All Forum Posts by: Sherry Byrne

@Patrick Froehlich I started investing in real estate when I was about 48yrs old, after a divorce. I am now 64 yrs old. I retired early from my pharmaceutical sales job at age 59yrs. And now I manage my 55 single family homes. I have not been looking to expand my holdings much in recent years either. Just managing what I have now is enough work for me.

Somewhere along the way I stopped borrowing bank money and began using only my own money. I know my trajectory could have been much faster if I had continued using OPM. But I wanted cashflow for my later years, and wanted to avoid debt. I currently own about 35 homes outright, with no mortgage. And I will have many more paid off in a few years.

To be clear, I bought very low end homes, as cheap as I could, and fixed them up. For the most part, this has been a good strategy.

But I am now “improving” my portfolio by selling some )I lease option them and sometimes a tenant/buyer will buy me out). I always use a 1031 Exchange. And I am buying better homes now in better neighborhoods. I look for a first time home buyer type home that is a 3/2/2 in a decent, family area. They don’t cash flow as well as the cheaper ones. But I am experimenting to see if they will turnover less frequently and, thusly result in about the same cashflow over the long run.

So I would certainly encourage you to start investing, at any age. Just remember, it’s not all about getting more doors. It’s about accomplishing the lifestyle you want, with as few or as many as are needed.

@Mark-Anthony Villaflor that’s the good thing. It’s called Defer, Defer, Defer, and Die! This strategy enables me to 1031 any sale of a property, avoiding recapture of depreciation and Capital Gains taxes, as long as i reinvest in like kind properties of equal or higher value. I enjoy the income as long as I live. And my kids inherit the real estate on a stepped up basis.

@Bjorn Ahlblad age definitely plays a part in this. I, too, have acquired all the properties I want. And I own most of them outright. But they do keep me busy.

I wish more was written on this topic...best way to escape the hampster wheel after scaling up and owning all the RE you want to a more passive income.

@Joe Villeneuve very nice analysis. Thank you.

I prefer less debt/fewer headaches. But seeing your math makes me consider taking on some debt a bit more!

@Jason Muth I am in Springfield, Mo. So not a destination resort area, like yours. Much of the draw for this area is created by the several colleges/universities and the hospitals. And Branson, Mo is only 30 mins away, to the South. But all of these businesses were severely impacted by the shut downs. My March and April were booked solid. But they were completely wiped out when things shut down. I did an OK May. June is also OK, but not like last year. And the rest of the summer is lightly booked. So the lock downs definitely hurt me. But I can hang in there and hope that business will return.

I

@Kyle Joseph hello. I am in Springfield, Mo and seem to have a worse report than most others, sadly. My whole calendar was wiped for March (one of my best months), April, and now May. Many have also cancelled bookings for much later out in the summer. Airbnb has decided to fully reimburse all who request it, despite owner’s cancellation policies. That was bad enough. But now Airbnb is implementing a new Covid19 cleaning requirement that is going to finish off the job of making us unprofitable for as long as this lasts... probably the whole remainder of the year. It’s not that I am opposed to cleaning very carefully. We already do that and have even stepped up our cleaning protocol. But Airbnb wants to have us “certified“ to a 40 page cleaning protocol. And then we are to have either a 24 hour gap between reservations or a 72 hour gap. These measures will not allow many of us to even have 50% booking rates because of how those dates can fall. I am very disappointed as I had a good Beginning your last year. I look forward to an even better year this year. But it will probably be a total loss.

@Monica Molina I am following this too. Hope we get some folks to share their experiences

@Tim Bradley you have a talent for writing! I laughed all the way through. But, seriously, I have had a similar “easy” remodel that turned into EVERYTHING needing to be re-done. It took 2+yrs because I can’t find the people to hire. And half what I did hire done was done wrong and had to be pulled out and re-done. As you can imagine...NOT a good investment. But I will live here several years and will no doubt recoup that money. Live and learn!

I have some rental property I would be interested in selling. And I just noticed this ad for Roofstock. Has anyone had any experience with them? Would you mind sharing that experience and your overall impression?

@David DuCille very interesting suggestion! Thanks, David!