Strategies to streamline a quickly growing portfolio

Strategies to streamline a quickly growing portfolio

David B.Pro Member
Member since 2022 · 77 posts · 56 votes

Hello Everyone! 

I have officially been investing in real estate for the last year, and in that time I went from owning one condo to now owning 5 duplexes. I am also about to close on a portfolio of three more duplexes, making my total 8. For the most part, all of these have been done by using the BRRRR method. Lastly, I am also flipping houses (4 this year)

I feel generally good about the portfolio being built -- virtually every property cashflows at least 15% COC (some much higher) and have much higher IRR'S. A couple of them only break even after the refi, but my plan is to hold until I can get a better rate (which I don't think will be hard given that I'm currently at 8.5 mostly) and then refinance all of them as a portfolio that cash flows very nicely.

The flips I am averaging about 40 - 50% returns. Which I'm thrilled about. I had a couple contractor issues early on, but things are currently getting smoother. 

As you can imagine, my workload has increased as well as my monthly payments to the bank. I have plenty of reserves for a rainy day (I'm not worried about default), but I do find myself stressed with managing the payments and also the flips as it relates to tracking expenses and reimbursements for the hard money. 

For context, I am not someone who traditionally organizes well. I'm highly ADHD, and while I'm always tracking the numbers, it's not unpredictable that I could lose something in the details. What I am is goal driven, smart, singularly focused, and a great communicator of my vision. But I could use some back up... 

I'm wondering who and what I could employ to help streamline my systems as this business grows. I have considered hiring a bookie to track all transactions as well as an admin assistant to split up the workload. In the future, I imagine taking property management in house as well. I currently have one managing the properties but i have to say... not impressed. I had to call them out on almost 4000k dollars that they had neglected to pay me over the last six months. Seems they had an "accounting" error. 

Then of course, there's the idea that I could also be sourcing deals on my own with a team that was calling on our behalf. That seems a little far fetched at the moment but the wheels are turning for the future. 

So to summarize, as I continue to Flip and Brrrr, what could I be doing to grow a team and organize this... thing... that i'm building? When would you hire someone, and in what order would you begin hiring? I can tell you that the bookie feels like the most important element to start. But I'm not sure where to get one or what that should reasonably cost. 

Honestly, even if you don't have a team but you've built something similar to this.... how did you organize everything? What sort of strategies did you employ as you grew? My greatest fear is somehow screwing something up that would stop me from paying the monthly debt service on my portfolio. This its slightly irrational, as the numbers support debt service. But still - as the number of mortgages grow so does the fear that SOMETHING could happen. I'm sure some of you can relate. 

Im a rookie so I'm sorry if this feels amateur. But would really appreciate any insight other investors have garnered as they built their portfolios. I can tell you that my goal is to own 50 residential properties. Whether it takes 5 to 10 years, that feels like a really powerful but achievable number to me. 

Thanks for reading. Best, 

DC




2Reply
13 views

2 Replies

Jump to latestLatest
  • JD MartinBusiness Member
    Moderator
    Rock Star Extraordinaire · Northeast, TN · Member since 2015 · 10k+ posts · 16k+ votes
    3y
    Quote from @David B.:

    Hello Everyone! 

    I have officially been investing in real estate for the last year, and in that time I went from owning one condo to now owning 5 duplexes. I am also about to close on a portfolio of three more duplexes, making my total 8. For the most part, all of these have been done by using the BRRRR method. Lastly, I am also flipping houses (4 this year)

    I feel generally good about the portfolio being built -- virtually every property cashflows at least 15% COC (some much higher) and have much higher IRR'S. A couple of them only break even after the refi, but my plan is to hold until I can get a better rate (which I don't think will be hard given that I'm currently at 8.5 mostly) and then refinance all of them as a portfolio that cash flows very nicely.

    The flips I am averaging about 40 - 50% returns. Which I'm thrilled about. I had a couple contractor issues early on, but things are currently getting smoother. 

    As you can imagine, my workload has increased as well as my monthly payments to the bank. I have plenty of reserves for a rainy day (I'm not worried about default), but I do find myself stressed with managing the payments and also the flips as it relates to tracking expenses and reimbursements for the hard money. 

    For context, I am not someone who traditionally organizes well. I'm highly ADHD, and while I'm always tracking the numbers, it's not unpredictable that I could lose something in the details. What I am is goal driven, smart, singularly focused, and a great communicator of my vision. But I could use some back up... 

    I'm wondering who and what I could employ to help streamline my systems as this business grows. I have considered hiring a bookie to track all transactions as well as an admin assistant to split up the workload. In the future, I imagine taking property management in house as well. I currently have one managing the properties but i have to say... not impressed. I had to call them out on almost 4000k dollars that they had neglected to pay me over the last six months. Seems they had an "accounting" error. 

    Then of course, there's the idea that I could also be sourcing deals on my own with a team that was calling on our behalf. That seems a little far fetched at the moment but the wheels are turning for the future. 

    So to summarize, as I continue to Flip and Brrrr, what could I be doing to grow a team and organize this... thing... that i'm building? When would you hire someone, and in what order would you begin hiring? I can tell you that the bookie feels like the most important element to start. But I'm not sure where to get one or what that should reasonably cost. 

    Honestly, even if you don't have a team but you've built something similar to this.... how did you organize everything? What sort of strategies did you employ as you grew? My greatest fear is somehow screwing something up that would stop me from paying the monthly debt service on my portfolio. This its slightly irrational, as the numbers support debt service. But still - as the number of mortgages grow so does the fear that SOMETHING could happen. I'm sure some of you can relate. 

    Im a rookie so I'm sorry if this feels amateur. But would really appreciate any insight other investors have garnered as they built their portfolios. I can tell you that my goal is to own 50 residential properties. Whether it takes 5 to 10 years, that feels like a really powerful but achievable number to me. 

    Thanks for reading. Best, 

    DC




     You can't be too ADHD to have made it this far - congratulations!

    Thoughts:

    1. You don't need any employees based on your goals. I've managed our entire portfolio (not 50 units but not 10 either) myself from the beginning AND did a lot of the rehab work myself in the early days AND had a day job besides. Hiring people that you then have to pay, insure, and manage just adds to the complexity of the thing. *At most* you would have an independent contractor, but more reasonable is just paying for services as needed.

    2. Making payments - that's easy. Have a healthy bank account and put all of your payments on auto pay. Virtually all banks and financiers have their own version of auto pay, and if they don't your bank can push money to them. At the beginning I bought houses all cash, but later used leverage, and I can't remember the last time I actually wrote out a note payment or even went into my banking to mess with it. They're all scheduled and done automatically. 

    3. Keeping organized - Excel spreadsheets are your friend. To this day I still do all of my accounting in Excel. I am highly proficient with Quickbooks and could use it, but I just don't need that level of program on a portfolio of occupied, fully rehabbed long term rentals. Some of my units only get a handful of entries every year - 12 rent payments, 1 insurance payment, 1 tax payment, maybe a couple of tradesmen visits. That's it. More important for keeping organized is developing a routine and a schedule. Mine looks something like this:

    Tues-Friday: arrange for necessary repairs from vendors (HVAC, plumbing, etc); Saturday: enter bills and receipts into spreadsheets for each property. Monday: write out bills (for anything that's not autopaid). 5th of each month - reconcile all rent payments with bank account for those tenants not using online portal (i.e. they're depositing cash in the bank). Once a year: pay insurance bills for all properties. Once a year: pay property taxes for all properties. 

    If you are not comfortable doing your own numbers, then you should by all means arrange for bookkeeping services. Keep in mind however that a *huge* percentage of being a successful investor is being good with numbers. You don't have to do the numbers but you need to know them and understand them. If you abdicate your responsibility in favor of your bookkeeper, you can't complain or be surprised later if they screw something up, fail to do their job altogether or run off with your money. In other words, hiring a bookkeeper (or any other trade) doesn't give you a free pass to not know that part of the job. 

    Skyline Properties
    View Page
  • Michael SmytheBusiness Member
    Real Estate Agent · Metro Detroit · Member since 2023 · 4k+ posts · 3k+ votes
    3y

    Hiring & delegating is always needed to keep growing at a certain point.

    Recruiting & training become a challenge though.

    As already suggested, you should be looking for processes and software to streamline what you do for maximum efficiency.

    Suggest you also figure out two lists:

    1) What functions make you, or contribute, the least amount of money?

    2) What functions do you dislike the most?

    Hopefully, there are several functions on both lists that would be the obvious ones to delegate.

    What you should NOT delegate, at this point, is reviewing your P&L numbers at least monthly.

    Logical Property Management4.9453 Reviews
Join the conversationCreate a free account to reply, vote on answers and follow this thread.