Is this crazy?

General Real Estate Investing
1

I’m about to buy my first rental down in charlotte. I’m excited and scared. Moving there and gonna try to live in it while I fix it up as a rental. I got a great wife BTW!!

The plan is, as crazy as it might sound, to keep my savings (around 19K) for fix up and buy it with a 0% credit cards balanced transfered into my checking(I have found a few that will do this for no fee, and they are business cards that don’t report to my personal) then, after fix, rent it out then REFI traditionally…and if my plan works…have at least enough to pay the credit cards back with a real world 200 dollar cash flow. Where I go from there depends on how this works. My goal with all this is to save my savings for repair costs as the house is a beater but with good potential and not use my savings on a downpayment or closing costs. I figure 19K should be more than enough to get this done. It’s a small SFH (1400 SQ ft.)

Is this financial suicide does this happen all the time???

Second question would be to you landlords, any tips on how to “bullet proof” a rental? Durable and cheap material to use?
Warranty tips (do warranties apply to rentals?) etc. I would be interested in knowing this to apply to my rental.

2

$19K is a lot! You have enough money for even 2 down payments and about $9K for fix ups! Nice job man. On to your question… I really don’t know man I’m new to REI, sorry. :stuck_out_tongue:

3

jb,

I liked everything you said, except “and if my plan works”. Real estate is not about gambling or taking a big chance. If you’ve learned your market; if you know the market rents; if you’ve correctly estimated the repairs; and if you’ve done a proper cash flow analysis, there should be almost no doubt that your plan will succeed.

I like the idea of using the zero percent credit cards and then doing a refi. If your numbers are right, you’ve got a good plan.

Mike

4

Thanks mike for your comment, it means a lot.

5

What are the credit cards that you can do this with?

6

www.creditcards.com click on business cards then sort by 0%APR

the best two are advanta (lousy initial credit lines but offer one at 15 months 0% and one I think 2.9 for life of balance) and citi which offers one year no interst and from my experience with good credit larger credit lines.