All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

While BP is a great resource for investors and investor wannabes, I think it sets up a really unrealistic picture what Real Estate "Investing" is. Too many gurus pitching "Wholesaling" and "OPM" and other fantastical strategies that 99.9% of the time do not work. Can you explain how you plan to support yourself as an "Investor" when you are making $15 an hour? Do you know how hard it is to generate $100K (your expected income as an engineer) in net passive income? Let me tell you, you need about $2M of real estate. Do you think banks are crawling over themselves trying lend your $15/hour income those sums of money? Every single response on here tells you to stay in school. I suggest listen to them. Earn high W2, save money, invest on the side. It works 100% of the time.

 Did you conveniently leave out the next line of your citation? Let me help. Here is the full citation

Even so, the incarceration rate is nowhere near that of the United States or any of the countries with the highest prison population rate.

Nobody is being locked up for littering or other social transgressions. At most you get a fine. And people break traffic laws all the time (speeding, cutting lanes etc) and I never see anyone pulled over by a cop like in US cities. Almost all people in jail are for drug offenses, usually possession of small quantities. I am not in favor of this by any means. There are a few in there for violent crimes, mostly domestic violence. And even in prison there are no rapes or abuse by guards or fights like is common in US prisons. Nor are there fights and gangs. Or years of solitary confinement. There also exist real rehabilitation programs that are well funded and taken seriously. The US locks up far more people under far worse conditions than any developed country. 

 I can most certainly assure you that this is not true at all. Police in Singapore are actually humane (as opposed to your own boys in blue). Yes the rules are strict but the punishments are far more humane (mostly fines) than in the US. The only exception maybe is the punishment for drug smuggling which is severe. But in ANY part of this city  I can walk along clean streets not lined by junkies and panhandlers and not get robbed, mugged, molested, raped, shot (by cops or thugs) at any time of night and day. 10 year old kids take the bus to school on their own. Drunk women can go home at 2 am without any hassle. How many equally populated (7m) dense US cities can you say that about? Please stop believing the propaganda you are fed about how USA is #1 best place in the world. It is most definitely NOT. The average person in many parts of Asia or Europe have far superior standards of living with decent affordable housing, education, transport and healthcare, all of which is severely lacking in the US. Go travel, talk to people and go see for yourself.

How much is your property worth? In Sacramento my guess is north of 500K. You are putting a half million dollar asset in the hands of your tenants. In California if they dont pay and dont leave it will take you months to evict and it will cost you thousands of dollars. 2 weeks on the market is not a lot. Wait for a better prospect. If you are stretched paying the mortgage while vacant you dont have enough reserves. Dont make that mistake worse by choosing marginal tenants.

Turnkey proformas even in the good old days stretched credulity to the limit. Id love to see one with 7% interest rates baked in!

That looks bad. Where are all the pitbull defenders now? This is the reason insurers won't cover aggressive breeds. And you should not allow them in your rentals. 

In the immortal words of Kenny Rogers, you gotta know when to "hold em, know when to fold em, know when to walk away and know when to run". Its time to fold and run. Sell and let someone who knows what they are doing finish the job. You may eat a loss but it will be worth it in lowered stress and constant money pit that this house has become.

 Now now, dont let facts get in the way of Fox propaganda! As for eminent domain, didn't Trump appropriate a bunch of border land for the wall the Mexico was supposed to pay for?

Everyone has said it but I will repeat it. No keys without Cashiers check for full deposit, full months rent. In my California property that I self manage the only difficult tenants I have had are those that asked to pay deposit in installments. It was a December vacancy and there were no other applications. They were always late on rent, caused damage and broke lease early. Since then I refuse to rent to marginal tenants. Id rather keep it vacant and get the right tenant.

How many rentals have you owned for how long? What was the rent ratio (rent/price) you bought at? Anyone who owned any number of properties over multiple years (I have owned more than 10 over more than 10 years) will tell you the real numbers are never anywhere close to the pro formas. But you go ahead since you are the "expert" and just want others to agree with you even when all the truly experienced investors are telling you that you are plain wrong in expecting a 5.5 year average lease term. I have owned C class to A class properties in multiple states and can tell you for sure the average tenancy is far less than that. But as the kids say, you do you.