re: Real Estate Investing......... New update pg 7

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Are you going to manage the property yourself or hire a property manager?

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I am going to manage it to start things off. This REI is a complete side project and I have a full time job that keeps me pretty busy. Once we get down the road and acquire more properties, hiring someone may be needed but I can do it myself for now. I can't justify paying someone 10% unless I do it myself for a while to see how much work will be involved. Our goal is to have Air Force families as tenants in this area and hopefully they will not be high maintenance.

He should be saving most of that for expenses (vacancy, capital expenses, repairs, taxes, ins, etc).

Conservatively using some quick rule of thumbs based on what he stated he could pay himself about $100 a month.

How does one begin the process of becoming a real estate investor/landlord? What are some good reference books to read to learn about the process?

Someone commented you don't find investment deals on the mls. Where do you look for them?

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Someone commented you don't find investment deals on the mls. Where do you look for them?

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You can find them by knowing realtors. If a realtor knows you have cash on hand and you're looking to buy they'll come to you before going through the hassle of listing/marketing a property. Their commission will be much quicker and only slightly less if they sell you the property in a cash sale for $100,000 instead of marketing and taking the time to find a traditional buyer who is willing to get a mortgage and pay $120,000. The difference assuming a 3% commission is only $600 (before anything gets taken out for the realtor company) and they can move on to another property/another commission.

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Nice job

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Just trying to be like you man. Appreciate it!

Just make sure to keep adequate reserves for vacancy, capital expenditures and routine maintenance.

Also, I can't stress enough how important tenant selection is. My main criteria is gross income must be 3 times rent, good references and a deposit equal to two months rent. That last part is totally a personal preference. May not work in your market. Don't waver on the other two....

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Also, I can't stress enough how important tenant selection is

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Our target tenant will be Air Force personel and I be using myrental.com to screen applicants. I haven't used it yet but it has come highly recommended to me from other RE investors I have met with.

Yeah, we may flip the 3rd one just because of the market. But I'd much rather hold onto it. Anything within LSU commute distance is literally money.

The one we live in now was bought in 2005. Current appraisal is astronomical % over purchase. And every month the room mates pay the note our potential Net ROI rises that much.

I’ve always been intrigued by real estate investing, specifically buying houses and letting the rent pay the note until paid off then hold and collect profit after that. I’ve never put much deep thought into it until recently when my wife and I discussed it and came to the conclusion that we were both interested in this type of investment.

I read a few articles and the free starter guide on biggerpockets.com and I think that my niche and strategy would be single family/small multi-family buy and hold. I’d like to start off slow then build to 10-15 properties and have my wife eventually act as property manager. All income for the first several years would be reinvested. Overall goal would be to have them paid off in 10-15 years then collect rent thereafter as part of my early retirement plan and maybe pay for my kids’ education. I can do some intermediate to advanced (non-specialized) handy work and am not scared to get dirty.

Currently, I don’t have much in the way of liquid assets for a down payment but I do have a decent HELOC that I can pull from for cash.

I have a few questions (generally speaking and based off of what I’ve read recently…):
· How does one go about finding properties that will produce a positive cash flow? (ie: where to look other than real estate and mls websites)
· How do you move from owning one to multiple properties? Say I use the HELOC for down payment on #1, what threshold do I need to surpass on property #1 to move on to property #2, and so on?
· What’s a reasonable timeline to move from one to more properties? (to be used in setting up my overall goals)
· What are some reference books that I should be reading to get started?
(Might be some repeat questions from above, was typing this off the top of my head)

Note: I also have an unlimited resource for legal advice on this subject.

I know these are very general questions and a lot depends on the actual market and properties available, but any advice or comments are greatly appreciated.

I can't remember the name of the office, but BAFB has a program that you can enroll in that will find tenants for you. If someone moves out then they've got a list of other people to take their place. If they wreck the house then BAFB will pay and pursue the tenants themselves. That was about ten years ago though.