All Forum Posts by: Aaron Taylor

@Mike Dymski is a good resource on this stuff.  Very smart individual.  

 I'm not sure I follow this.  Totally understand that agents have lives and that you can't do everything, but if properties are selling the day they are listed and your agent can't make time to get you into to see it ever, then there's no way for you to reasonably buy it either.  Basically, if your agent is unable to get you into at least some of the properties the same day they're listed (and they sell without you seeing them) then you're going to have to find a new agent in my opinion.  

It's the same concept as craigslist or Facebook marketplace, the best deals sell immediately, and if you're unable to go after those because your agent doesn't have time or you're a lower priority on their list, then you have to find another way to do it.  

If you're getting frustrated, you have to find an agent to shares your same level of motivation.  That's the key...if you're motivated and they're not, it's not going to work.  And on the flip side, if they find you all these deals and you don't act on them, then they're not going to want to help you as much either, it's a two way street.

If it's your first property to paint, I'd recommend this:

#1)  Buy good paint like Sherwin Williams, not the cheap stuff.  Makes it much easier to paint

#2)  Get good brushes and rollers, crap brushes don't pay off.  And buy the 18" rollers to save tons of time.

#3)  Get a pair of good quality headphones and line up like 20 to 30 podcasts to listen to

#4)  Prep all the walls first before even opening a can.  It sucks, but you have to fill in holes and sand before anything else.  If you need to remove wallpaper, buy a steamer, worth its weight in gold.

#5)  Do one color all at once.  Don't paint the ceiling one room then quit.  Paint ALL the ceilings in all rooms at once.  Paint all the walls at one time.  Saves cleanup and context switching.

#6)  Get bags to put your rollers/brushes in so you don't have to clean them.  Putting them in the fridge in a bag also helps.

I got this tip when researching the same thing a while back, cut your rolling time in 1/2 by using 18" rollers instead of 9".  We tried it and frankly it's amazing, you'll just blow through rooms if you can get everything setup to roll all at once.  Like everyone else mentioned, spraying has a lot of setup and is hard to use when you're concerned about the flooring and other things, but the 18" roller doubles your speed with no drawbacks really.  You can get them at Lowes.

I think it all depends on how you buy. If you're able to find BRRRR properties where you end up with no money invested but 20% to 30% equity, I think that's going to be better than a syndication over the long term. In fact that's probably the best option for some people, a combo of BRRRR properties with no money in them plus some syndicate deals providing cash flow. That way you're playing both sides of the market.

Is it worth the money currently?  It really depends.  For new users, the calculators are probably worth quite a bit.  And for veterans, the advertising it provides is more than worth it.  For the people in the middle like me, I'm not sure.  I've been thinking about downgrading for a while as I don't use the calculators as much anymore, I'm not advertising any business, and am not getting much value out of the other perks currently.  They keep adding more though so perhaps eventually there might be something that changes my mind.

My recommendation would be to try and find a lender who would let you keep as much of your money in your pocket as possible.  Check your local credit unions, since they're not held to the same standards as banks sometimes they can offer lower rates and work with you more.  Especially when you're starting out, you're going to need that capital for deals #2, #3, etc.  Local banks not going through Fannie/Freddie might be able to even allow you to only put 20% down but the loan terms may not be as good (7 or 10 year arms a lot of times).

Most important thing is making your starting capital go as far as possible.  You're going to run out of it eventually probably, but it would be better to make it last as long as possible.

I used to believe that, but the older I get the more I think it just never plays out.  There are always too many people above them not paying attention to what is really going on for those people to ever face the music.  It's hard for me to even think of a single case where someone really got what they deserved, most of the time they just moved to a new group to pull the wool over their eyes with no ramifications at all.  

I'm mainly referring to a situation where someone in a position of power is taking advantage of people who hold the weaker position, the people in the weaker position usually have no way to come out on top while the person in the stronger position continues with no penalty for their behavior. 

 According to all the research done by The Millionaire Next Door, the large majority of the wealthy do not choose status.  High income earners who don't save do choose status according to all their research.  

 As a software engineer myself (17 years experience) I can say the biggest issue with almost all these big companies is that they're unwilling to pay higher salaries.  They all want tons of experience for the price of someone with less than 5 years experience.  Google is the only company I've heard of who pays their key people ridiculous salaries to prevent poaching.

Whenever you hear big companies say "we can't find people" what they really mean is we're not willing to pay higher salaries to get people.  So it's hard for me to feel too sorry for them when they're making billions of dollars.  If you're willing to pay more, there are always people available.  It's only an education issue because these companies want cheap college grads and those are more limited in supply, lol.