R. Thank you. I was actually looking at properties in OK the other day for general research. Definitely not planning to buy anything here in Taxes, I mean Texas LOL, unless a super deal comes along. Starting out with properties within a 3 hour drive from Indianapolis.    

Hello, everyone. Although I have been a member of BP for a couple of years now, I only recently became active. My name is David Santana. I have no experience in real estate other than buying my own house in 2009. I am an officer in the U.S. Army currently stationed in TX. My initial goal/strategy is to buy and hold C-B property scaling my way up to medium then large sized apartment complexes. Interested mainly in the midwest market. I joined BP after Matt Faircloth (DeRosa Group) mentioned it in one of his YouTube videos. I hope to keep learning from this wonderful community and to get to know some of you. 

@Cameron Riley Like many have highlighted here: it's all about the screening process. As soon as I read "YOUNG woman with 4 children" I thought to myself oh oh. Probably minimal education, low income, no emergency fund, poor credit and/or in some sort of government assistance...for life because this is the USA and somehow people can do just that. While that is not always the case, life is a game of probability. It's all correlated. 

I rented an apartment in a four-plex in Killeen, TX. My income is 16x the monthly rent yet the screening process and rules were very stringent (or so I thought) to include no pets or roommates. That is exactly how my properties will be managed. Do not rent to people out of desperation or just because your property is vacant. That's one of the reasons you should have cash reserves and/or not expand too quickly. At the end of the day, a vacant property is better than a destroyed property. You cannot discriminate against children, but you can certainly discriminate against low income, poor credit and/or poor life choices.