I'd like to hear your story on growth

[Stephen Brown]

Hello Biggerpockets.

It has been quite a while since I've been on here but I decided to come back because I'm in a unique position and I want to hear what others would do if they were in my position. I am a real estate agent here in Toledo and I have 7 units. I'm not very organized with my systems and I still am learning the ropes, even asking basic questions like when to post notices and stuff like that, how to track my expenses and organize them so I know what a bill is for on my account when there's no name recorded, and then rehab... I know nothing about it nor do I have the desire to do any of it. Sometimes I think I am not landlord material, and I think it has to do with imposter syndrome but also with the fact that I have a lot of money to work with from a family member so therefore I don't necessarily need to be doing repairs, accounting, etc. myself. Sometimes I think I should hire out everything under a property manager and focus on just making sales as an agent.

 However, I want to make my investments into a business that I can make perform better and I know I can manage once I have the systems in place from learning. If others can do it I know I can too. I think the biggest difficulty is organizing everything and then FINDING HELP. This is primarily what I want this post to focus on.

I want to here how people scaled out of just a few properties and into larger investments while still be able to manage everything. Ideally you had to develop relationships with new brokers to find bigger deals, you had to meet people to find repairmen and cleaners, and you had to learn new tools such as maybe quickbooks and buildium to manage your properties. People that I've spoken with told me this is all done organically over time - going on facebook and reaching out to people, talking to investors, and going online and speaking with companies that make products that help landlords.

I'm currently a one man show and I'm hiring out everything in regards to rehab and I'm still looking for my trusty repairman and cleaning crew. My current systems involve e-mailing and texting myself, I use Innago for property management and I use stessa for accounting and google drive for document storage.

In a few months I will be acquiring 9 more units and I know this will be the time for my systems to change. My question for those that have gotten to this point is what systems did you put in place that really helped you scale and allow you to grow and what did you wish you would have done sooner? Who did you wish you would have spoken to earlier? Or would you recommend hiring out a property manager if you're a one man show?

My goal with real estate investing is simply to be able to travel for at least a month out of the year to go abroad, come back and make sales and buy more real estate for fun. My cash flow from my rentals would support me financially. Ideally I'd like to accomplish this within the next 3 years.

Feel free to share me how you grew and the struggles and successes that came long with it! (Also please mention any important unique factors - for example my growth is supported primarily from money my family has given me.)

[Christopher Abele]

You mentioned that you can just hire it out because a lot of money is coming from a family member.

I’d challenge you to think about stewardship. That is, are you being the best steward of the money that you have been given / have access to? 

I would continue trying to do the small stuff on your own, but look for a property maintenance company. (Message me later today - I’ll give you a bunch of names.) Give them a couple of projects and let them know you are interested in growing a business relationship with someone. Don’t look for the single guy looking for sidework; you need someone big enough to work with your scale.

We’re both in the same boat & market and I’d normally text you this, but thought I’d post because it might help other people.