All Forum Posts by: Blake Schreckhise

@Dashiell Wulterin

As mentioned, you need to keep your license active by hanging it with a sales Broker, vice a referral Broker. You will most likely need to be a member of NAR, etc. All this means you will have your annual dues to maintain your license that generally runs $2k-$3k annual --- that's with doing nothing and no advertising costs. Meanwhile, please realize there is no such thing as "THE MLS." There are multiple listing services in just about every state (maybe some place like Alaska has a few as two???). For example, NJ has 12 semi-overlapping MLS'. In some areas, I know agents who need to be members of 3 MLS because they work on that "overallapping" border region. I think some agents actually do even more when necessary. That just means for dues/fees...

If you can find it on BP, there are many threads asking about getting their agent's license.  you can read up on the pros and cons.  Good lucks.

Hi, I moved to Fairbanks this month and I'm wondering if the REI Fairbanks group is still blossoming? If it survived Covid, I'd love to be a part!

Put yourself in my shoes. I just got a new house hack after getting out of the military and moving back to my home state, Alaska. It’s a duplex with tenants already included. I have a house hack back in New Mexico which was also a duplex, and it’s now fully rented out. I just lost my job last month, and I’ve got a new one. I’ve decided to sell the house down in New Mexico, and even though I wasn’t planning on it, it seems like a good idea now. Zillow estimates that I have about $110,000 in equity, and my realtor back in Albuquerque thinks we’ll start lower than that because he’s under the impression that the Zestimate is a little high. Conservatively pricing it, we’re listing it for $90,000 over what I owe on it, and I believe I could get about $72,000 after all fees and dues payed. My realtor says that it’s common that buyers in that market are offering more than asking price.

So if you were in my shoes with $72,000 or so, what would you do? I have my own idea of what I would do, but I want to know everyones’ thoughts. I’m in Fairbanks, AK, and it tends to have a decent amount of tourists that come up in the summers, and Air BnBs seem profitable. I’m most familiar with long term, but I’m considering medium term rentals too. Anything is on the table. My goal is to retire as soon as possible, and $40,000 a year cashflow, for example, would pay my bills. Let me know what you think.

REI investor up here in Fairbanks. Acquired 1.5 mill portfolio of 26 units in my ~3 years stationed in Fairbanks! Best of luck!

@Blake Schreckhise

If you check out “Truth in equity” this is a strategy they teach. I did this very thing for my personal home and really liked the flexibility it gave me with my personal finances. I paid bills out of my normal checking account and had it connected to my Heloc and any overdraft fees would come directly out of it. It essentially works as you being your own bank. Every time you paid into your Heloc it lowered the amount of interest you paid that day and raised your Heloc limit.

Do some research before jumping in but it worked for me and there is value in it if done correctly.