All Forum Posts by: Alecia Loveless

@Robert Bishop I’ve been house hacking for 30 years.

I strongly recommend a 2-4 unit house hack when you’re 18. If you plan to attend college that location might be a great place to start. If so, and it’s not in your home town you might consider living in the dorms the first year while you meet people and use that time to scout out the area and find good places to buy your building.

Sometimes it’s the experience of college that’s more important than the degree. You will learn a lot during that time that will help you grow and mature besides the course information.

@Evan T. Ong To me the actual EXPERIENCE of college was more important than the degree itself. I moved away from home into a new area that had totally different views than people in my home town did. For the first time I had a credit card (pay it off every month) and bills to pay. I had to learn to navigate public transportation which was non existent where I grew up. I met people from other backgrounds, religions, and cultures that I had never been exposed to before.

If you can find an affordable way to get a degree it should hopefully improve your earning potential. I would recommend picking a major that has high earnings potential, not something like a degree playing the Trombone.

Think about your current passions and what you might enjoy doing first the next 10-15 years while you begin your investing journey.

If you’re really interested in real estate you can even get a degree in it if you want to, I know one university that at least used to have a good real estate degree was the University of North Texas. I’m sure there are many.

I would recommend continuing to educate yourself on real estate if you’re interested. Read more books. There’s a learning curve in getting started but once you are in control of your own self once you turn 18 you will be free to buy a house hack and get started.

I didn’t really get started investing until I was 43 and now 5 years later at 48 I’m just about financially free. I’ve never made more than $45,000 at a W-2. So financial freedom can be achieved on a small income. It would have been easier if I had made more. My point is that you can easily achieve financial freedom by the time you’re 30-35 if you work at it.

@Aya Itazu The tenants know rent is due on the 1st. No reason to send invoices.

@Sophia Rubinstein Until you have monetary assets to invest with a financial planner you really have no use for them. My financial advisor has no interest in my rentals other than to recommend I pay off my mortgages because he is a Dave Ramsey debt free guy. He’s interested in stocks, bonds and the financial markets.

If you’re interested in real estate the forums and the podcasts and the biggerpockets bookstore are the way to go.

@Nasi K. Check with your town. My family has an agricultural exemption on some acreage and we lease it to people who run 3 cows on it to maintain the exemption. We just had the discussion today that if we were to lose the agricultural exemption our taxes would go from around $1000 to about $30,000.

If we lose these 3 cows I will just buy 3 of my own.

@Joel Siguaw It is my opinion that starting out as a rookie trying to focus on Section 8 is difficult. There’s more hoops to jump through in terms of inspections and a lot of hurdles. While it can be lucrative and most of the income will be guaranteed you will find that not every area has the same quality of Section 8 tenants. As with everything you can get good tenants and bad tenants but there are many areas that people have had a lot of trouble with their Section 8 tenants.

Would recommend you further search the forums for pros and cons of Section 8 rentals.

@Clare Cui I wouldn’t say I tip my handyman but I do give him a Christmas bonus during the holidays.

His 17 year old son also frequently helps him so I make sure to give the son a Christmas bonus as well.

I don’t go over the top but it means a lot to him that I give the son a couple hundred bucks too.

@William Pichardo I recommend finding a great agent. They don’t have to be an investor themselves (although if they are it might help) and really just need to be super attentive to your needs.

My realtor retired from Banking Management about 30 years ago. I’ve known him about 28 years so we connected when he was just starting out.

His typical sale is probably for about $1,000,000 which is way more than I typically pay for my investment properties. But he always takes the time to show me things I want to see and promptly sends me the expanded MLS listings when I find a property I'm interested in.

When you first start out you will likely be less sophisticated regarding deals that you will actually pursue so my best advice is to not become a tire kicker who looks at everything and then never closes deals.

As a potential repeat buyer you can provide great benefits to the right Realtor.

@Minnina Smith The Biggerpockets bookstore will have many valuable resources in it for you including some of the books mentioned here. They frequently have new titles there.

@Sanjeev Advani While this may be a good talking point what no one is mentioning is that with most of the federal land areas there is NOTHING there to draw people to want to live there.

With the possible exception of lands that might border the Las Vegas metro area it would take decades to build infrastructure and jobs in these areas to attract dwellers there.

I know I’m certainly not planning to go live in the middle of the uninhabited western states in desolate areas.