All Forum Posts by: Aubrey H.

@Matthew Otto

So I have not read all of the comments so I'm sorry if this is a repeat answer...

2 things I was always told. A) contribute enough to get full matching B) if you dont see it in your bank account you wont really know it is missing. You will be use to the $ not being in your check every week

One last thing is check into more benifits of the 401k. The company my husband works for has a great loan program. So we took out a loan from his 401k with a payroll deduction. But the amazing thing is that we are paying ourselves back the interest. We are not paying the bank. We see it as money that can be in the stock market over a savings account and when we need it we can take a loan out on it.

@Bill Plymouth Kind of what others have been saying about Iowa taxes, some towns they are very high and for most of the area just took a huge jump we are south of Des Moines and our property values (for taxes) went up anywhere from 10%-15% on our properties. So might not hurt to look at new rates and figure that into your numbers as well. Prairie city is one of the small town surrounding Des Moines that are growing fast due to people wanting a short commute for their 'city' job, but want more of a small town living. 

Marshalltown is from what I understand a little rougher community. Parts of the community are still trying to do some rebuilding for a tornado they had a little over a year ago.  

Are you looking for Large Multi-Units or to start building a portfolio with SFH or Small Multi-units?

Realtor, Licensed to sell real estate in Iowa

@David McAlexander

Depending on the properties, a big bank might be able to help. We went to the business banking to just inquire about multiple deals we could do just to see our option for the future. We learned a lot about what they could offer and we know what to work toward.

@Allan Foote

While going to college, I did not think that was the path for me. Now I am glad I did even though I did not get a job in what I went for. Now that I have been out of college for almost 10 years I highly suggest and encourage people to go to college. I also say do ad much online/ self paced/ nights and weekends so you can still do what you want during the day to grow your real estate business. I had never heard of going to college for Real Estate until I read on BP last week. I would also suggest maybe getting a business or finance degree. You could learn some amazing things and when needing to do projects for class you might even get to use your own "business" as the subject.

@Nandy B.

I totally understand when you say that being the Property Manager is not a possibility right now but here are my thoughts

Being a property manager is not for everyone and if the numbers work out, go for it! With that being said, managing our own properties is where we have learned so much about how the whole system works and how at some point (when we get to big) what we and from a Property Manager. I this will also help us interview for a Property Manager someday because we know what to ask and understand some of their policies as to how they work.

One last thing, if the property is in great shape, you have a good tenant, and a great lease; you won't have much to do. We have a unit that for the year and a half we have only been called twice (for very minor things).

@Idan Narotzki

I say do what you can to get a copy. We get about one call a year because they locked the keys in the house.

One tip we when starting out was to work with a Lock Smith and have them key all units differently but have a master key that gets you in to all of the units. That way you or your PM have fewer keys to keep track of and search through!

@Jennie Monfried

We are debate the same thing with a few of our larger SFH. But where we are right now, we have decided to keep them even though our numbers show us making less then $50 a door a month. We see it as someone else paying down our debt for us and us being able to build up the equity in our home. I'm sure someday it will be a better choice for us to sell but until them we are ok with our low return.

This site is a great place to start with lots of great tips for what to include in your calculations. I wish we would have known about them when we started.

The more loans we have taken out the higher our rates go! It has many factors and one of the ones we discussed with our banker was that the more loans we have the higher the risk the bank is taking therefore a higher interest. The rates are higher even with our great credit score and debt to income.

@Daniel Lynch

If you guys lived together and rented from someone, would she help pay for things? I dont think it's much different (even if one person owns the property). Living together is cheaper for both as long as they both pitch in!

That price seems high to me also but it depends what is included and how big the house is.