All Forum Posts by: Adam Hughes

@Gloria A.

At least give them the option to vacate before sending eviction notice. Be sure to highlight for them that if they vacate without eviction proceedings, it’s the best option for them so they don’t have the eviction on their record.

Otherwise, proceed with eviction asap, learn your lesson on screening, and place great tenants next time. Great learning opportunity and only a stepping stone, not a stopping point. Keep grinding!

Hey All,

I need to find more opportunities and I’m looking for the right technology. Ideally looking for something that can provide me with multi family listings, allow me to mail, email or contact owners, document conversations, etc.

What recommendations do you all have?

Sounds great and looking forward to it! 

@Stephen Jones I I’ve in the Metro East. Let’s sync up and discuss sometime.

Stephen, 

First off, sounds like you are in my neck of the woods as I live in Troy IL. We should connect sometime. 

When it comes to appreciation I think you have to consider a few things. First, if it’s in Staunton IL for example, I don’t think there is much upside on appreciation. If it’s in Edwardsville or Glen Carbon then there is certainly opportunity. Next I’d consider natural appreciation vs forced appreciation. Sounds like you have a plan for some renovation but what about rents? Are they at market or is there room to increase? Same with expenses, can you lower those? 

Feel free to sync with me and discuss further. Would love to make the local connection. 

@Paul Moore I’d love to join but it didn’t work out for my W2 schedule this time around and that fuels my real estate business currently.

One of my goals for 2022 is to attend a Maui Mastermind. I think I’ll add BP Con to those goals as well. Always happy to sync virtually as well.

Friends, I share this story in the hopes that you'll find encouragement and belief in yourself. The other night, like many nights, I was laying in bed letting my thoughts run wild. I've found these thoughts and excitement are a trait I love and hate about myself. Anyways, in my thoughts about what I want to accomplish in 2022 I realized I'd yet to appreciate 2021. While thinking about this I had to ask myself, "How did this happen? How did I get myself in these situations?" You see, in September of 2020 I owned 1 rental property and had thought for 10 years about how I wanted to grow my rental portfolio but had done nothing about it. By fate, my grandmother wanted to sell her farm, which I emotionally was attached to so I bought it. This enabled me to by the farm in October then 2 new duplexes in December of 2020. My goal for 2021 was to own 10 doors, essentially adding 4 more in 2021. I analyzed deal after deal and as of this month, 1 year later, I own 16 doors in my own portfolio. Again, I had to ask myself, how did this happen? 

So this is further than I could have ever imagined myself being in less than a year. As any good informercial would say, "but wait there's more"! In January, I found a deal that I thought was "TOO BIG" for me to take on with a 36 unit complex, but something called to me about this property. I posted on BP Facebook page for advice and met a fellow investor in the St. Louis area. He and I hit it off as we both had a mentality of 1 step at a time, but let nothing get in our way. In June we closed on the property, secured $2.1 million for the purchase and a $1.5 million construction/rehab loan. We did this through syndication, which is a word I didn't even realized existed a couple of years ago when I started listening to BP. 

This move helped us start our own Property Management company that is now managing our personal portfolios, current partnership properties, and additional properties we syndicated down the road. We hired our first employee and continue to improve our processes daily. Oh yeah, and I have 3 additional duplexes under contract currently! My goal was 10 doors in 2021 and it's looking as though I'll have at least 58 doors!

Once again, I have to ask myself, "HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?" Well the answer summed up below is the conclusion I came to. 

1) Set goals - Looking back at the goal I set, it was probably too conservative. That said, if I hadn't set a goal I would have never accomplished what I have so far this year. By the way, another goal I had set was to make at least 2 great business connections. From the story above you can tell that was a huge part of my progress this past year. 

2) Use the tools and resources at your fingertips - Bigger Pockets has been a very big part of my knowledge base. I listen to BP about 4-5 mornings a week while I'm on my run or rides. That tool has inspired me to use the calculators from BP, my own tools, networking opportunities, deal finding techniques, and much more. I've also read about 75% of the books on BP plus many other real estate books. 

3) Make Large Leaps by by taking each step individually - Brandon and David say it all the time. Things can seem complicated, such as syndicating your first deal on a 36 unit complex. Break it down in to singular steps and take each step as they were meant to be taken. 

4) Network - If I would have never taken the call from the random dude on Facebook, I'd never have started this partnership where I've learned so much and earned so much. 

5) Create processes before you need them - I started building processes out for leasing, evictions, rent collection, and other difficult topics before I bought these properties. It's made crazy issues so much easier! 

In conclusion, I'm certainly not claiming victory nor to be an expert. As a matter of fact, I'm far from it and the day I feel I'm the expert is the day that I'm sure this will all become somewhat boring to me. I love learning and that is probably my attraction to real estate, it will take a life time to learn. Again, I hope this story touches at least one person and encourages you to take on those "scary" challenges and take them head on! Be excited, Be brave, and Be bold! 

If anyone wants to discuss further feel free to reach out as I'd be happy to talk in general or about specifics. 

Best Wishes to all of You!

@Bud Gaffney I decided to follow Brandon’s stacking theory. Purchased 2 duplexes in 2020 and my goal is 8 more doors in 2021. Ive already found an off market deal on 2 4-plexes and trying to have them under contract by end of week.

If that happens I may have to set a new goal! Maybe 16 new doors in 2021?

Also, another goal would be to execute on my plan for this potential new 8 units. It includes REmodeling each unit and raising rents by 30% or more which the market will support with the updates.

Cheers to 2021!

@Nic S. New investor here as well, so maybe I can share an experience I recently had. At the beginning of the month, I bought two nice duplexes in Collinsville IL, about 4 hours from KCMO. You can look at those deals on my page.

Anyway, one of the two duplexes turned into a headache immediately. The seller didn’t tell me until closing that one side hadn’t paid November or December yet. So at closing I had to decide if I wanted to take his problem on or not, I did. Then the next day I text the seller to let him know I’ll be contacting the tenants, to which he calls me. He then says, I “forgot” to tell you something. Then he proceeds to inform me that the other tenant on the same duplex, gave her 30 day notice two weeks ago.

I sat down for about the next 4 hours and thought, what in the hell am I going to do? Then a light bulb came on! I reassured myself that I’d read over 15 books on real estate and business in 2020, I’d listened to almost every BP podcast, I’ve spent countless hours on BR forums, and so much more. I knew what to do, follow the process and break the hard stuff down into simple steps.

Now I’ve already rented out the side where the tenant is leaving for $50 more than the previous owner was, and I did it in 3 days. I delivered a pay or vacate (after many phone conversations and a cash for keys offer) to the tenant that wasn’t paying. 2 hours later I received the rent.

It may seem hard now, and it is. But remember you’re solving the problem and you have a plan. Follow the plan, solve the problem, and your future years will remind you why you did it all.

Good luck!

I LOVE people and enjoy conversations with all types of different individuals. Talking about real estate, technology, business, family, friendships, sports, finance, faith and all kinds of topics is fun for me so I talk to people all the time. That said, I’m frustrated with my last transaction, not because of the deal, but because of the seller. I’m trying to get past it and using this post to look for guidance and recommendations. Let me explain then please provide your guidance so I can look in the mirror and determine how to do better next time.

SITUATION:

Decided this past 6 months I was going to start getting a little more serious than the 1 SFR that I owned and start buying some multi family rentals. That's exactly what I did when I bought a farm with a house where the house will break even but I'll get my cash flow on the crops, but that's a story for another time that I'm happy to share. Next up, I bought a package deal of two very nice duplexes, built in 2005, that had what I was told 4 great tenants. I bought these because I know the area, they were newer properties, they would cash flow, they'd appreciate, and capital expenditures should be low.

The offer I made was below asking by about 5% but because I was willing to buy both the seller accepted my offer, great deal right? Anyway when we went to do the inspection the actual seller met us at the property, walked me through it, shared the history, and we had a good conversation. Everything was on the up and up as far as I was concerned.

Fast forward through all the due diligence that I thought was thorough. I’m using a portfolio loan to finance this and didn’t get the closing statement until the night before closing, at which time I realize there was an added line item for “November rent and late fees for 503 unit B”. This essentially told me, hey this person is late an entire month and hasn’t paid December either, we closed 12/4. So I go to the closing and inform them I’m not closing with that line item there, so seller agrees to removing it. By the way we were face to face for about 2 hours. I decide, “hey this is an opportunity to pay for a lesson on how to handle these types of renters and I’m going for it”. I love to take massive action and this was it for me. So we close, and go on our ways, but I’m left with a bad taste in my mouth toward the seller that I work to get past.

Now next day I text seller to let him know I’m contacting all renters and wanted to know what he’s told them so far. He calls me to inform me of something he “forgot”. He now informs me one of the other tenants put on their 30 day notice that they were leaving. WTF? You don’t “forget” that type of thing.

Now I’ve already filled the vacancy for $50 more per month than he was charging and I was able to use pay or vacate notice to get payment for December from the late paying tenant.

I feel like I could have done better in the due diligence stage, so what have you done to prevent these types of situations?

Thanks in advance!