All Forum Posts by: Ben Wilkins

@Daria Sukhenko - I honestly can't say that I had anxiety once I pulled the trigger. However, as an engineer I tend to run a lot of numbers and I put a lot of stock in those numbers.

The first deal that I bought: I found a duplex that made sense. I got a year's worth of income tracking from the seller, pulled the bills, calculated out my savings expenses (CapEx, maintenance, vacancy, etc). The numbers made sense: I would have to mess up royally for this deal to be negative. After that, I did my due-diligence: a full inspection of the property, a contractor to go through and give a second inspection of the structure, and my own personal walk-through. At that point, I had a strong idea of what my CapEx spending and maintenance would be, I knew what my income would be, and I knew what my bills would be.

If the numbers make sense to me and my due-diligence turns up nothing that I don't think I can handle, I don't have any anxiety about purchasing. There are always surprises in life that can turn you upside down, but it doesn't make sense to have anxiety over those things. If your math and your due-diligence look good, the next logical thing to do is take a step forward

How are you purchasing a turnkey property, and turning around a refi without any forced appreciation? Are you doing a bank refi that goes against your ten property limit? I'm confused as to how you're pulling money out immediately, unless if you're purchasing off-market at very low prices 

 Mindy - as community manager, I bet you could pull some strings to give me those billion upvotes... I certainly wouldn't complain! 

I found the contour gauge when shopping in Lowe's one time, and it's been a life-saver when cutting flooring. I keep one in my tool bag and one at home just in case I ever need it

 Gary - there are quite a few waterproof laminate tongue/groove styles out there, including the Quick Step brand. I wouldn't suggest using in the bathroom, but I also have had great success in my own house and rentals with this so far. 

As I haven't seen any brands listed, I'll go ahead and recommend QuickStep Wood Plank Laminate. I've used it in my own home as well as several apartments now, and love it. My own house has a 3 year old boy, a dog, three cats, and I work in a Paint Shop so usually have some harsher chemicals on my shoes when I come home - I have yet to see any wear on the flooring in the year that we've had it.

• $2/sqft
• Durable
• Underlayment pre-attached (if you choose to use that - I did and have had no issue, but have only been walking on the floor for a year so can't say how long it will hold up).
• Easy to install - grab a rubber mallet, a crowbar, and a flooring / table saw. I used a jigsaw and contour gauge for the cuts around corners / fixtures.
• Can be installed over previous laminate / tiling if the floor is even.

The pics are attached so you can see how it looks - it was cheap enough to put in a C class rental that hadn't been updated in over a decade, and durable enough that I won't have to worry about it for another decade. I took these pics for my own satisfaction of before / after and didn't bother with lighting and making it look great, but it should show the improvement:

@Sam Warwood - what is your own comfort level for an investment that may or may not pan out?

For a first deal, I would strongly suggest purchasing a property that will be able to cash flow as early as possible. Real estate works best as a snowball - use the income from previous deals to fund your future deals. Each negative cash-flowing deal that you hold decreases the amount of capital that you have for other deals.

I personally wouldn't purchase a negative cash flow or a prospective appreciation deal until I have a solid base to build off of (positive cash flow that can support the loss if needed). While an investment like this may pay off really well in the future, it may also kill your investing career before you make it out of the nest.

@Jason Malabute - it looks like you're planning to purchase using cash (feels like a safe assumption, since you have zero for your loan). Is this a buy-and-hold rental? Or With the ARV that you have listed this seems like a refinance property, but you never mention short- or long-term plan.

Usually when analyzing deals, I'll check to see what my numbers would be if I did ever finance. If a property doesn't cash-flow very well with financing, I don't like to use zero financing to justify the purchase.

My reason for mentioning this is that the cash flow seems low for a zero-financed property. If you were to use financing, this deal would likely not be worth it... so it's up to you to determine if tying your capital up in this deal is worth the amount of income that you're calculating.

However, this can all change depending on what your plans / goals are.

@Thomas W. - The first property was using personal savings. Second property was personal savings plus every penny that I made from the first rental income. Third property was through owner-financing that we will pay off in six months using the combined rental income of all three properties.

Our goal is to become a self-funding investment company, where the rental income pays for all new properties. Currently, we are spending a lot of money out of our own pockets, but each property increases our rate of growth. We haven't even touched refinancing yet.

A new year is just around the corner, and resolutions will be flying soon. This got me thinking about where I'm at, and how I got here. 

1. If you could have done one thing different in 2018, what would it be?

2. What do you plan to do differently in 2019 in order to improve your real estate goals?

1. Get in touch with a former cast member from the show Friends. Done, as of this post

2. Increase my real estate worth by $1mil.