All Forum Posts by: Brittney Peabody

If you had 200k and need to spend it this weekend.... what, where and how would you invest it? 

The term "Primary Resident" doesnt mean you have to live in it every day of the year. Every lender defines it slightly different because every lender is different. With my lender I have to occupy the house 180 days of the year under a primary conventional loan and can be rented the rest of the days and it counts as a primary residence with no penalties. Thats how some people do a second home thats not considered an investment property because part of the year they are at one place and another part of the year at another place. Same can be said for your RV trips. I would ask your lender to define "Primary Resident", they will be your best bet in how many days you technically need to live there. Even RV tiny homes need somewhere to send mail to.  Good luck friend! 

Welcome to the community @Bobby Romadka! What are your goals and the next step of your plan? 

For me personally I was my own property manager when I bought my first BRRRR. I did this to save as much money as I could for my second. I Youtubed everything, asked friends and made a lot of maintenance mistakes along the way. However, learning these skills not only saved me money, the skills I gained helped me to do a flip and do a lot of work on the flip myself. When the next BRRRR came along, I kept property managing because I like to keep an eye on everything and it gives me a great sense of purpose and pride that I am helping so many people. I am now at a point where I can fix anything that comes my way, and if something comes across that I can't, I know who to ask and where to go to find how to fix it. That is valuable knowledge that I would not have gained otherwise! I work during the day, and haven't gotten requests so urgent that I had to leave my day job during the day to fix anything, Ive never gotten a call in the middle of the night either. It has been very manageable, which I am very grateful for. I am in the middle of refinancing one of them, and when I stopped by with the appraiser this week I brought donuts for the two units. Not because it makes financial sense to spend money on donuts, but because it makes me happy to give back and be so hands on involved in my property. It is fun to see the fruits of my labor up close, it inspires me to keep building and growing my portfolio. I have incredible renters though so I enjoy property management. It definitely has its downsides, but from my experience, the pros have outweighed the cons tenfold.

Since prices in my particular area have increased in Utah, I am now going out of state to invest. Since I had to shift my strategy, I will be screening property managers to manage all out of state properties and not handling them myself. This is okay because when markets change, its important to make sure your strategy can adapt to be successful. You can scale a lot faster by freeing up time by hiring a property manager. For some it causes a peace of mind not having to figure the problem for themselves. There are pros and cons either way. 

So it really depends on what your next steps are and what it is going to take to get you to those next goals. Real Estate is really fluid and you can go either way depending on what you want out of Real Estate. 

@Robert Laird Congrats on the project's finish! Its tough when you have unexpected expenses like that, you handled it very well. Too many people "put lipstick on a pig" when flipping, If you are going to do it, do it right, in which you did! Good call on renting it until you can sell, its so important to have multiple exit strategies in case life doesn't quite go as planned! :) 

Well done! 

There are tons of podcast on BP about whole selling that are great resources. If you would like to learn the process, you can always work for a whole seller too. I have a friend who works for a whole seller at their own time and just makes phone calls in the phone book and asks people over the phone if he could buy their house. The basic idea of whole selling is to look for distressed properties (have you seen signs "i buy ugly houses" or heard of the app "driving for dollars" are good resources for finding distressed properties or side hustles. Find out what they want/need and then find an investor and assign the contract to them. If you find a property and need to find an investor, bigger pockets is a good resource, but also finding local real estate whole sellers who are established and teaming up with them to send out the property to their list of investors. I know Utah Whole Sale does this with clients if you bring them a property they can advertise for you for a price. 

It really is fascinating that from a starting stand point it seams hard on what to do, but when you have that first whole sell house, the more you talk to people, the more the next steps are going to be clear. Its intimidating, at least for me when I first started, but once I was in the process the next steps came easy because of my network of friends I had and the amount of resources available via online. Its like a snowball going downhill, it just keeps going with momentum. The hardest part is getting started, the second hardest is finding a property in this market! But it is possible :) Once you do though, it will all come together as you keep hustling throughout the deal. 

Resort areas are going to be great. Anywhere up a canyon where skiing is popular. I have a friend who is successful in the Ogden Canyon with his AirBNBs. My lender has one in Layton that is doing well this past year. Expect to pay resort fees though if you arn't managing it yourself. Lake areas and southern utah are about 40% AirBNB full service management fees. 

The hardest areas for AirBNBs in my opinion are southern Utah. St.Goerge is really picky in where you can have them, but outside areas like Washington and Ivins are more relaxed. St.George will catch you really quick if you have an unlicensed one there. 

AirBNBs do need a license from the city. One of the biggest hold ups for AirBNB is the requirements you need to get a license. For example hand rails, enough parking spaces, and the fire marshal has to approve how many people can stay there. Requirements are different for every city, but there are a lot of similar requirements throughout the state.

You definitely can't pick a random house and call it an AirBNB, but it is possible to find AirBNBs throughout the state. 

Hello Angel! Great post! A lot of it depends on how much time and return you would like to see. I personally love buy and hold because the appreciation is phenomenal in Salt Lake City. Rents are on the rise too, which has helped keep up with high house prices. I try to cash flow around 700$ on each property after all expenses. For first time home buyers who want to live in their investment property, plan on around saving 20k for down payment and closing costs before house shopping. The average home price right now in the county is a little over 400k. Its a really hot market right now. Although this is the route that I chose and made work for me, that doesn't mean it will work for everyone. Real estate can be flexible to fit your needs and you can begin investing in real estate today!  it will be a less traditional route and a more creative route. Here are some creative option routes that you can go: 

- Rent an apartment/house to AirBNB (make sure Lease and landlord are okay with it) 

- Crowdfund Real Estate with all in one services like FundRise

- Use the money to put towards marketing to obtain whole sell properties to sell to investors 

Good Luck in your endeavors! You are going to do great things! 

Congrats on your first few steps to decide on becoming financially free! Partnering works for a lot of people, especially when you are first starting out! One of the best things that helped me was to go to a local "REIA" Club. A lot of the major cities will have Real Estate Investment Clubs where local investors share ideas and build a solid network. If they aren't meeting in person find groups on social media to join to surround yourself with real estate investors. That support group will be key in your success as you surround your self with like minded people to be able to grow and encourage others. Know your stuff in and out but always stay curious and open minded.

You are going to do great things! 

Thank you for your comments! My income is pretty stable as my focus strategy is buy and hold. Along with this buy and hold strategy I have a W2 position in Healthcare IT which is in high demand and stable. I haven't invested through a recession yet and am very anxious to see how my strategy will play out!

With uncertainty lurking in the future, how have yall changed your portfolio in terms of leverage to prepare what lays ahead? Have yall increased or decreased leverage? What is the percentage you are aiming to achieve right now to prepare for uncertain times?