Bought my first house

I jumped into the real estate community, searching for more knowledge, pretty heavily about a year ago but I was hesitant to put my money down on a place simply because there was so much I just didn’t know. It wasn’t until I was being forced to move due to a promotion at Waitr did I actually look at buying a house. I had my mother who is a real estate agent look for a qualified agent in the area that I was wanting to look and then I started hitting the streets looking at properties.

Realtor.com, zillow.com and my real estate agents MLS were all resources that I used to filter through some different houses. I was looking for a property that allowed me to stay within my monthly budget, didn’t just swallow my savings on the downpayment and provided a solid opportunity to gain some rental income. As a single guy, I had a unique opportunity to be patient and wait for the right opportunity. I moved down, put my stuff in storage and AirBnB a place indefinitely. I narrowed the search and had my real estate agent show me the properties, knocking them down for this reason or that.

Then I found the property that was in a great up and coming location, new building at 2 years old and it had a perfect layout that would allow for me to get some rental income as well. The only problem was it was about $20,000 over the budget.  That’s when their real estate agent made a mistake. They told me that they weren’t living in that house because they already were moved into their new house. Which means… they were currently paying two mortgages!

Boom I had stumbled upon quite the motivated seller

They had been sitting in the market for 60 days already. I decided to shoot my shot and put in a low offer knowing that if they deny it that I could just keep the Airbnb and wait for another property if it didn’t work out.  They balked at the offer and immediately denied it. Well, I told them I wasn’t interested then and walked.

I truly was willing to move on, I had a budget and I was going to stick to it dang-it.

Well, the thought of having to make another mortgage payment was on their heels and they countered aggressively to land right within my budget! Got some movement on the upfront closing amount and took the offer. Came in $17,000 under appraisal.

I was then the owner of a 2-year-old townhouse.  Couldn’t have done it without that push from my mother but it is working out to be quite the financial decision. Rent in Lake Charles, LA is quite high because of a lot of transient workers in the oil industry. I’ve been able to spend just as much on a monthly level and now I’m building equity each payment as well. When I add renters to the second story rooms it’ll only increase my cash flow. Have a meeting with a CPA to discuss the implications of renters.