All Forum Posts by: Andrew Freed

@Caleb Pitts - Wow, crushing it at 22. Good work!

My advice to you would be, rather than rely on someone else to control your destiny, take it into your own hands. Start your own meetup, become a local subject matter expect, become an investor focused agent, become that go to person. You have a long time horizon ahead of you, start building your local market expertise and the sky is the limit. I hope this helps! 

@Patricia Lashley - You are too nice to be honest. Business is business. I mean it's good to have empathy and emotional intelligence however you have to treat this like a business and not a hobby. I always verbally establish the expectations up front with my tenants. The expectations are they pay on time and treat my unit right and their expectations of me are I address issues in a timely manner, give them a great place to live and treat them with respect. Once this verbal contract is violated, I simply move forward with hiring an eviction attorney and call it a day. And I always start the eviction process day 1 and do not give the tenant any additional lead time. I hope you use this as a lesson learned on how to manage your properties moving forward. 

@Dylan Hattem - My best tip to be successful in real estate is leveraging "No's" as incentive to get to a "Yes". What do I mean by that? If you call a lender that does not have the product you are looking for and you hear No, that should be fuel for you to call 20-30 other lenders until you hear a Yes. Or when stabalizing a property and one proposed solution does not work, use that as incentize to find another solution that will get you towards your desired goals. There is always an answer. As long as you never give up and push towards your goals no matter what you hear, you will be successful in real estate. Simple as that! 

@Arn Cenedella - Good point and I totally agree, better to under-promise than over-promise. Appreciate your input. 

@William Coet - In today's environment, I'd say around a 15% annualized return or a 1.8x equity multiple. This is taking into account all of the upside of the real estate investment including cash flow, refinance funds and potential funds from selling the property. Normally, a majority of the return stems from either the refinance or sale of the property. This is assuming a standard value add multifamily property. Other asset classes provide different return profiles including class A or new construction. I hope this helps! 

@Jessie Park - Yes, do they own rental property themselves and have them gone through the same trials and tribulations fellow investors have gone through? Additionally, Biggerpockets is a great resource for finding an investor focused agent. You really want someone who specializes with working with investors and primarily do not work with single family buyers. They are completely two different asset classes and each buyer is looking for completely different things. I myself am an investor focused agent and I only work with investors hence this is what I do day in and out. This is the type of person you want on your team, not someone who will tell you how nice the paint color is or how beautiful the layout is. You want someone who can go into a property, figure out a stabalization plan, tell you how much it will cost to get to that point, and have a team that you can leverage to make your job as an investor that much easier. Feel free to reach out if you have any further questions. 

@Crystal Hawk - You have a couple different options. You can get into syndications if you want a passive investment. They are pretty good to learn the game of larger properties as a limited partner. Andrew Cushman is a talented syndicator. You can always buy a larger commercial property with 25% down, preferably a multifamily. Those are probably the two easiest ways to get started. I would recommend housing hacking however I'm assuming you are pretty comfortable in your current home given where you are in life. Just my two cents. 

@Jack Saunders - @Randy Rodenhouse Touched on some really good methods for off market acquistions. Another good strategy is reaching out to brokers/agents to find a "pocket listing" which essentially is a listing that is off market and they are shopping it around among their vetted buyers. If you make it a habit to call 5 brokers a day and let them know what you are looking for, eventually you will find an off market flip before it hits the MLS. Usually pocket listings have reasons on why they are not on the MLS. It may be as simple as they are preparing to list it or as complex as a divorce is happening and the seller wants to keep the sale hidden. It ranges on the reason but "pocket listings" are a fantastic way to get off market properties. Nonetheless it all starts with developing strong and long lasting relationships with high volume brokers/agents in your area.

@Erich Oertel - Yes, you can keep items beyond normal wear and tear. Hopefully you completed a move in report with pictures prior to the tenant moving out so if they ever fight it, you have evidence to back it up. If you did not, it might be hard to defend.

Additionally, if the tenant fights back and decides to move forward with legal repercussions, honestly probably not worth fighting over a few hundred bucks. In my situation, if a tenant pushes back and threatened legal repercussions for a couple hundred dollars of damage, I simply give it back. It is not worth the fight or stress associated with the couple hundred bucks of damage, espcially in tenant friendly states. 

@Chris Wang Why complicate it? Just hire an eviction attorney. Christine Abraham in Worcester does all my evictions and she does a great job. Make sure to mention my name when you reach out. https://coa-law.com/