All Forum Posts by: Brandon Turner

Eve (and others)- I read Dave's book and watched a lot of his television episodes and have a lot of trust in the guy but don't personally follow everything he says. As mentioned above, Dave is strongly against debt, referring to debt as "slavery". This includes Real Estate Debt. Dave also pushes the importance of living within your means, not on credit cards, and being financially smart.

As Jon pointed out above, ROI is not the best when you pay for a property in all cash. No one can argue with that, but it is definitely safer. One of Dave Ramsey's quotes is "100% of foreclosures last year happened to people with mortgages". Very True.

So we investors can argue all day that the ROI is better with leverage, but hundreds and thousands of "investors" are flat broke right now and bankrupt because of leverage. We are not beyond getting greedy during the good times, and losing it all when things get rough. And I know I and most every other investor will say "yeah, but I'm smarter than that" but in fact, nothing is guaranteed. Dave Ramsey's approach is not just for the paycheck to paycheck people, as others have said, but rather for everyone.

So my approach is this: Be smart, don't over-leverage (listen to people like Jon and pay homage to the 50% rule), and take Dave Ramsey's approach as much as possible: have an emergency fund, create a budget, tackle (snowball, as Dave says) your credit card debt, and stop living beyond your means.

I try to live "Dave Ramsey Smart" in my personal life but I treat my real estate investment exactly as it is - with risk. I understand that I may lose it all someday (I hope not though) but I hope to pay my personal house off and all personal debt as soon as possible so if I do go broke investing, I won't be on the street or working at McDonalds. Will I be as rich as the guy who leverages his personal house at 110% and reinvests it in his portfolio? Probably not. But I'll never lose everything and still will end up successful.

Well, I'll get off my soap box now. I highly recommend Dave's "Total Money Makeover" book if you get a chance. Let us know what you think.

Just curious, what do other people out there in Bigger Pockets land pay for Hard Money these days?

My main lender is 10 points, 10% APR, 2 year notes, LTV depends on the situation but usually around 75% ARV or cross-collateralizing another property for 100% ARV.

yeah, I am more worried about the noise than the destruction (but both are concerns). I don't think I'll have a real hard time filling units without allowing pets, so I'll probably hold to that policy for a while.

Anyone else have any thoughts?

Hi Jon,

Well, welcome to the world of RE investing. My goal in all this is the same, to create passive income enough to not have to get a "real job". This is the only job i've had that I loved and I could invest in real estate as a career the rest of my life easily.

Good luck on your adventures, keep us updated on Bigger Pockets how you are doing.

I am debating allowing pets into the apartment complex I own. I am curious of what other people do and if anyone feels passionate one way or another.

Thanks jon.

Just out of curiosity, is this an apartment you just purchased? I'd love to know your story/details if you care to share.

Brandon

NC Mark - I agree wholeheartedly. I need a CPA. I have the attorney, but I wanted to wait until after I bought the apartment to go to a CPA. Probably not real smart, but I figured CPA's are a bit busy with tax time right now, and my stuff would be pushed to the back anyway. Am I wrong?

Also, I am definitely jumping into a bigger game than my "pay grade" deserves. Having a team of pro attorneys and cpa's would be wonderful, but I've never been able to financially justify them while occasionally flipping $30,000 houses. I know its not the smartest thing, but I'll take the risk for now.

Also, my post on here has more to do with future profit projections than it does setting up the right structure. If I knew I had to pay an extra 15% on any cashflow I make, thats a huge dent in my projections.

Thanks guys!

Bienes- me too! Honestly, I thought she might be lying about having a kid too until I saw it. But I wouldn't put it past these people.

MikeOH, I like how you think, you sound a lot like my wife. To add to the deabeatness of it, the tenant didn't know she was pregnant till 3 weeks ago. yep. and she just gave birth last week. Its like that show, "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant".

And it gets worse.

A further update - (I might as well keep the story going so people might learn from this mess)

I stopped by this morning to get the rent and late charge. Once again, no rent. They had $400 (out of $715 owed). They told me they didn't think they had to pay more because they had a really high electric bill from December's energy because they had to use a space heater to heat a bedroom for a couple weeks while i replaced their heater. ... I was slow at fixing it, so maybe a valid argument so i left and said I'd think about it...

Went to the electric utility company and found out the reason their bill was so high was because THEY DIDN'T PAY THEIR OCTOBER OR NOVEMBER BILL. So now they are trying to steal money from me to keep their power from being shut off.

And so,

A new three day notice is hanging on their door (they slammed the door in the face of my "server" friend) and another notice is in the mail. Talked to my attorney friend today, we can file on Monday.

just a quick update - apparently the tenant gave birth. Still, knowing the tenants, not a good enough excuse for me but whatever.

I issued the 3-day notice on Saturday, called my lawyer friend and found out that because I am the owner and I issued the 3-day notice, a judge in my county (state law maybe?) won't allow an eviction. I guess owners cannot file. Who knew.

So I have to have delivered a new 3-day notice. But now the tenant gets paid tomorrow and "promised" rent at 9:30 tomorrow morning with a late fee.

So I guess I'll end up waiting till next month to evict- and this time I'll do it right.