All Forum Posts by: Andrew Ware

My feeling about this is if you don’t know if this is a good idea then it’s a bad idea. People who this works for know *their* numbers, how it fits into *their* portfolio, and has an understanding of the risks and the returns. I can probably get 2K? Man I’d know my stuff before I even thought about a deal that. I always get a queasy feeling when I see this question. I worry when I see people convince themselves that a lousy deal is pretty good. Llewelyn did a good job of showing the basic math as long as nothing ever goes wrong. And it also ignores the time value of money and opportunity cost. Is it doable with appreciation and improved rents? Absolutely. A lot of people got wealthy this way... oh and a lot of people have gone broke and realized “real estate doesn’t work” when they try it too.

Originally posted by @Tim G.:

Originally posted by @Ben Leybovich:

Originally posted by @Tim G.:

Originally posted by @Ben Leybovich:

I just lost $30,000 on a deal gone bad. I might have been able to pay tuition to someone to save me the headache, but education is not meant to be free...

Get over it!

Free education is the basis of our education system in America till 12th grade. Education should be free and the world would likely be a much better place if we as humans wanted to help educate those around us without needing anything for it. 

 Hahah everything was free in Russia. Everything is free in Venezuela. I am not sure, but I don't think it's working too well...hahaha

I have a close friend and their family in Venezuela. Nothing is free there, please don't make generalizations (or jokes?) about something you clearly don't know anything about. When my friend married his wife, his father in law had a business and life savings. Thanks to hyper inflation he has nothing for his entire lifes work. Yeah, everything's free there because of fiat currency. They are refugees, people are robbed daily for food.

It doesn't feel like you place much time into your responses. If you want to be funny, find another forum. 

So Ben came from Russia as a kid and he is calling that system dumb (which is being unintentionally proposed by some in this thread.)  He’s not just being glib.  

This idea that you should not have to pay for information is very close to reading an Atkins book and determining carbs are flat out evil.  I get how you got there but it’s a step too far and dangerous.  

Sometimes the most expensive education is free.

@Tim Gordon wrote: Free education is the basis of our education system in America till 12th grade. Education should be free and the world would likely be a much better place if we as humans wanted to help educate those around us without needing anything for it.  I really dislike this argument. You mean the K-12 where they force people to go? Don’t kid yourself that public schools are free. We pay plenty for them. The public school system is designed to pump out basically trained people who go along with the herd. You want to be great, you go find it and pay for it in one way or another on your own. I’m not trying to pick on the school system. But this idea that everything ought to be free is silly. People who teach need to be paid or they go out and do something else. I hope Josh Dorkin makes many millions in his lifetime. Should people pay gurus lots of money to learn the basics? Of course not. But those people are not buying a system to get rich. They are buying a dream. They are buying get rich easy. But if you are already having some success and can get someone to triple your business? Pay them.

Okay my ARV was stupid, but the idea is right. With a scope of work, hard estimates, and an experienced flipper looking it over. You are talking about an ARV north of $220k to even consider it. The city is going to be involved. It’s going to go slow.

Fire damaged properties are best handled by someone with plenty of experience. You should avoid it at all cost unless it’s a smoking good deal. If that ARV is $450k then maybe look at it. Run away from this like your hair is on fire. (Sorry but not really for the puns.)

I have a slightly different opinion about where the best out of state place to invest is. The absolutely best place to find an out of state investment is... wherever you can get the best people to help you with it. This matters wayyy more than the absolutely best location. Sure there are tiers of locations for whatever type of investing you want to do. But you can switch out whichever from tier one and you won’t know which will perform better in the long term until after the fact. But I guarantee that you can find the very best people and a tier two location will perform better than tier one with bad people. By the way, this is exactly why people invest locally. I can be boots on the ground for my own property and I’m pretty sure I can trust me.

As I recall there was one podcast deleted because the primary strategy discussed was disallowed by changing laws. I never heard that one either but I think it was affected by Dodd Frank. So rather than lead people down a rabbit hole they deleted it. I believe that was episode 21.

Michael I keep seeing you saying things like you are not patient, not creative, and over analyze. This may just be recognition but it feels like they are things you consider weaknesses to remedy. All of these things are on a continuum. You aren’t patient but that usually means you are a quick start. This can be a huge advantage. Maybe you aren’t creative but you are good at following a plan over and over. All of the people I’ve ever met that are really successful don’t fight their nature they double down on he things they are great at. And if they have some critical weakness they address it by hiring someone to deal with those details. It’s not something we usually talk about on this forum but you might find the Kolbe A Index very helpful.

I wasn’t trying to blame you. I was trying to explain the other sides point of view. And that even if you are right you still (probably) don’t win. I’m definitely trying to keep you from tilting at windmills though. Deals fall through all the time and at the last minute. Sometimes it’s shady business. If you are going to take that personally I think you need to adjust your model or avoid real estate altogether.

Wowzers... There are too many deals out there to push a multi-year litigation process for your own gain. I’m not convinced that the people you are dealing with are nefarious. There are many situations where good intentions or just lousy, irresponsible, or uninformed owners could have caused this. Now you are planning to use the cops, courts, and banks as your hammer to wedge yourself into a deal? Best case you now are covered in muck from inserting yourself with a bunch of shady business. Worst case you become the shady operator making the people who are involved feel like victims. I know this isn’t how you see it and I’m sure that will make you feel defensive. I’m going to keep dealing above board where sellers feel like I’ve treated them fairly.