All Forum Posts by: Frank Jiang

I think that this discussion is inherently flawed.  At a fundamental level, terms like 'upper class' and 'middle class' are terms relative to how other people are doing.  At the end of the day, you should be pursuing real estate or other wealth-related goals for your own sake, not to try to make it into some sort of arbitrary comparison threshold.  If you have made enough money to satisfy your own goals, congrats!  If you have not, it's time to roll up your sleeves.  If you don't even know what your goals are, well, everyone starts somewhere.

@Garhett Langer

You are only seeing the negatives of your actions and none of the positives.  You are doing a service to that neighborhood by coming in, fixing up a house currently occupied by a deadbeat and providing suitable housing for a nice family that will come in and purchase or rent the home.

Your actions will cause the housing value of neighbors to go up, thus creating wealth for other people and hopefully eventually leading to further gentrification of the neighborhood.

Capitalism works.

First off, make sure you are absolutely certain about your eligibility for Public Service Loan Forgiveness. I've heard horror stories about people being told that part of their loan didn't actually qualify for loan forgiveness. This is worth your attention far more than SFH at the moment.

After you are rock solid sure that you will be able to get the loan forgiveness, I would recommend not paying down the debt and investing immediately. BRRR is likely a poor strategy for you, as the Refinance R may be difficult for you with the large loan balance. You may be able to find a bank willing to only measure the payment amount as opposed to the balance but I'm not certain.

Of course they do.  They get paid out commission at the end of the deal don't they?  If you cut out the buyer's agent, you can ask the seller's agent to process the deal for half commission.  This reduces the overall transactional cost and benefits the buyer.

It's not that I've never met a competent buyer's agent, it's that I believe that the service they provide doesn't match what they cost, especially in this day and age where all the neighborhood metrics, comps, etc can all be found online.

In terms of getting a license, I have a day job that consumes most of my time.  Maybe later.

A blind monkey can set up a listing search for you.  You can likely set up a more exact and tailored search yourself these days with the internet.  You have no obligation to even inform these agents if that's the extent of their work for you.  If they have been doing showings for you (going to actual properties and touring for you), it would be somewhat rude to dump them for a different agent.

For the last 3 houses that I bought, I have not used a buyer's agent.  I have negotiated with the seller's agent to represent both sides of the listing and reduce the total commission payout.  At the end of the day, you're going to end up doing most of the heavy lifting on the buy side anyway.

Agree.  It's pretty well established that rent control can actually exacerbate housing shortages and lead to increased rents due to increased demand.  Rent control reduces available inventory and thus excess demand spills over into the non rent-controlled market, causing an increase in rent and thus an increase in property value.  While the value and rental income from housing that gets affected by rent control goes down, the value of the non-controlled sector goes way up.

I would spend extra effort ensuring that your PLSA application is completely bulletproof.  This is worth far more money for you than anything real estate can do for you at the moment.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-government-...

https://www.npr.org/2018/10/17/653853227/the-stude...

You need to also learn the important components of debt.  Telling us that you're paying $320 a month on a 45K loan literally tells us nothing.  Is this just interest?  Are you actually making any progress on your principal?  What's the interest rate?

It's very simple.  If the rate of return you would make from savings in house hacking is higher than the interest rate of your student loans, you house hack.  Otherwise, you pay debt.

Need actual numbers to make a decision, at minimum:

- What is expected market rent for each unit (including one you plan to occupy)?

- Loan details, most importantly monthly payment, loan amount, and interest rate

Leverage doesn't determine whether or not your investment will be a success, all it does is amplify the success or failure.  If it's a great deal, lever that sucker to the moon.  If it's a mediocre deal, it doesn't hurt to lever less to protect yourself.  If it sucks, you should lever nothing and pay nothing because you're not going to buy the deal.

Welcome to the beautiful world of turnkey investing, where the PM takes care of all the work and you just get to sit back and collect rent checks.

Back to seriousness, I would question whether or not the $1000 early termination fee is even enforceable.  In your position, I would likely fire the PM, hire a competent team and put the challenge to the current PM to take me to small claims for the $1000, with the understanding that I would retaliate with a complaint to the state.