Struggling to hit my goal of one-rental Investment a Year-- Need Ideas and Inputs

[Sangam Baligar]

Hello BP Friends,

In early 2020, I set out a goal to purchase at least one property a year either through house hacking or through a good positive cash-flowing (CF) MFU.
I managed to do that for the past three years; and, due to macroeconomic conditions (high interest rates, demand/supply, etc), I was not able to execute the plan in 2023. Due to high interest rates, none of the properties were giving me good CF or broke even.

All my current investments and apartments are in the Bay area and I would like to stay within (a 20-50 miles radius) of the area and this also help with property management and my W2 job. 

All my new purchases will be funded from other property cash flow and savings. I'm writing this post in the hope that some of you on this forum might have gone through this already and can give me some ideas and inputs to make progress toward my end goal of consolidating all small investments into a larger one by 2030-2035 using 1031.

1. What are the ideas or strategies that can be used to ensure to purchase of at least one property a year with good CF.. I do not opt to do major rehabs due to my W2 job/time dedication. 

2. How would fund the goal of purchasing one MF property per year with existing units/savings?  My current strategy has been a little changing to fund the 25% down on investment property, especially in the Bay Area housing market.

3. What would be your property management strategy? I'm planning to open a management LLC to circulate the spending within the biz. (LLC and management)

4. What's your exit strategy to consolidate all the small investments into a large complex in 10 years?

5. Tell me everything you have done to increase your house hackings and/or MF portfolio from 3-to-10-to-20-to-50 units.

Appreciate everyone's input on this topic. Thank you!

[Jaryn Pierson]

Hey Sangam

All great questions, I'll take a stab at a few just for fun, with the numbers below corresponding to your questions above.

1. For finding a property with good cash flow, maybe start looking into networking with some wholesalers in your area. You'll have to pay them their commission, but for the right property it could be worth it. A good wholesaler in your area may have a better deal flow than you're already getting and could give you more options to run your numbers on. Maybe join a real estate meetup, could find wholesaler there or get in touch with some other local property management or investors in the area that may be interested in getting rid of properties at a reasonable price for different reasons.

4.  My plan over the last couple years of getting started was always to just buy and never sell. After reading through a few different books this year, I've decided that selling every 3 - 5 years after stabalizing a property could help me scale a bit quicker. For example, one property I have is a duplex that has about $100k of equity in it. Sure I could pull some of it out, but I could also sell and move that equity into a much bigger property. Around here (Western, Ma) at about $50k per unit, it wouldn't be unreasonable of me to take that $100k and move it into purchasing an 8ish unit property. 

Hope that helps a bit !
Jaryn