All Forum Posts by: Mike Becher

For some context, I purchased a duplex last August (2018) as a buy & hold with about $300 of cash flow per month. As I've been learning and developing some interest in the BRRRR method, I became intrigued with the possibility of flipping, but wasn't sure if one is better than the other as far as what you actually walk away with in, let's say a year.

The way I'm looking at it, if I flipped 4 houses a year with $25,000 profit each, I'd only need to flip 4 to get to my first annual financial goal of $100,000/year (which I'd obviously have to repeat annually to continue that method). With buy & hold at $100/unit (average cash flow), I'd need 84 units.

Would love to hear your thoughts on the pros and cons of flipping vs buy & hold [with or without the BRRRR method].

Currently property is a duplex. Someone else flipped it and I purchased after all renovations were made. Not owner occupied, purchased with a bank loan at 5.5%. Currently renting both units with a CoCROI of 13.2% [taking all expenses including vacancy, CapEx, and property management (even though I'm currently managing it) into account].

Currently living an extremely frugal lifestyle which is what enabled me to purchase this initial property. All the income through the duplex is untouched other than going toward expenses as it is solely being used as a retirement investment as will additional real estate purchases.

I just purchased my first property in August of this year (2018), and I love it. Being new to this, what are some known strategies that people use to purchase a second, third, fourth property quickly [within a couple of years] opposed to waiting for that single property to bring in enough income to afford the next purchase? I still have cash in the bank, but not enough to dish out another $30K in more downpayments & closing costs without going house poor. At 40 years old, ideally my goal is have 10 properties (or 20 units) within 10 years.

I don't have anything that needs work at the moment, but am looking for suggestions for different contractors in the Syracuse area in the event I may need them for my current property purchased in August of this year (2017).

**Electrical

**Plumbing

**Carpentry

**Roofing

**General Contractor

**Landscaping

Any recommendations are appreciated.

I sincerely appreciate the honesty. I like to know how things work. I'm a DIY kind of person even though that means I'm likely going to fumble through it initially. As you and others have pointed out there are clearly aspects to this that aren't easily transferrable and details I'll miss, and assumptions I'll make, due to incompetence. 

I think meeting with a CPA is my best route. I usually learn pretty quickly when I get to watch someone work the numbers and can ask a bunch of questions throughout the process.

Thanks again for the detailed response.

@Michael Plaks Super helpful and detailed. Appreciate the time you spent to write all that out. Just for clarification, when you take 80% of the property cost, is that the appraised value or what I actually payed for the property?

I recently purchased my first rental property in August of this year. I created a detailed spreadsheet to track all income & expenses. I'm curious if there are any resources I can be pointed toward to help in calculating income tax on the property. I know it's a vague question, and there might be variables involved that I'm likely unaware of. Not sure where to start with this aspect, so any help is appreciated.

I just went through this with my very first tenant of my very first investment property... less than a month after they moved in. Needless to say it's been quite a journey. The first letter they provided was from a website. After some research [ok... a crap ton of research] I ended up going to the source, CNY Fair Housing (I live in NY). They verified that the letter was not valid and that it was a scam that they're seeing a lot of. In defense of my tenant, I'm convinced that they aren't malicious, just naive. Anyway, after that, two days later I have a letter from a local unlicensed social worker that my tenant had been seeing stating that her need for an Emotional Support Animal was due to diagnosed disabilities due to the loss of her child. I called Fair Housing again, and low and behold, in their words, "This letter is one million percent valid. To not accept it could, and probably would, initiate a discrimination case against me." Craziness...