Five Questions: Windfalls, Real Estate and Building Credit

Summary: This week the guys tackle five questions from the audience on windfalls, real estate, and building credit.<br> Question One<br> First off, let me start by saying I’m loving the Investment Property series you guys are doing. I totally want to get into this, just need to figure out how to save for that first down payment…<br> My question is this…you guys talked about saving 15% a month for the reserve account to cover vacancy and break fixes…Let’s say you own a great property, and you don’t have to dip into the reserve account much for a long time. Is there a point where you cap it and stop contributing to the reserve account?<br> Aaron via Email<br> You won’t want to keep all of the property earnings in your reserve account because in the unlikely case you do get sued – say goodbye to that money. Part of our strategy is to choose insurance policies with high deductibles so for fixes and updates that are not major will pay out of pocket. By not making small claims, our monthly premium low.e are keeping the reserve account up to our deductible. We don’t want to use the insurance unless we have to to keep our monthly payments low going forward.<br> What we are keeping in our reserve account is the amount of our deductible. So, if let’s say our deductible is $10,000, we want to be able to cover anything below that therefore we keep $10,000 in our reserve account. There will be big fixes eventually if you hold the property for many years so plan for significant expenses. If you know, you have to replace the AC unit or roof in the next year, plan for that by putting extra money aside in the reserve account the months leading up to it.<br> Question Two<br> Could you walk me through your decision to go with Roofstock as opposed to Memphis Invest or some other traditional turn-key company? My wife and I have spoken with Memphis Invest, and it seems like they run a tight ship and have an excellent reputation in the REI community. Were you simply looking for higher returns than their markets offered? I’m drawn to the fact that the properties are completely rehabbed before being rented, and they seemingly do an excellent job of reducing risk within their property management (minimum of 2-year leases, very in-depth vetting, etc.)<br> Joseph via Email<br> Memphis Invest is an extremely high-quality operation and great company. For us, the properties Roofstock offered were more what were-were looking for as a beginner investor. The homes were cheaper with Roofstock so we were able to try it out without investing a significant amount of money.<br> As new investors, homes with Memphis Invest were just more than we wanted to spend on a property. We also wanted to spread around the risk by investing in multiple properties rather than putting all our eggs in one basket. This strategy has worked well for us making our average returns are higher with the less expensive properties.<br> Question Three<br> Is there anything I can do credit-wise/savings-wise/career-wise to increase my likelihood of getting approved for a mortgage loan?<br> Nyequita Smith via Email<br> Getting approved for a mortgage is all about your attractiveness to creditors. To improve that you’ll need to increase your credit worthiness. Try for more on time payments. If you only have one credit card and then you only have one on time payment a month regardless if it $3,000 or $30. Get more credit cards and put really small things on them like Netflix, Hulu, coffee, etc. Pay each of them off every month. This is a simple way to increase your number of time payments and credit score.<br> Increase credit utilization. Call your card companies and request to increase your limit. When you have more available, your percentage utilize is lower. If you are maxing out your cards everything it doesn’t look good to creditors. If you increase your limit and only using a small amount ...