All Forum Posts by: Barry Je

Many books and people on this forum talk about direct mail campaigns to potential sellers. Currently, I've been driving throughout the town and city looking for apartment buildings seemingly in some disarray, jot down the address, then go on the website for the county and look up the records to find the name of the owner, or, if an LLC, google the LLC to find the owners, and see if I can find an address that way. This is incredibly onerous. Are there other methods people are using that are more effective?

I remember seeing a forum post about obtaining lists...who do I talk to to pay for lists of multifamily properties to directly mail them?  Is it the township, and if so, which department usually can help with that?  Title companies?  

I can see how Driving for Dollars would be worth it if a deal lands, but for someone interested in finding deals out of state, this approach doesn't seem to work as well (unless people are driving on googlemaps to find potential deals?  But even those photos are a couple years old).

Does anyone have experience or know anyone who has used mentorship programs in the past?  Any specific ones people would recommend?

The more I learn about this stuff, the more questions I have, and the more research I do.  I worry about the universal headaches and challenges once I take the plunge and with a job that I currently clock in about 65hrs/wk, I wonder if a mentor would be valuable for general direction, advise, and saving time as these roadblocks pop up.

I guess part of the reason I ask is...I just don't understand the motivation behind these mentorship programs.  All of them say they love teaching, but are they using it as a way to find deals that they can partner in on?  If they hold 1 seminar a month for 15 people and each costs 1k, that's nearly 200k for them annually, not including the deals they find.  I'm totally fine with all parties benefiting from the partnership, and I understand everyone has an angle, BUT I worry that mentorships and seminars like these are meant to pad THEIR salaries as delineated above, rather than provide value to me.  I've seen several advertised and some of them look VERY gimmicky whereas others seem a bit more useful.

My current salary is quite high and allows me to invest about 20k/month; however, I believe this kind of income will last about 10 years. Therefore, my goal is to replace my current income after taxes by year 10 (current job is W2, so my tax burden is high). I initially thought about turnkey investments as it seems to have less work, good returns, but I'll need to buy 1 a month for 10 years and I imagine having over 100 SFR's will become a nuisance, whereas 1 apartment building a year for 10 years after taxes (and depreciation) may net me the income to replace my job comfortably.

Hello all!

I'm brand-spanking new to real estate...long story, but here's the short version:

Wife and I are high income earners with a combined income just over 7-figures.  Getting destroyed in taxes, etc.  I went searching for a house to buy, market way too competitive, so started leaving letters on people's doorsteps and a few hit!  As the deals progressed, inspectors and lender's kept asking me if I'm a wholesaler or flipper and they never heard of regular people doing that.  I didn't know what a wholesaler or fix and flipper was, so I started reading, which led me to this community.  Then read some books and really started looking at rentals, but was put off by one detail:

It seems like most people are working to earn a passive income of about 100k, taking 5-10 years to do it.  Well, even with the tax benefits of real estate, I need to replace about 500k plus before I can even think about quitting.  (Reason for quitting: I work 90+hrs/wk, about to have a kid, and hate the idea of missing out on them growing up).

I did more digging and people told me apartment investing was SFR rental's on crack...economies of scale, better financing terms, more options, easier to raise value, etc. So far this seems to be true.

That led me to read lindahl's multifamily millions and emerging real estate markets, brandon turner's books, investing with no/low money down, and lance's book on multifamily investing, which were great and informative.  I also read a few others which were OK and didn't add much information.  I'm now rereading lindahl's book to take notes to build my action plan, and reading commercial real estate due diligence handbook.  

I'm aggressively saving money with my wife (her portion goes to traditional investments) whereas mine will be for real estate investing.  I'm hoping to put in about 200k each year on a deal if possible.

Questions:

1.  Is it reasonable to replace high incomes with multifamily investing in 10-15 years?

2. Is this a reasonable path or are there other avenues I ought to look at? I started talking to SFR rental guys and they told me this was a waste of my time, I'm better off making more money at my job since it'll take forever to replace my income with just houses. A few led me to apartments and that's why i'm here, wondering if I'm not exploring other opportunities that I just don't know about.

3.  Any advice/resources that you recommend?