All Forum Posts by: Alejandro Calixto

@Calvin Ozanick I've seen similar ideas around here. Makes sense. We all definitely have our own situations and need to determine our goals and paths.

So do you see yourself ever leaving your property manager position? If you were to invest, would you see yourself keeping your job after getting to a financially free situation?

@Alan G. that is fantastic. Congrats! I don't have much time investing in real estate but with the small taste I had so far, I love it. I want to dive fully into it. I wouldn't consider my job "high paying" so it may take a bit more work for me to get to the point of leaving. Thankfully, I don't dislike my job. I gave myself a 5 year benchmark to get to a point where I could, if I wanted, become a full-time landlord/investor. Since life and markets change, I am sure I will find myself at crossroads but I will continue to strive for that goal.

Very helpful to see the trajectory of others. 

@Michael Masterson that awesome. That is a great picture at the workflow required. Seems like you got it going well.

How many years have you been investing to get you to this point?

@Michael Masterson that is great. My questions are open to anyone with valuable input such as yours. It's obvious you have put thought and planning into this idea.

If you don't mind my asking, what kind of investment benchmarks are you looking to accomplish in 3 years in order to get that 125% of your current job income?

Happy New Year Everyone!

I'm wondering how do does one become a legitimate "full-time landlord".

What I usually see is that people have a job/position to supplement their real estate investments. But I have come across several people who's goal is to get to a point where their REIs provide sufficient income and security that they can be a full-time landlord. I assume that means they will not have to do any other job connected or not to real estate. That includes being a contractor, real estate agent, wholesaler, etc. I know the positives of keeping an income to help get more properties and provide a safety blanket. I also understand it would take several well setup investments for one to be comfortable not having a job as a safety blanket.

So I'm curious, who here considers themselves a full-time landlord and how did you get to that point?

@Timothy Church I love what you're doing here. One of my life goals is to revive a beautiful structure and make at least part of it my personal living space. I have never been to Galveston, and have no idea what investing there is like, but it looks beautiful and is very tempting to look into it :D

@Zach Taylor Sure thing. It's easy to get overwhelmed by this and I assume most of us do.

The reason why finding my house hack didn't come easy to me was due to the list of things that I needed to check off before putting an offer on a property. As I mentioned, this has a lot to do with your place in life and your needs/goals. I have a family that I needed to consider when looking for properties. That was probably my main navigation system. I needed to find something that would be a good financial move while maintaining a lot of requirements that I chose in order to keep my family safe and happy. Therefore, I was looking in the better towns/neighborhoods with good schools. I also needed to make sure it stayed withing a certain distance from my job location. I started looking in the best suburbs that I have lived around. Luckily I am from the Chicago area and suburbs so I knew where to stay away from for the most part. Many other things went into the areas and types of properties I was looking at. It took months of constant looking at properties on Redfin/Zillow/Realtor/etc. in order for me to get a good gauge at what properties were decently priced. Thankfully @John Warren was able to guide me and speed up the process. He helped me focus on properties that made sense for what I needed. As he mentioned, he got me connected with an amazing lender and that made all the difference. He also got me connected with everyone else from inspectors, contractors, and a ton of other folks I never knew I may need. The right agent will definitely help you figure out all you need.

The right lender definitely makes a huge difference. I would get references from more experienced investors here instead of just calling whoever you see on TV commercials, if I were you.

You say you just moved here. Maybe that is where to start. Why are you here? School, job, family?

Is there an area of the city that you have to stay close to?

How long do you plan to stay in the area?

@Zach Taylor welcome! Congrats on choosing to house hack. I believe it's an amazing way to invest into a property. I am currently house hacking in the near west suburbs of Chicago (La Grange). I suggest you reach out and get together with realtors and lenders that make deals around the city. Preferably some that deal with investors and house hackers. Biggerpockets is a great place to look for them. The good ones will help you zone in on major points needed to move forward. I think you should figure out what specific areas you want to start looking to buy in, what kind of property you can mentally and financially afford to get into, and other things that will help you gauge where you stand. All these things can be figured out through guidance from a good realtor and lender.

A lot of this depends on where you personally stand, level of risk you're willing to take on, whether you have a network of contractors and professionals that can help you, how handy are you, your previous experience, and a lot more. Again, if you lay all this out with your realtor/investor contact they should be able to help you figure out what you really want to shoot for.

If you have access to cash, then a fixer might be a good place to start to force appreciation. If you don't have much cash but your lender says you can afford a fixed up property with an FHA loan then that might be the way to go. If you have friends looking for a place to stay, then maybe hacking by the room might be something to look into. If you want great, long-term, tenants then you might have to look in particular areas and particular types of units. There is a lot that can go into these things but I think by going the house hacking route you're already thinking the right way.

I chose a property with very little repairs needed in a great neighborhood. There was a lot of reasons for me choosing the property I did and I didn't find it very easily. If I would of had more risk tolerance I might have been able to get a higher income to expense ratio but I preferred going with a safer neighborhood and a better possible tenant pool.

Congrats @Samuel James! Looks like you MADE a good one here. I never thought of a youth lounge as a possible big revenue source. Seems like many positives here. Where is the property located?

@Jacob Galloway, there used to be a meetup popping up here on BP before. I believe they met up near Highland, IN and was put together by @Adrien S.