Sometimes it’s good to go back to the basics, and in this episode we do just that. I talked with my good friend Michael Dominguez about how to buy your first property and start your career in real estate investing.
Michael noticed, after years of being in the field, it wasn’t as exciting as buying that first property. So when he wrote his book, he wanted to focus on showing people how to do that. Helping a client buy their first property brought him back to how it felt when he did that same for his own portfolio.
A huge fan of investing in homes or buildings with two or three units in them, Michael warns about ensuring that all units are legal in the eyes of your municipality.
Going through each step on how to purchase your first property, Michael chose to use the city of Barrie, Ontario as where this 2-unit property is located. Choosing a two-unit home as your first property is beneficial, especially if you are going to live in one of the units. If you are, your down payment is considerably lower. It would five per cent down on the first $500,000 and then 10 per cent down on every dollar after that. On an $800,000 home, you could purchase it with a down payment of $55,000 if you were going to make this property your permanent residence as well as an investment property. If you were simply buying this property to invest and not live in, you would need to put a 20 percent down payment on the $800k, which would be $160,000. Living in it seems the way to go when first starting your adventure in real estate investing.
Michael goes through the closing costs and what appreciation would be put on the property every year. Living in your first two-unit property is a way you can make money, fine-tune your investment strategies, and build your portfolio.
For more information on Michael and his strategies on buying your first property, check out our full episode on Youtube!