Posted by John Katitus on September 21, 2004 at 02:24:58:
I would sell your home, take your profit, and buy a fixer to live in. Rehab it as you live there and repeat.
Yet another advice post, YEAH opinions requested - Posted by NylonStringNinja
Posted by NylonStringNinja on September 21, 2004 at 02:07:18:
I have checked out this forum once in awhile and picked up some good information. People here are successful and smart so any ideas or thoughts would be appreciated. Here is my situation:
turning 24 on wed. My fiance (spouse) and I both graduated, (finally). We are ready to get on with things and start making some money. We currently live in a nice house in a nice community in Austin,TX. We purchased this house intending to modernize and luxurize it and so I believe now it should appraise in the 280k range with about 144k owed on it. We’ve done ALL the work ourselves, kitchen, master bath, tile, flooring, down to making the vanities and kitchen cabinets from scratch because we wanted to learn how to do everything. My fiance has an architecture degree in interior design and so is proficient at CAD, drawing, codes etc. I have a highly coveted and valuable music degree in classical guitar… We have fixed investment income of 3k/mo after taxes giving us a secure source of money to fall back on for the time being. I would rather not get into how or why we are in the financial situation we are in, just where we can go from here. Its also possible we may be able to secure some more cash for good investments.
Being that our fields aren’t ripe with good opportunities at the moment and we are highly confident in ourselves and have little to lose we want to try running our own business. The point is now we have no idea what to do. We did plan on looking into real estate as we have some personal residential experience there, but nothing for investment purposes so far. Short term goals are establish some income and build cash savings back up. We would like to stick to maybe doing some rehabs as we have a knack for that sort of thing now that I’ve done almost everything that can be done to a house. I don’t mind doing the work myself to start, but nothing major (structural) or too fancy.
It seems like finding the houses would be the real challenge. Other than hunting down “motivated” sellers we can’t really think of a reliable way to find these houses. The one idea I had was trying to network with some realty pros and be on the lookout for those really “hard to sell” houses, which was the case for our current vintage 83 model. We would maybe like to do middle-upper to upper end houses if we can, that is what we know the most about.
What would you do, what do you think I should do?
Thats about it, thanks for taking the time and good luck to everybody.
Lance
How good do you want it. - Posted by GL(ON)
Posted by GL(ON) on September 21, 2004 at 17:01:46:
You already have a beautiful home, a fiance, and both you and your fiance have college degrees allowing you to pursue rewarding careers.And a passive income of $3000 a month.
You already have it better than 90% of the population including people who have worked struggled and sacrificed for 40 years.
So, why dont you get on with your music and your interior design careers. You really dont need real estate.
But if you really are enamored of real estate investing your buy and fix up plan has merit. It doesnt for most people but you are the exception, given your spouses training and your experience.
The type of houses you describe are good candidates for resale, not so good for a long term hold or income.
Something you might consider once you get some more experience is condo conversions. Taking old loft and factory buildings etc. and turning them into luxury condos.