Your first property.

[Alex Baxter]

what were some of the things you learned after purchasing your first property? Anything you were/weren't expecting? I'm curious about all aspects of your first purchase from financing to later selling.

[Liam Goble]

I learned a few things from my first property:

1) Patience - Eventually a property will come on the market that meets my criteria.

2) Don't underestimate the cunning of fools - residents can say/do the darndest things

3) Banks don't like small loans - My first property was purchased for $18,5k. I went to a few banks and was informed that there are no loans for less than $50k. That forced me to look for some smaller investors interested in making some money. I purchased in 2012, when rates were still falling, so when I offered 5% for 10 years, I had a few investors quite interested.

4) Fear is something you can push through - No one in my family owns investment properties. My family doesn't really understand REI. I actually had to have two beers before I told my dad that I had spent $18k, not on a new car, but on a house that needed some work before I could rent it. It's taken about 18 months, but my family is starting to SLOWLY come around to understand that REI isn't for some mysterious person called a "Landlord" but that REI can be done by regular people.

5) Honest numbers tell the truth, dishonest numbers lie - Develop your projection templates and TRUST those templates. Don't force the numbers to look good. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck...