Best way to start investing in real estate?
I’m interested in how veterans of real estate investing broke into the market. I’ve read too many books and listened to too many seminars that pin your start on deal-of-a-lifetime type purchases and shady accounting.
Do you think its worth buying, improving and selling a home in a short time? Do you think buying and renting is the better way to go? (Renting seems better if prices fall but carrying several mortgages is as scary)
What kind of financing did you use? Down Payment? (Yes/No/How Much?) How much was your initial investment if you were improving the property? Did you take out any loans to cover your improvements?
I’m in my mid 20’s. I live in the South Shore MA area. I don’t pay rent and incur about 0 monthly expenses. I have a good full time job (+50K), some saved money (+10k) and good credit. I’m very organized, fairly well educated on the subject (a lot to learn) and i have friends who are listing agents and contractors.
Any feedback/contact would be appreciated
One Response
JTT Properties
25 Oct 2009
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Flipping or renting depends on your long term goals. If you are in for a quick, dangerous, profit, then flipping would be the way to go. If you are more interested in possibly retiring early with a good cash flow throughout your retirement, I would buy to rent.
When you research an apartment building to rent out (duplex/triplex/quadplex or a multiunit building), just be sure that your income will be higher than your expense, and you will be safe. It sounds easy, and it really is. Example? Sure!
Lets say you pay 100k for a quadplex on which tenants pay electric and gas.
100k mortgage would be roughly $1400 a month including taxes and insurance. (Try to get them included and then you don’t have to worry about it!)
Put aside a set amount each month in a seperate account for repairs if you need them. Lets go with $150 for this example.
Lets say each tenant uses $40 in water a month, so your expenses would be easy:
$1400 mortgage
$150 repairs
$160 water
_____________
$1710 in expenses
So each unit would have to pay $427.5 a month for you to break even. If you can charge more than that (say $600 a month?) then the extra is profit in your pocket.
When you do your planing on what you can afford, try to keep in mind that all units might not be rented all the time. For my apartments, since they are in a college town, I figure everything with 3 months of vacancy a year on each apartment.
If you are okay on money at the moment, but want to retire early, get mortgages for like 20 or 25 years instead of 30, and pay over your payment every month. If you pay just $100 over on your principle every month, you can pay your loan off up to 10 years earlier.
To purchase properties, I have had great luck buying on contract. For roughly 10% down, I have had owners finance me for up to 5 years before I had to get a commercial mortgage. All the improvements I’ve made to apartment buildings have come from that repair fund I mentioned earlier.
Flipping is more work when it comes to research. You have to find where to get the money, find out how much (exactly) the repairs are going to cost you, and how much the home will sell for. The first house I put a purchase offer in on to flip had 2 months of planning behind it.
Good luck.