Author Topic: Essential Resources for Getting Started?  (Read 1479 times)

scraggly

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Essential Resources for Getting Started?
« on: November 18, 2020, 01:11:01 PM »
Hi all,
So I recently decided to get into real estate via house hacking (I came up with this idea all on my own, I swear /s).

I went through the stickied threads, and have been reading around here and on other parts of the web for a bit, and am starting to get a feel for things, and I want to start researching my market, looking into my options, and all that jazz. Problem is.... there's just *a lot*. Eg, the stickied books thread has probably a couple dozen books listed. One poster on a recent thread said "read through the last few years of posts on this sub before investing".

Now, obviously I do need to consume a lot of information to get started, and I should be constantly educating myself along the way, so I'm not trying to skip out on that. But I also know that typically the best way to get the best information quickly is to just ask. And honestly, I will be shocked if no one responds with an immaculately catalogued list of books, forum posts, and blogs that they've been working on for years... it's just how the internet works.

Extra high fives if you could point me in the direction of:
- Things you wish you knew when you started
- Giant, catastrophic explosions waiting to happen
- Making sense of the whole ecosystem and deciding what strategies make sense, and what you'll pursue

Much thanks!

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Jon Bon

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Re: Essential Resources for Getting Started?
« Reply #1 on: November 18, 2020, 02:41:55 PM »
Hi all,
So I recently decided to get into real estate via house hacking (I came up with this idea all on my own, I swear /s).

I went through the stickied threads, and have been reading around here and on other parts of the web for a bit, and am starting to get a feel for things, and I want to start researching my market, looking into my options, and all that jazz. Problem is.... there's just *a lot*. Eg, the stickied books thread has probably a couple dozen books listed. One poster on a recent thread said "read through the last few years of posts on this sub before investing".

Now, obviously I do need to consume a lot of information to get started, and I should be constantly educating myself along the way, so I'm not trying to skip out on that. But I also know that typically the best way to get the best information quickly is to just ask. And honestly, I will be shocked if no one responds with an immaculately catalogued list of books, forum posts, and blogs that they've been working on for years... it's just how the internet works.

Extra high fives if you could point me in the direction of:
- Things you wish you knew when you started
- Giant, catastrophic explosions waiting to happen
- Making sense of the whole ecosystem and deciding what strategies make sense, and what you'll pursue

Much thanks!

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

The books are mostly worthless.

Maybe you have heard, all real estate is local?

Basically the books are written to sell as many books as possible, so they tend to use broad general strategies. These likely are fine, but you dont need a book to learn them. What you do need to learn about is the ins and outs of your local market. For instance in my market, I only want to invest in 1-3 units. A 4 unit is considered a commercial property comes with higher taxes, more expensive permits, and more rigorous inspections. I don't want to play in that space, but it sure would have sucked if my first house had been a 4-plex.

The worst thing you can get is bad tenants. Tenants who walk out on the lease are not bad. A tenant who trashes the place, wont move out, and wont pay rent is gonna crush for your months/years. So tenant screening is key here.

My advice, first find a mentor. Its not hard, most of us just like talking about houses and businesses. Sure we technically are competing but there are so many fish in the sea I dont mind sharing some info with a younger version of me. Secondly find something with tenants already in it. Talk to their current landlord/seller. For the most part they cannot lie about if the tenant is on time with rent. So its one of the better screenings you can get.

Lastly stuff is STUPID expensive right now, so you might have to wait a year or four before it makes sense to buy.



scraggly

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Re: Essential Resources for Getting Started?
« Reply #2 on: November 18, 2020, 03:19:14 PM »
Jon Bon,
That's pretty much what I assumed, and is kind of why I'm asking the question. I want to start getting real world experience, but I want to have some good (really basic) theoretical foundations and common knowledge so that everyone I meet doesn't just come away thinking "damn, that kids an idiot".

Plus, knowing the big red flags early is high on my priority list. Outside this forum, everyone talking RE seems way too... optimistic. Which honestly, scares the shit out of me. Like, survivorship bias guys, have you heard of it?

I'll look into finding a mentor.

Also, yeah, prices are crazy, and my biggest concern (besides bad tenants and unknown unknowns) is buying at the top of the market and then being underwater when both prices and rents crater.

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AM43

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Re: Essential Resources for Getting Started?
« Reply #3 on: November 18, 2020, 06:30:34 PM »
I was 27 when I got my first 4 plex.
I pretty much did know anything about real state, but I had my uncle by my side because he is very experienced and owns multiple properties.
He was able to show me in and outs of this game.
There is not much of the game here, but some basic important rules will go a long way.
You need to buy right property, right neighborhood, for the right amount of money.
Location, location, location.
It help if you are hands on guy.
If you are going to outsource everything, you will make very little profit if at all.
Pick your tenants wisely. Check and check again.
If something is off, do not rent it to them.
Be ready to spend some(if not all ) of your free time taking care of the property at least at first.
Its not a bad gig and if done properly can be very profitable and rewarding.
Most of those overly optimistic folks you are talking about prob have no idea.
There is a lot more to it than collecting monthly rent and watching your account grow.
Do your research, find right property and go for it.
Start small, maybe with duplex. Get a feel for it and see how thing go and take it from there.
As others have said, right now prices are way too high and its hard to find property that makes sense.


scraggly

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Re: Essential Resources for Getting Started?
« Reply #4 on: November 19, 2020, 11:56:13 AM »
Thanks for your reply AM43. Based on what I've been reading, I think I'm pretty well set up in a lot of aspects. I'm a pretty hands-on guy. Not a ton of experience remodeling houses, but I have probably more experience doing ameture construction and diy than most people -  I know how to google things and I'm not afraid to get my hands dirty. I've lived with roommates during and after college and never had a bad experience (ie, I screened well and am pretty amicable). Previous projects in my life have me well conditioned to finishing the workday and then rallying to get more stuff done.

I think a bigger sticking point for me will be appropriately valuing my own time vs opportunity cost - like, I'd *rather* do all the learning required and find the tools and spend the time to replace my own roof - but in all likelihood, it's probably a better deal to pay the pros to do it in 1/3 the time, since I'd be hemmoraging in lost rents.

With the way things are around me, I think duplex would be ambitious. Too pricy to make a profit. I've been told the way to do it around here is to find a 5-6 bed that needs some work, and then turn it into a duplex if rent by room doesn't work. Logic being that there's less competition for SFHs that are that large, but the market is still distorted in favor of people getting FHA loans.

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Jon Bon

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Re: Essential Resources for Getting Started?
« Reply #5 on: November 19, 2020, 12:54:13 PM »

 everyone talking RE seems way too... optimistic.

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There are a few reasons for this.

1. Is it is an industry full of hucksters trying to sell you their winning sysrtem. So bigger pockets is pretty much a mess of that IMO. Everyone is trying to get rich quick. I mean RE is in fact the best industry to get rich quick IMO but you still get lots of garbage advice an people trying to sell you that.
2. Mainly - we cheated.

I bought my houses in 2009-2014 right before the fed started QE infinity and RE prices went haywire. So sure I look like a genius owning these property's that have appreciated 100% since I purchased them. But mostly it was just timing and luck. What makes it even worse is rents have gone up, and rates have gone down. I used to have 2500 of rents and 1800 or expenses but I am refinancing that tomorrow and have rents of 3000 and expenses of 1600. So it's just not repeatable. It was a one time deal. You cannot find that sort of thing but once in a generation.  As a result you get a lot of guys who basically bought Tesla/Bitcoin/Netflix right before it popped. Its not repeatable and its mainly dumb luck. Some will tell you its their intelligence that lead to their success, when really we just timed the market correctly.




scraggly

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Re: Essential Resources for Getting Started?
« Reply #6 on: November 19, 2020, 01:28:15 PM »
Right, I mean, I'm chalking up the optimism to the fact that it seems pretty easy and straightforward to make a lot of money in RE... until it isn't. The analogy I'm thinking of is avalanches. You can be really reckless and carve turns for years, maybe even a lifetime, and never get into trouble. Which means, of course, that you'll tell everyone it's super safe and fun.... until it isn't.

So I guess I'm looking for "Staying Alive In Avalanche Terrain: Real Estate Edition"

One thing I'm considering - everyone is talking about how "prices are crazy, wait for a correction". But prices are only crazy in places where I want to live. Nobody's crying about housing costs in Slade, Ky, Manhattan, KS, or Las Vegas, NM. So I wonder if it's just a demographic shift. Ie, the market is correcting itself slowly as people move to places with more economic opportunity and higher quality of life, so prices in those places will keep going up for the foreseeable future.

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Valley of Plenty

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Re: Essential Resources for Getting Started?
« Reply #7 on: November 22, 2020, 08:49:03 AM »
Let me start by saying that I am currently in the process of acquiring my first rental property (a house hack), so my advice is not that of a seasoned veteran.

Let me immediately follow by saying that the property I am currently acquiring is a triplex, and I'm getting it for $45,000. If that sounds absurd, it's because it is. It's an absurdly good deal.

I'm sure that many people reading this will at this point be scoffing and saying things like "Bullshit, that's not possible" or "Yeah, okay, how many hundreds of thousands of dollars is that dump going to take to fix up?" The answer is that it's not bullshit, it is possible, and after a thorough inspection the grand total for all repairs and renovations to get all three units move in ready is less than $20,000 (and that includes a new roof!). Including the repair costs yields a total purchase price of ~$65k. Monthly rents will conservatively be $1400 (would be $1800 if I weren't house hacking it), with PITI (principle, interest, taxes, insurance) coming in at a whopping $480. So I'll be generating ~$900 in positive monthly cashflow from my primary residence after subtracting 10% for potential vacancy and 10% for maintenance expenditures. I will share a link to my full story at the bottom of this post (it's an ongoing adventure).

Now, with that out of the way, let me tell you some things that fly in the face of much of the input of those above. Firstly, the people coming to you with stories of fantastic deals, like the one I just told you about, didn't just "get lucky". Sure, at a casual glance it's easy to dismiss stories like mine as luck, because lord knows not many people are house hacking $45,000 triplexes in the current housing market to earn upwards of 20% ROI off their primary residence. But to dismiss these stories as blind luck and/or irrelevant to your own situation is to fall victim to Excusitis, the Failure Disease. MMM has entire articles about this, and I'll link one at the bottom of this, but I'll summarize by saying that there is no such thing as an irrelevant success story. There is *always* a bit of actionable info you can walk away with and apply to your own life. Furthermore, what appears to most as luck is usually much more than that. People don't just wake up one morning and get a call from someone asking if they want to buy a triplex for $45,000... Unless they have taken specific steps to make such a thing actually happen. And sure, maybe some measure of good fortune was involved, but that's to be expected of anyone who is actively seeking opportunities. You're very unlikely to ever get "lucky" if you begin with the assumption that the odds are stacked against you. Which brings me to my next point:

Being optimistic is a fundamental trait of being a Mustachian. Don't believe me? Ask MMM himself. Again, there are several articles on the subject, and again, I'll link one below. The short of it is that if you aren't being optimistic, you are probably not going to be successful. If your reaction to seeing a hidden issue (like a leaky roof that the owner never told me about when we agreed on a price of $55,000) is to say "Aha! I knew it was too good to be true - I'm out!" then you will miss the best deals. Instead, you should take the Mustachian approach, which is to say "Woah, this is a big obstacle I've been presented with. Awesome! Now how can I still make this work?" Obviously there is still a need to temper your optimism with sound reasoning and logic, but the two are not contradictory, no matter what the Complainypants tell you. Sometimes, when you respond to problems this way, you end up miraculously making the deal even better, like I did when I used the surprise roof leak to negotiate a 20% price drop, despite the fact that even with the new issues, my repair estimates were still within my original repair budget. Mustachians are optimistic, but Mustachians are also not stupid. We understand the power of Outrageous Optimism, and we employ it through our awesome and badass Optimism Guns. We laugh in the faces of nervous complainypants who warn us that "real estate is hard, real estate is risky" and "these people got lucky because they bought at the right time or stumbled blindly into great deals". We know that real estate can be hard at times, but we don't shy away from the challenge. We know that real estate can be risky, but we understand those risks and learn how to mitigate and manage them. We know that there are always great deals to be found, and we sniff them out like the success hunting bloodhounds that we are. In a boom, in a bust, in the middle of a global pandemic, the Mustachian grins a cheeky grin beneath their broad bristles and boldly charges forth, optimism guns blazing. And because of this approach, we generally win far more often than our non-mustached colleagues.

The best advice that I can give you is to be optimistic, and facilitate your own good fortune by proactively seeking opportunities. This means networking, this means negotiating, this means getting creative when things go sideways. If the numbers absolutely don't add up, then they don't add up and you move on. But you *always* remember that the good deals are out there, and you just might be the only one with the tenacity and positivity to find them.

MMM on the dangers of Excusitis: https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/05/28/weekend-edition-the-magic-of-thinking-big/

MMM on Optimism: https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/10/03/the-practical-benefits-of-outrageous-optimism/

Me, on my $45,000 triplex (this link got messed up because of the dollar sign. You'll have to copy/paste it or just find it near the top of the Real Estate section of the forum): https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/real-estate-and-landlording/the-great-$55-000-triplex-saga/msg2739009/#msg2739009
« Last Edit: November 22, 2020, 08:51:22 AM by Valley of Plenty »

scraggly

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Re: Essential Resources for Getting Started?
« Reply #8 on: November 30, 2020, 06:56:12 PM »
Hi Valley of Plenty.

You make some good points. I try to be optimistic, but I try more to be reality-based. Of course one should be on the lookout for good deals and should be proactive in finding them - but it seems to me that believing you will find a great deal can itself be a form of excusitis. An okay deal that is okay still makes money, and it's easier to find okay deals than great ones. And the reality is, sometimes the best thing you can learn from a success story is how blind you can be to your own dumb luck - also a tenant of mustascianism, as it defines the rationale for index fund investing.

Also, much as I'm a fan of MMM, I'm also a fan of Nassim Taleb, and his advice to new wall street traders seems prescient here - "do whatever you want, but make sure you show up tomorrow morning." Ie, losing money is no big deal. Taking risk is part of playing the game. But never risk so much that you put yourself out of the game - hence this thread.

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Valley of Plenty

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Re: Essential Resources for Getting Started?
« Reply #9 on: November 30, 2020, 08:49:12 PM »
Of course it's important to stay grounded in reality. As I said, Mustachians are not stupid. The trouble is that many so called "realists" are actually pessimists. Seeing and understanding reality is the first step, but from there you have a choice in how to react in response to that reality. This is the point at which optimists can more easily come out ahead, because they aren't deterred by sudden bumps in the road. The pessimist on the other hand sees unexpected turbulence as proof that reality is terrible and they should cut and run. A pessimist assumes the worst until reality proves them wrong, whereas an optimist does just the opposite. Both see the same reality, but it's their different reactions to it that make all the difference.

Contrary to what many self proclaimed realists would have you believe, optimism and delusion are not the same thing. Reality is no enemy to the optimist.

By no means would I ever advise you to throw caution to the wind and put in offers on every dilapidated building within 20 miles. I'm just saying, don't buy into the false narrative that owning real estate is failure waiting to happen, and anyone who wins was either lucky or cheating. There are many good deals out there, and even some great ones. And the fact that you're posting here means you're definitely the right person to find them.

PMJL34

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Re: Essential Resources for Getting Started?
« Reply #10 on: November 30, 2020, 09:48:27 PM »
OP,

AM43 and Jon Bon have given you excellent advice.

I would add:

-Your first purchase is very important. It can set you up for success or get you out of the game completely. I'm not saying everything rides on your first purchase, but it certainly makes your life easier if you get off on the right start. This is especially true if you are in HCOL.
-Owning homes is work. I can't state this enough and you have to learn to enjoy it or else it's not worth it. Entering real estate in 2020 is very difficult. You have a lot of competition and prices are not on your side. Don't be fooled by the people on the internet claiming these gigantic profits and/or little work. Nothing in life is easy.
-SFH while renting out rooms is the simplest form of house hacking if you're up for having roommates. Next up is duplex, then triplex, and etc.

My questions for you:

Why are you looking into real estate?
Where are you looking to purchase?
What is your overall finances like?
You say you have high risk. What makes you say that?

EDIT: What is your goal with all of this? Do you want more income? Do you just want to diversify? Do you want to buy and hold? Do you want a primary residence off set by rental income?

Best of luck!
« Last Edit: November 30, 2020, 09:51:47 PM by lilbenny34 »

scraggly

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Re: Essential Resources for Getting Started?
« Reply #11 on: December 01, 2020, 07:24:02 AM »
Valley of Plenty,
We're gonna get waaaaaaaaaay too philosophical way too fast on this track. However, I'll try to keep it brief -

It seems rather optimistic to believe that optimism has no downsides. I feel it is more realistic to believe that both optimism and pessimism are useful mechanisms in the human psyche, or else they wouldn't exist.

Further, where optimism and pessimism come into play is in the dark spaces of reality. No one needs to be optimistic or pessimistic about things which are well known and understood. Hence, an optimistic attitude will look at the unknown and believe things will work out, that challenges can be overcome, and that a failure is survivable while a pessimistic attitude will see the opposite. The real question is - who's right? And of course this is unanswerable until reality is revealed. Over the long haul, what is the winning strategy? In my view it is

1) Build a solid foundation which can weather most failures
2) Aggressively protect your downside and hedge against unlikely but catastrophic failures
3) Take actions you can be proud of on your deathbed, regardless of their eventual outcome

*Then* you can afford to be optimistic.

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scraggly

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Re: Essential Resources for Getting Started?
« Reply #12 on: December 01, 2020, 07:29:07 AM »
lilbenny34,
Thanks! I was hoping this thread might be more general than just being about me, so I was trying to avoid specifics, but I guess all real estate is local.

Answering your questions -

- Why are you looking into real estate?

Well, *that* is a simple question with a multifaceted answer.

I'll start at the bottom of the inferential chain: I wanna be financially independent. Since I graduated school and got my w2, I've focused on reducing expenses and just tossed my money into index funds. Then some other friends looking to Fire got into house hacking and started talking about the outlandish returns they were expecting, and I was like "yeah, whatever, you're getting those returns by taking on additional risk and adding sweat equity and getting some free money from the government." And then eventually there was a little *clunk* in my brain and I realized interest rates were approximately the rate of inflation, and was like "...oh. That's *A LOT* of free money from the government." Like, if the government would give me a half a million dollar interest-free loan and then I just invested it in index funds, I could just be FI right now.

With my current level of spending, just a modest amount of cashflow from one or two RE investments could float me through a coast until my existing index fund portfolio matures in about 10 years or so. So if I can hack that, I'd have enough leverage to just shift to part time employment with my w2 plus some self-managed RE work, and just be *done*.

So basically, diversifying income streams and leveraging cheap money. Plus, in the event of total societal collapse, I'd have a place to start stringing up razor wire and stockpiling shotguns. So if I can wing a pretty modest success, I win. Additionally, I have a few assets which make me think such a success is pretty reasonable to expect:

- I have the income and capital to make a fairly large investment in the lower end of HCOL areas.
- I now have a number of friends in my area who are home owners, some of whom are also house hacking, who I can plumb for information
- I have an okay amount of experience with diy from helping friends remodel their houses and building out the camper van I now live in.
- I live in a camper van, so I can "live in" the place without stealing rent from myself, which might make some investments work for me where they wouldn't for others.
- I live in a camper van and now work remotely, so really I could just pick up and move to wherever the market is good if I wanted to
- I've lived in my market for a few years now and at least have a nose for what various neighborhoods/suburbs are like.
- I'm fairly analytical and am not afraid of crunching numbers

Finally, I have some whimsical notions of the benefits of home ownership which I mostly think of as liabilities:

- Being able to facilitate the creation of a community of like-minded individuals living together.
- Having ground to stand on while raising an orderly and well-reasoned ruckus about land use patterns in my neighborhood association or city council.
- Having fun projects to work on, like building an ADU in the back yard or getting a variance to extend my front porch all the way to the sidewalk.


- Where are you looking to purchase?
Well, like I said before, I live in a campervan and work remotely so I could just purchase anywhere. Right now I live in the Front Range. Assuming I would need to be present fairly often to do my own management, I'd want somewhere fairly close to the mountains as a rule. However, exact cities, suburbs, or neighborhoods? I guess that depends on how good the investment is. Ideally, someone would give me a house right next to downtown Golden for free because I'm such a nice guy. In a more realistic world, I could get a place for a good deal in, say, Castle Rock or Loveland or Commerce City so I'd only have to vomit in my mouth occasionally when I went to do work on it or manage it. Realistic but more difficult to find would be something in the western Denver suburbs (Arvada, Lakewood, Westminster), Fort Collins, or Laramie. Maybe somewhere in the other four corners states. I find myself in the unhappy position of having too many options.

- What are your overall finances like?
No debt. Spending <$15k/year. ~$180k in index funds and ~$20k liquid. Nominal income $85k.

- You say you have high risk. What makes you say that?

Well, I'm looking into investing in real estate while knowing nothing about it. Seems pretty risky to me.

Beyond that, it's not so much that I think I'm particularly risky, but that real estate seems risky. After all, you're investing a large amount of money in a single asset. The additional risk you're taking on is part of the reason you see outsized returns.

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NonprofitER

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Re: Essential Resources for Getting Started?
« Reply #13 on: December 02, 2020, 08:29:49 AM »
I share the optimism of @Valley of Plenty . RE investing is not "easy" (in the sense that it takes some research, esp at the beginning to build knowledge), but any driven person with a commitment to FI/RE discipline can do it -- and for many, its a way of diversifying or speeding up the path to FI.

I'm going to kindly disagree with the sentiment that the "books are mostly worthless". Maybe its just my personality, but I read *A TON* of books before buying my first investment property - none of which I considered to be fluffy guru pandering. Learning the basic principles of RE investing and really ensuring you know how to assess a market, calculate ROI/COC return/CAP rate, manage a rental property, etc are key to reducing your risk. Diving into books/podcasts/articles gave me an immense and very inexpensive education to make reasonably smart choices going in. I would warn anyone against going into RE investing *without* having done significant homework.

My top resources for you, considering the COVID climate, your geographic flexibility and starting point would be:
1. Diving into Bigger Pockets (website, forum, podcasts) for further education
2. Reading: What Every Real Estate Investor Needs to Know About Cashflow (Gallineli), Recession-Proof Real Estate Investing (Scott), Long Distance Real Estate Investing (Greene), and Managing Rental Properties (Turner). I'd say those are your building blocks. As you learn more, you might also consider Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance and Repeat (The Book on BRRRR Investing also by Green) and the Nolo Book on Tax Strategies for Landlords.
3. Meet, talk with and pick the brain of other successful investors. Learn from their mistakes, network, build a team of people you trust

Look, a lot of people are wary of those who say they want to invest in real estate. Even more people will tell you that investing in real estate in an area away from where you live is a big fat mistake. I'm not saying you shouldn't exercise caution and discipline, but its not rocket science. There are plenty of investors on these forums and on the BP forums whose entire FI strategy is investing out-of-area (or out-of-state).

I'm not an expert. This is just what worked for me. I spent 1 year learning everything I could before investing in real estate. That's not a magic number, its just the number I needed to feel comfortable assessing risk and building my knowledge. I read, joined meet-ups, asked a million questions, developed a business plan, read more, analyzed my target market and explored it several times before ever buying, read more, built a team of people I trust, engaged multiple local lenders, read more, etc. I bought 3 rental properties more than a year ago and I'm under contract to buy 4 more units in the same market. All of these are in a Lower COL area that is more than 6+ hours away from my home. I have successfully self-managed the rentals, and overseen a rehab. This has worked because I spent the time upfront building strong relationships with a few key people in the local market. IE, I have an investor-focused realtor, a local contractor, a local handyman, an "emergencies only" property manager for when SHTF (paid hourly only in the event I have a "middle of the night" problem).

I do all the day-to-day management of my rentals from afar (my tenants are not aware that I live in a different area - thanks to technology like Google Voice, a local virtual mailbox, etc.). It probably takes me 5 - 10 hours a month, at the most. I outsource tenant showings and screenings to my realtor, my handyman makes regular maintenance inspections on my behalf, and I have emergency services in place. In the year I've been doing this (pre and during COVID) I've had exactly 1 "after hours/emergency" that I paid my outsourced "emergency PM" 3-hours to deal with. Everything else is manageable from a far. 

I've made ~13% cash on cash return despite having some extended tenant turnover at the peak of Summer COVID shutdowns (and inclusive of the fact I set aside for cap ex, vacancy, repairs, etc). And more importantly, that income is essentially tax free, thanks to the real estate investor friendly tax code.
My total ROI (considering cashflow, principle paydown and equity gain) is well over 30%. I benefitted from some appreciation that outpaced initial predictions combined with some forced appreciation through a rehab. Obviously not every year is guaranteed gangbusters and every smart investor should prepare to weather market downturns (see above: Scott's book recession-mindful real estate investing) - but I don't think those kind of returns are unusual in RE investing.

scraggly

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Re: Essential Resources for Getting Started?
« Reply #14 on: December 02, 2020, 08:51:51 AM »
NonprofitER,
Thanks a lot! This is basically the response I was hoping for. I've realized over the years that I'm pretty goal oriented, so having a tractable list of resources to comb through helps a lot. Otherwise I just get bored sifting through the chaff and say "Fuck it, we'll do it live".

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PMJL34

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Re: Essential Resources for Getting Started?
« Reply #15 on: December 02, 2020, 11:49:16 AM »
Scraggly,

I like the way you think and feel you would do just fine in real estate.

It sounds like you are trying to speed up FI and also diversify. I also think it may be beneficial for you to own some property since your van life most likely won't last forever and it will be nice to have a place you can live in when the time comes.

In your shoes, I would invest in an area you would like to live in. Sounds like you value privacy and space so aim for a larger lot, but don't go too rural because it most likely won't make a great rental due to the low demand. So not Denver, but not mountains if that makes sense.

The next step for you is to actually view hundreds of properties, and if you are comfortable, share some examples of places you would be interested in. I think it's too hard for us to give advice without actual details/homes.

Best of luck.

scraggly

  • 5 O'Clock Shadow
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  • Posts: 13
Re: Essential Resources for Getting Started?
« Reply #16 on: December 03, 2020, 03:27:49 PM »
Thanks for the vote of confidence! You're right - the long term stability is also something that would be good, which I'd forgotten to mention.

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