All Forum Posts by: Tim Delaney

You do not need to own a primary home in order to buy an investment property. You should call a couple local banks to discuss the types of investments you may be looking for.

Alternatively, a great strategy for someone just starting out is House Hacking. This is when you buy a primary residence (1 to 4 units, the more the better) which you can usually get for a very low down payment and get the best interest rates on and then rent out other units and/or bedrooms within your unit to pay for the mortgage and other expenses.

Hi Sergio, I think there are way too many variables to be able to gain any real insight from responses here. You should reach out to local contractors that have experience with new builds.

Be careful about using your current home equity as a down payment on another property. If you refinance completely your monthly payment will go up probably significantly. If you use a HELOC you will have a sizable monthly interest payment. That will be on top of a mortgage on the new property. Will the cash flow even be able to cover that?

Personally I only use my HELOC on short term projects like flips, new builds and BRRRRs where I know I will be replacing the capital within months.

You may be better off waiting a year and save up more cash or liquidate your index funds if the returns on a property will be better.

Welcome Henry! The best thing you can do is listen to the BP podcasts, read through some of the forums and attend some local meetups to connect with other investors. Good luck!

 Depending on your goals and how many properties you plan to acquire it could be a decent amount of work. A good agent will vet a deal to some extent, but you will still have to underwrite it yourself to verify numbers. And a good property manager will take care of day to day, but you will still have work to do. Again, that’s all fine just so long as you know what you are getting into. Real Estate is pitched as this “passive” income generator, but even with a team it is never completely passive.

Find a knowledgeable and trustworthy broker in your market that can shop amongst the various providers and find you the best deal while still making sure you have the protection you need. Personally I push for at least $1MM liability coverage. And I opt for the higher deductibles generally unless the price difference is minuscule. You also want to make sure you have Replacement Value so that if anything catastrophic happens you can rebuild. Loss of income is another coverage that you will probably want to cover any period of time you can’t rent out the apartment due to a covered loss. Lastly, make sure your tenants have renters insurance to cover their property.

RentRedi is free for BP Pro users. That is what I use. It’s good. It’s not amazing. But I’d guess most of the free options will feel similar in that regard. They all have their pros and cons that will appeal to different users.

Find a good broker. They will shop the available options for you and present you the best options while pointing out where the policies differ from each other. Remember the lowest price is not always the best when it comes to insurance!

Start with public property records. In my county ownership info is public and I can find the owner's name online. Then I search the county records by their name to see if I can find their primary residence which is where you can send a letter. If the property is in an LLC I look up that LLC in the Department of State website which has a service address. Many small investors use their primary address as their service address.