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I’m constantly looking for duplex investment properties to buy and rent out
Good stuff! If you haven’t already, check out BiggerPockets website or podcasts. Lots of valuable info re: managing yourself v. property management. I’d like to try managing myself in the beginning just to learn the ins and outs.
I just bought my first home (a condo in San Diego) 2 years ago, which was my 5th year of practice. Everyone has opinions about buying a condo vs. sticking it out for a single family residence, but at the end of the day home ownership is home ownership! It’s worth it to get in early. And having an HOA that’ll take care of landscaping and exterior maintenance is handy for a single woman!
Thanks! I probably would have started thinking about the process earlier and being more financially responsible earlier. I think if I exercised more financial responsibility and less shopping sprees and takeout for lunch/dinner, I could have bought earlier. But you live and learn...that’s what youth is for! Right now trying to set things up to hopefully get a single family residence in a couple years and keep my condo as a rental.
Bought 3.5y ago in Bay Area with 1 lawyer salary and a smaller salary, tons of law school loan debt.
But buying a SFH in East Bay nearish BART and a decent elementary is something we figured would stop being possible soon, unless you had family or IPO money to burn.
We had a comical amount of debt vs income year 1, with a newborn and effectively no savings. But no financial shock came to ruin us thankfully, but they let you run pretty lean in cash while still approving you so be careful.
We went from no savings to 15% down in under 2 years, mostly by cheating. We pushed expenses onto credit cards to increase cash saving rate, and 401k loans x2 when closing to get the rest.
So you can pull it off, if you really want it. But if you have rent control and a decent rent price, or another reason not to, you could also not!
Thank you for sharing! Can I ask, what do you mean by 401k loans x2 when closing?
My partner and I bought our first home in the SF Bay Area about 2 years ago. We had been looking for about 4-5 months. It was expensive but so was rent and I love having a place of my own. I was a 2nd year at that time. My husband works for a big tech company. We bought a townhome. Neither of us had any student loans.
Bay Area rents...sigh. 😞
Interest rates are currently about as low as they have ever been, so now is a good time.
Following! I have no idea. I see people in my network buying homes while they still have student loans. I think it depends how much you owe in student loans and what are the terms of the student debt vs. mortgage debt. At some point you shift money from paying down student loans to saving for a mortgage. I don’t know when though!
Property Mortgage insurance is just not relevant to total costs. Like $20/m per 100k of mortgage, didn’t really matter compared to other figures. We refinanced out of PMI in 3 years too.
You can totally do sub 20% down, one of the main issues is when it’s a sellers market and there are a lot of bids you aren’t as competitive, so you’ll lose out on being picked. Doesn’t seem to matter currently.
I have never bought a home. Mainly because I don’t want to tie myself to earning enough to repay, and because I don’t think the current market prices are sustainable. Also, renting is cheap compared to buying.
Totally depends on market.
I did as a second year associate. No big law salary. Not even close.
Some thoughts below on a financial strategy for new associates. I believe it’s very important to stabilize yourself with proper insurance, eliminating any high interest debt (eg credit cards) and an emergency fund before tackling the dual goals of retirement savings and buying a home. Avoiding the golden handcuffs is also very important, and not as easy as you think once you’ve started getting fat paychecks and you see what your peers start buying. Good luck getting off in the right foot.
https://joinfishbowl.com/post_00c92
I bought a single family a few months before starting law school (worked a couple of years first, made $40k) with 3.5% down on an FHA loan, but that was 2010 and a very different market than now. After three years I refinanced into a 15-year mortgage to get rid of PMI.
After living there 8 years I bought my upgrade home but priced so I could keep the first as a rental (self manage). In my market you get a hell of a lot more house for a mortgage than renting, and I'm clearing $600 a month in positive cash flow. but also in my market, it's so hot that there's no way an FHA mortgage would be competitive. The inspection requirements are brutal, so there's no point trying to get anything that's a serious fixer upper because it won't qualify. And if you're not looking at a serious fixer upper, you're looking at houses that will get multiple offers within a few days. The feasibility of buying on an FHA is a question you'll need to ask a local realtor.
On big law salary in DC—bought a house as 2nd year and was still able to pay of student loans by 5th year. House values in my area have appreciated enough to have made the choice worth it financially (thanks Amazon!)
What numbers are we talking for big law salary? Is 75-80k a bad first year salary for a midsize firm in a growing market? Seems to be the average here. My stats are good enough to pursue bigger firms but work life balance is pretty important to me.
As I understand it, 75-80k is not a bad first year salary for a midsize firm in a growing (i.e. non-major) market. The threshold issue is simply that the salary gap between BigLaw and MidLaw is quite large with not much in between. First year salary at most major market BigLaw firms is currently at 190k + bonuses. It’s a bit problematic to compare BigLaw with MidLaw given the disparity. Others can chime in, but in my opinion, 75-80k seems on par when comparing against only the MidLaw market... Of course, it depends on a number of different factors. To get a better read on your situation, my best advice is to try researching similarly sized firms in your area doing similar work. If you notice higher salaries, start digging around to see if the work-life balance is as desirable it is at your current firm.