All Forum Posts by: Mark Devens

Hello all! I'm planning on building a garage on my personal property and had this idea: I need two stalls for myself which is doable, but what if I expand to 4 stalls, add 2 apartments above with 1 bedroom each or maybe make them studios, each tenant gets a stall, and rent is $600 per unit. Based on rough estimates of cost to build the entire structure, the $1200 per month pays off the whole thing in about 6 years after my own down payment and then can pay for the mortgage on the existing house. Anyone have experience with this? Good or bad idea? Do cities usually have a problem with this or no? I've done searches but haven't found much. Thanks for any advice and have a great day!

So I'm about to buy my first rental which is a duplex and want to keep growing from there. Do most of you keep mortgages on all your properties or do you wait to buy another until the last is paid off? I'm sure there's some kind of tax benefit one way or another. Thanks!

I'm trying to get an FHA mortgage for a $95k house. I have all the money needed to close, but underwriting wants to know where cash came from that I used to pay off a credit card about a month ago. $850 or so. I'm not really sure where it came from as I do a lot of side work on my own (scrapping, flipping cars, selling livestock). The problem is that nothing I do on the side is really able to be verified like a regular job because it's typically cash. What do I tell them while still being able to get the mortgage? Thanks!

There's a lot of discussion about flipping houses, but what about mobile homes? I'm just starting out in real estate, but to me it makes sense (at least for a little guy like me), because there's less money invested, the finished product sells for less than a house, and there's always somebody looking for cheap living that can't or doesn't want to get a huge mortgage. Obviously I'm not talking about putting $100k into a mobile home, but maybe $2500 and sell it for $4000? Has anyone ever done this? Advice would be great!

Thanks

Marc

I'm looking at a triplex with a studio, a 1 bedroom and a 2 bedroom apt with unfinished basement. It is a foreclosure through hud. Water lines don't hold pressure and they won't let us activate water until closing so I'm planning for the worst which is replacing all the plumbing. That was quoted at around $15k including drywall. Needs paint and flooring. I plan to owner occupy.

List price: $90k

Monthly payment after financing repairs: $800

Insurance: $90

Rent: Studio-around $400, 2 bd around $800 1 bd around $550. I plan to live in the 1 bd for a couple years

This is the first property I've ever seriously looked at, and I'm just wondering if these numbers work out. They do right now because I won't be paying rent to someone else so I'll save that much, but what about in a couple years when I move out, hopefully to occupy another property?

Would you offer less? Ideas what the plumbing issue would be? Thanks in advance!