Home Values

I have some good news. I bought two houses relatively close to each other over the last 1.5 years. I purchased my personal residence at $159,000 and my investment property at $164,000. I am happy to say, that values have gone up significantly. Right now, the same properties are going for close to $187,000. So after some calculations, that's a total equity increase of $53,000. Not bad for a year and a half of having 2 properties. I am just happy that I didn't lose value on my homes and I'm not upside down on my mortgages.

Property #2

I guess what has transpired over the last few months is I had to kick out my first tenants. They were squatters... So within 60 days I got rid of them and found new tenants. Right now, I have tenants living in my property and they seem like a great couple and they advance paid me. They are paying me $1200 per month.

First Rental Pay Check

Just deposited my first rental paycheck from the tenants. Feels good to finally roll out my investment plan.


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Property #2 Done

Wow, it's been a whirlwind of events the past few weeks. I want to give you an in depth summary of what has happen that lead to me becoming a landlord.

Days Before the Close
My closing date was set for Thursday May 31st. During this time I had a lot of gaps to fill, in particular:
- create a renters application and agreement
- fund 25% down payment and closing costs
- open up a business account
- give tours to potential renters
- get home owners insurance for investment property

It was incredibly stressful during this time to do all these things, along with working full time. What didn't help was my mortgage loan officer (Brian) wasn't the best in following up with everything. Honestly, if he was ever a project manager, he would fail at leading. There were a lot of things he could have told me day before closing that would of make things a lot simpler. Such as- exact amount I needed to fund to the title company, obtaining home owners insurance and opening up a business account. I was successfully able to do all those things but Brian literally didn't tell me any of these things until day before close late afternoon.

During this time I also successfully for a tenant to sign to live for one year at my investment property. I put an AD on Craigslist Sunday Morning before I went to church, the renters called me that afternoon and we agreed to meet on Monday Memorial Day. (My agent left me the garage code and allowed me to tour the house with renters prior to closing.) After the renters toured the house, they immediately signed on for $1295 a month for a year. It was so ironic when they signed, after we finished the house tour there was another couple that was standing at the door that said they want to sign the agreement. Since there was a demand right then and there, they signed it. I can't believe I have renters lined up and they want to move in the night after I close on the house.

The day before the close, I opened up a business account. All monies that I receive from rent will go into this account. The monthly rent will cover mortgage, HOA fees, Property Tax, Home Owners Insurance and will provide me a cash flow of an extra $370 a month.

The day before I closed, I initiated the wire transfer of $45,000 to close on my house, all went smoothly.

I went with Geico to find me a good home owners insurance policy, the HOA has a Masters Insurance policy where they cover the external house such as foundation and roofing. I need to be insured for the inside, like floors, walls, carpet, electrical wiring, etc. I got a pretty good plan, with earthquake insurance, sewer backup and liability for renters up to half million dollars. The total was only $391 a year. I could have gotten insurance for cheaper but I rather be well protected rather than being financially liable for damages because I wanted to save $20 bucks.

Closing Day
Closing Day was very crazy. I went to the title company at 11am and apparently all the closing documents were not submitted from the lazy mortgage loan officer Brian. So I had to call him and cracked a whip on him. 5 minutes later, we got all the papers from him and I was able to start closing. Closing too, about 30 minutes of signing papers and Michelle (from the title company) was super efficient. Kudos to her.
After signing the last few papers, everything was funded on my end as well as from the bank.

Fortunately I found renters a few days prior to closing. And they wanted to move in at 7pm on closing day. I literally had 7 hours with the house then I had to turn it over to the renters. With the help of my friends, we were able to get the fridge, washer and dryers installed in 3 hours. I guess next time when I buy another house, I'm going to pay the $60 to get the fridge installed, the fridge that I bought was huge and tough to get in. And if I damaged or scratch the walls of my new house while getting it in the house, the damage would of been on my expense and not the movers.

The renters came at 7pm, I won't disclose who they are but they are a responsible family. I did a walk through with them on the entire house and they gave me my first check and I handed off the keys to them. Everything was done.

Weeks and days leading up to this, I was a bit stressed from everything, there was a lot of planning, discussing, meeting and money involved. But I'm finally glad things are over and now it's just being a good landlord and maintaining the house. I will constantly update this as the months move along and my future endeavors with other real estate I have in mind.

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Refrigerator Bought

I was able to pick up the last appliance today. I thought I got a screaming deal online when I purchased it a month ago but it came out to be even cheaper. When I went to the store today with my friend CJ (he has a truck), I decided it was wise to take a look at the refrigerators just in case the prices were cheaper. Sure enough my fridge the was $1180 was now $1099. Because I decided to check the prices, I save an additional $80.




Also, I got my window blinds for free. I was going to shell out $700 for window blinds for the entire house but apparently the construction builders messed up on the colors of walls in the new house. They painted white instead of brown. Even though it looked nice and all being white colored, I specifically asked for brown. So basically I threw a fit (I pretended) and told them how disappoint I was (I was faking my disappointed....I wasn't really mad or disappointed).
The bottom line was, I was able to negotiate with the builders because I was supposedly disappointed and threaten to drop the contract. They didn't want me to back away from closing on the house so they said they will give me all blinds for all windows for free, which is a $700+ value.
I am extremely happy with my budget on the washer and dryers, the refrigerator and window blinds. I was originally going to spend $2500 on everything but I am now ending up getting everything below $850 (with my patents paid for)
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Location:W 1360 S,Orem,United States

Sending All Papers to the Bank

Yesterday. I sent in all papers to the bank I am using that is providing the loan. Brian is my mortgage officer and I kinda notice his lips are super blue. Anyways....
I probably spent the last 5 days prior to tuning the papers in preparing everything precisely. Basically the papers I had to turn are:
- account statements of last 3 months. (this took me a lot of time since I have chase, fidelity, schwab, Pncbank and scottrade accounts)
- pay stubs of last 3 month
- tax returns of last 3 years
- intent of loan
- company history of Bentley Real Estates
- cash flow sheet
- purchase contract
- total assets sheet
It felt kind of weird basically having a compendium of your financial situation in one of the forms I filled out- savings, cash, debts, assets and liabilities are on one 8.5 x 11 inch piece a paper.
The meeting occurred yesterday at 9am. I had to miss going to work that morning because I had to prepare my documents till 8:40am, shower really quick and get to the bank by 9am. I was in a complete rush but I got there on time.

Brian the mortgage loan officer told me when I met him to submit the papers, "You are one of the most well organized customers I've worked with in a long time in submitting your papers." That was encouraging news.

Well as of right now, in waiting for my official closing date which is 5/31. There's still a lot to get done but basically I need to start finding tenants, create rental application, pick up fridge, install all appliances and create bank account accordingly to my business.

Wish me luck on closing in 5 days.




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Location:W 800 N,Provo,United States

Earlier Close Date

It's been quite a whirlwind last few weeks. In 4 weeks time, I've been to Minneapolis, Las Vegas, San Diego, Mexico and I'm flying to Cincinnati as we speak for Mother's Day.

As for the fallout of the washers and dryers, I've decided to buy average washers/dryers and refrigerator. I personally have really nice washers and dryers and it felt kind of weird that I was going to buy appliances that were almost better than mine for the rental property, which I will never use. So I decided to buy some standard appliances since it was a lot cheaper. I vowed myself never to buy anything from Sears ever again but I did buy a washer and dryer set for a very very cheap price of about $700 that got good reviews. Also it the process, I did buy a fancy looking Samsung refrigerator for about a $1000. Total with taxes I dropped close to $1800. My parents know about my investment endeavors so for my birthday, they decided to cover half of the costs of the appliances. I got some pretty awesome parents.

I am in the process of buying blinds, they are pretty standard, much like the blinds at my own house. After bargaining, to have it purchased and installed, it's coming up to roughly $400.

So all in all, I spent about $2200-2300, below my budget of $2500. If I were to buy the appliances that were more expensive, I would be over budget of $2600-2700. Since my parents are chipping in, the total is coming up to $1300-1400 for appliances and shades out of my pocket.

Photo of the blinds:



I guess I had an epiphany, I've decided to move the closing date to May 31st instead of June 15th. Since my company pays on a monthly basis, there's no reason for me to wait for the later date since I won't get another paycheck until June 20th. The most important reason why I am doing it earlier is because I am leaving to Taiwan (another vacation) on June 22nd. I want to be able to have enough time to find renters before I leave to Taiwan. I don't feel 7 days from my original close date will be enough time to find renters to move in. So hopefully having 22 days will give me enough time to find renters at my asking price of $1300 a month.

There are many lose ends I need to tie up before the closing date, off the top of my head:
- shuffle my money out of certain stock, checking and savings account to come up with the 25% down payment and closing costs of roughly $48k
- create a cashiers check for $48k
- open up business checking accounts for my LLC company
- create an excel sheet to track all monies from this investment
- prepare all Rental Agreement forms and exact verbiage (I've purchased professional rental agreement forms already)
- create verbiage for rental advertisements (I plan on advertising on Craigslist and Salt Lake News- KSL
- pick up refrigerator

There's a lot of work involved but I am definitely looking at the long term outcomes of having the possibility of my investment property go up in resale value, monthly cash flow and essentially renters paying off my mortgage.

Stay tuned.




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