Things You Would do Differently if You Got To Start Over

[Jalen Henningsen]

Hey guys, so I'm a young and new investor from Iowa. I am so anxious to get started in multi-family rental property investing. I will have $30,000 by December of 2018, and I wanted to get your opinion on what you would do differently in you early years that would set you up for massive success and wealth. My plan as of right now is to house hack my first deal, but I am not sure where at. Can't wait for the feedback! :)

[Andrew Johnson]

@Jalen Henningsen Eh, I think it's hard to use hindsight. Sure, I wish we hadn't sold the first SFR in San Diego. It's appreciated since we sold it. However, it gave us the money to buy the first 5-plex which cash-flows a lot better. So was it a mistake to sell? We'd still probably be breaking even on the San Diego SFR but there would be nice equity that had been built up. The net result, it's a trade-off.

I do know the one mistake that I made was not using local insurance brokers, seeking recommendations, etc.  I paid through the nose for a couple of years by going with the national guys because I didn't know any better.  I assumed the same insurance providers would be great for commercial multifamily and owner-occupied SFRs.  Not..so...much.

I also underestimated stabilization time on a commercial multifamily property because I didn't know the previous owner was leasing some units to some of his employees.  I just never thought to ask.  It worked itself out but I really didn't even think about random edge cases like this.

I'm not sure if (admittedly random) information like this can be helpful to someone new.  These are really "tree" issues rather than "forest" issues.  And I do think anyone new should be focused on the forest: neighborhood, rent level, property condition, etc. rather than the trees.  

But if I was smart when I was younger I would have kept random edge-case knowledge learned from places like these forums in a little book that I could reference from time-to-time.  You never know when learning from someone else's mistakes can save you a few bucks.