All Forum Posts by: Son D.

I second @Lior Rozhansky in saying you should try to find multi family in those areas to house hack. I personally prefer Malden from your list for multis. Find a 2 family home with 3 floors for the possible conversion into 3 family. If that's not possible then rent out 1st floor while living on 2nd floor and find roommate(s) to rent out the bedroom(s) on the 3rd floor. Lots of single people without family here would rent it if it's within walkable distance to malden center so they could travel to boston. Malden has a good school system which may attract a nice family for your first floor if that's what you choose to do.
If you're set on SFH then i would go with Melrose. It's a nice, better off town from your list with higher potential appreciation.

@Michael King definitely not a dumb question. Another question you should ask yourself is are you going to refinance? If so when?

I look at points as prepaying your monthly interest payments. It's a tiny hedge against you defaulting too early. Using your numbers it looks like you'll break even in less than 3 years. After that you're saving $50 in interest a month. Can you do something with the point money that will give a bigger yield in the long run?

Don't get me wrong the bank wins for as long as you hold the property and before you go refinance with someone else. They make most of their money in the beginning and points will add to that.

However for the long time buy and hold strategy I see reasonably priced points as a win for the owner. Remember that refinancing also cost money. What are the chances of finding such lower rate to make it worth it? You will also need to wait a long time to pull out real equity from that. You already know how much you can save at different points of ownership. Even 7 years of $50 a month of savings is like getting your closing costs back. So unless you can do something better with that amount I would not hesitate.

From newbie to newbie: Get your properties first. Once you have a sizable asset then worry about setting up entities to protect it.

@Account Closed since you already have the line of credit I don't think you have to hurry to do a refi right now. Line of credit should not cost you anything until you actually pull it out. You can wait a while. Who knows how long you find a property that meets your criteria. Worst thing you can do is use your LOC as down payment for new investment then go do refi and use that money to pay off LOC.

As far as mortgages you can have up to 10 so definitely can have them on investment properties. Not too many people need 1 primary and 9 vacation homes. Local banks or Credit Unions are the best if you have a relationship with them. There are also companies that give mortgages then package them and sell them to other banks. They can have pretty competitive rates because they don't need to keep on their books and risk you defaulting. I found a couple on Zillow. 7% is certainly high right now for residential.

In the indictment, it said that an OP employee, directed by Bert Whalen, posed as a customer on or about 1/6/18 saying OP satisfied all of their concerns about their property. Was this here on BP? Anyone remember this post? 

If you need anything to just push you out of analysis paralysis then go with turnkey to get started. Light cosmetic rehab once you have a little bit experience with home ownership. Go with value add once you know the area and are confident with your assessment of property value and costs. Of course you need to consider the amount of time needed to accomplish different methods.

@Ned J. I do not agree that the method is just BS or smoke and mirrors. I do agree that it takes MORE discipline to do it than simply throwing cash into the principal. However, I've found the method also depends on how much you owe, how much equity you have in your house, and the differences in your mortgage rate vs HELOC rates. Utilizing this method leads you to pay interest to both your mortgage and HELOC. You'd have to calculate the exact dollar amount before pulling the trigger.

So take a situation where you bought your home with high interest. Then the feds dropped it low to stimulate the economy. You want to take advantage but don't have the cash. If you were to refinance, it would cost you money plus restart your amortization. Instead take a HELOC, which doesn't cost you anything to have, take advantage of the low low introductory rate. This could work if you focus all your income into the HELOC and minimize monthly spending.

This is why i could not make it work for my situation. My mortgage rate is already close to the HELOC introductory rate. Why risk paying market rates in a couple of years if i already have it fixed at a low rate for the next 30 years?

@Pavel Shemyakin I wasn't trying to convince you of the method. I was simply trying to say that you can very quickly payoff your mortgage by frequently paying additional principal without engaging in any secret method. In my sibling's case, they just threw so much in there that it just happens to be about 5 years.

As for the velocity method, I tried to work this out for my residence before and couldn't get it that quickly either.

@Pavel Shemyakin I did not buy their "book" but i do remember the video they made promoting it like it's a God-send. It also wasn't much of a "book" but more like a brochure. These accelerated payment plans are all over Youtube for free and while it won't be exactly 5 years you can cut it down by a decade or two. The idea of all of these is you're just making extra payments that go directly to the principal one way or another.

I happen to have a sibling that paid off mortgage in about 5 years. It was simple. There were two incomes. They lived below their means of one income. Everything extra was thrown into the mortgage. The price of the home was about 2.5X their annual salary at that time.

@Jim K. Yes he deleted a lot. I used to watch all his videos, thinking about different scenarios after investing with him. Of course, i believed what he said in those videos so my current scenario turned out different. More than once he said what MI quote is their final charge. If they find items not on the quote they will go ahead and address it. If they mess up on their rehab they will go back to fix it free of charge. "I eat the cost." You won't see any of those videos anymore.