Mike Damazo is a petty officer in the US Navy stationed in Japan.Damazo "house-hacked" a home he bought outside Fresno, California, using income from renters and his own military housing allowance to cover the mortgage.
A turning point came when Damazo was on deployment and attended a finance class offered by the military. A high-ranking official he looked up to said they were in a lot worse shape than he was financially. That motivated him to become debt-free. "I was looking at the housing market and I noticed houses that were 1,300 square feet and cheaper than in San Diego," he said. After years of yearning to buy a property in the more expensive coastal market but unable to afford it, the time was finally right in Lemoore., available to eligible homebuyers in mostly rural areas, and bought the three-bedroom house with nothing down.
Damazo needed to put only $400 toward housing costs, $200 to cover the remaining balance on the mortgage, and $200 into a cash reserve for home maintenance. The rest was his to keep.Two years later, Damazo got orders from the Navy to return to San Diego. He transitioned the Lemoore property into a full rental and hired a property manager.
Damazo put the townhouse up for sale this summer, when he relocated to Japan. He's hoping to make a profit so he can parlay his earnings into a new investment property, he said, possibly in Texas, where real estate is cheaper.
Fidelity good
Fidelity ? We said no