All Forum Posts by: Shenise America Tavares

Originally posted by @Kenneth Mooney:

@Shenise America Tavares , if you can move into the $13,000 home and it is safe to live in for you and your children I don't see why you wouldn't buy that place, fix it up as you live there, and go out and do it again. 

A couple of questions to think of though....

(1) What all needs to be done to the home? 

(2)How much will those repairs cost? 

(3) What would the value of the home be if you were going to fix it up and list it on the open market? What is that price? 

Hope that helps!

 Firstly, thank you so much for your time and input! I plan to hire an inspector to do a thorough check before I finalize anything so I have pretty accurate estimates of what needs to get done and how much it would cost me since I don't know enough to do the walk through myself confidently. I'll also keep your third point in mind. What is an increase in value you would personally find worth investing in if you were fixing up a home and reselling?

This is my first time posting so I hope I'm putting this in an appropriate space. A little back story: My husband and I both come from long lines of generational poverty and are hoping to end that. We are currently renting a crappy 2br townhome for $802 a month. After all of our other expenses (we have young children) saving has been pretty difficult and we're living paycheck to paycheck most months. Our end goal for the future is owning a few small MF (2-4 units each) with good cash flow. We're honestly not looking for a get-rich-quick thing. We're trying to make sure we have something to pass to our children while still setting realistic goals based on our current situation. (Hoping someday we'll be in the position to aim higher!) While browsing online I saw a 2br SF bungalow for $13,000. It needs work, but honestly, it doesn't look much worse than where we're currently living, and that got me thinking. What about living in a SF while renovating? We'd be able to pay it off in 2/3 years and have extra money for savings and renovations. Once we finish renovating and have saved up enough, we can buy another home and rent the renovated one out. Originally I thought of househacking but the safety risk of angry neighbors knowing we own the place makes me uncomfortable since anything within our price range right now would be in not-so-safe neighborhoods. I feel like this would be the REI equivalent of living in a studio apartment while saving for a better place, except it would be ours to keep and rent out for extra income. What are your thoughts? I'm 100% new to the world of REI, and I realize compared to all the other threads on here my goals sound ridiculously small, but I'd rather start small than not start at all and I have to go whatever path works best for my family's finances.

This is genius! One of the things I've seen stressed most in my learning is that having efficient processes in place can be SUCH a life saver. Thanks for sharing!

@A.J. Weinzettel That's an excellent idea and something I should've thought about days ago! I'm definitely going to try that out, possibly as soon as tonight. Thank you for the advice!

I think my biggest fear is never taking action. I'm a stay-at-home mom and struggle with an overall sense of being a burden, so the thought of losing the little money we have in a bad decision makes me hesitant. My husband and I both come from long lines of generational poverty and grew up not knowing anything about credit/homeownership/investing/life insurance/etc. I want to end this cycle and pass down something of value to our children, but being hit with so much new information is terrifying and overwhelming.

To fix this I'm trying to build up my confidence and push myself to make solid plans. I've been using the rental property calculator to run numbers on listings I find and it seems TOO easy. I start doubting myself and my calculations. I need to trust myself enough to take that first step so that I don't waste my life away "researching".