All Forum Posts by: Carlos M.

@Nathan Gesner

That’s fantastic! How do you keep your cost so low ?

@Vi Prich

Sell your primary home. The real issue is If you cant pay your mortgage without the help of a rental, you bought way to much house.

Selling a rental because you can’t afford your primary is a mistake. Selling the rental because you hate being a landlord is a different story l. I would Keep the rental as it’s going to continue to go up in value, the mortgage itself at its current rate is an asset, in 10 -15 years it’s going to be worth double what it is now.

@Douglas Skipworth

I track it monthly. That which is measured grows. It’s required by my lenders for every new acquisition, and every lender I’m in bed with requires an updated PFS annually.

Dm me if you want more specifics.

@Alecia Loveless

Great idea ! I have a similar binder that I wrote out goals and plans for 40 years of growth. It’s been super fun to go back and look at them. I’m 15 years in business now and I have hit all of my real estate goals so far.

@K S.

Let me share my actual experience of real estate investing and hustle over 15 years.

We had $60k in equity in our personal home. I hated having this dead money trapped in my house and wanted to put it to work. I knew someone who did invest in real estate. He was a buy and hold and pay them off kind a guy. He looked for properties that didn't need much work. He told me if he could do it all over again he would just invest in the stock market as it's way easier. Easy was important to him. I set up a HELOC and called a mutual fund company and explained what I was doing. Thank god the lady on the other end of the phone said " you are out of your mind". I would never stick my home equity into the stock market.

So I decided to buy real estate. I took that $60k and purchased a 5 unit in my backyard. I just let that simmer for 2 years then I got the itch again and purchased a 3 unit with the rest of the money. I then did everything I could to keep purchasing properties. I even took a loan against my paid off truck to get the dp for a 4 unit. Eventually I stumbled across a distressed 6 unit. It was roach infested , all the doors were kicked In, it was just terrible. I put a super lowball offer in and they called back two weeks later and excepted it. I told them I didn’t want it but they basically said we accepted your offer you have to buy it. So we purchased it and fixed it up and raised all the rents to market rent. It actually become one of my favorite properties back then. Then an 11 unit building popped up in worse shape. I did a cash out refinance on the 6 unit , got all of my original $$ back , Rehab $$ and enough to purchase the $11 unit. The 11 unit was horrible!! The police were there daily and two units were actually condemned. The wife actually Cried after settlement it was so bad. But what happened, I went to work I remodeled the two condemned units and did light rehab to all the units. Two years later we needed money to by 15 units. So we did a cash out refi on the 11 units. It appraised at 1.1 Million. Keep in mind I only spent $35,000 on the remodels. We kept doing this over and over. Where are we now. We never used any of our own “savings” because we didn’t have any. I would just refinance properties , liquidated both 401ks, refinanced cars or sold things to keep purchasing… we now own close to 150 units. Just the wife and I. Zero investors , or partners. Our portfolio has a value of $18,000 million. Our monthly top line rents exceed our annual GROSS incomes combined. Now with all that being said, my wifey and I are the exception and not the rule, that’s for damn sure! We did all of our own work and I mean all of it for 10 years. That means for about 5 years we gave up most afternoons , weekends and holidays. I did watch a minute of TV or football. But doing all of our own renovations allowed us to renovate for pennies on the dollar and scale

quicker. Again, most people would never ever do what we did. Just sharing the other side. We both work on our rentals full time and we are now won buying back out time and training people to replace us.

My wifey and I met when we were 16 and had our daughter when we were 17 and still in high school. My wifey went to college as an adult and we paid for it out of pocket. I started as a janitor at a local car dealership. I ended up working my way up to a shop foreman there. But we both came from very poor families, and were never handed a damn thing except the most important thing every. We were both gifted the importance of a strong and I mean strong work ethic. My wife was so poor that I asked her what she dreamed about as a little girl, what did success’s look like to you. She said “ I just wanted to have food when ever I wanted “. So in other words, once our fridge was full we won! Every thing else is a bonus.

I doubly the S&P could afford us the life we have now with the actual money we “saved” up. But this is our reality of what is possible if you hustle , delay gratification and focus more on the performance of your equity and not just basic cash flow. But I also realize only 1% of the population would ever do what we did.

Cheers and success to what ever path you choose.

@Peter Vekselman

Exactly. Most people aren’t sold the truth about real estate. They aren’t told about the 10 years of hard work because no one would buy their course. Instead they are sold the Grant Cardone lifestyle. “Buy my course and you too could be living on your mega yacht or flying on your private Jet in 3 years”.

@Peter Vekselman

I would agree it’s very low. But it has nothing to do with the investment vehicle and everything to do with the guru type approach. People wake up one morning, decide to be a real estate investor. They quit their job and go full time. No income , no experience, no chance of success. All of the “successful investors” I know ( yes I know several) started buying real estate to supplement their retirement. Their goal wasn’t to buy a private jet and Mcmansion in 2 years. They bought decent deals , self managed , and did most of the maintenance themselves. I think the newbies are shocked with how slow and boring real estate is, as well as how much work it takes.

Real estate investing is the best thing I did for my family. We started 15 years ago. We only purchased in our backyard. We did all of our maintenance for 10 years. We self manage to this day. We have No investors, We only used our money that we saved from our W2s. I was a auto repair technician, my wife was a medical coder. This is all wrong according to the gurus. We needed to chase the fast markets , raise millions of dollars, and never ever grab a paint brush or hammer. And OMG, repair a toilet ??! Only peasants fix toilets ! We gave up every weekend for 10 years and even worked until midnight turning units while we had our W2. Until this day , we have never sold a single property.

15 years later my wife and I live off of our rental

Portfolio. We still work everyday day on our rental business. Only now are we looking to hire a full time office person, and full time maintenance person. My wife and I easily handled the maintenance, renovations, and management until our portfolio grew north of 100 units. As our portfolio is closing in on 200 units, We could still do most things ourselves but at this point it is hectic, and I value our time more than the savings. So that’s why we are looking to replace ourselves in the business.

How does this answer your question. I think real estate is the best , safest tool to build wealth when used wisely. Buy in an area that you know well. Buy and HOLD for the long term. Don’t go into it with 100% financing. Do the work , only use the proceeds to grow your business for 10 years !! Try and buy a small multi 5-10 units every other year or so. When you finally look up after 10 years of grinding , and sacrificing, You will be shocked as to the wealth and cashflow your portfolio will produce. After seeing our life 15 years later , I would absolutely do it all over again.

Cheers. Off to hop in my “Lambo” and do some renovations. “ my lambo is my Ford Transit HD dually” . Love that thing!!

@Joe S. I’m 47 and in the best health of my life. Over the last couple years I have been transitioning into a healthier lifestyle. I drink 1/4 of the alcohol I used to, no other recreational drugs. I work out 6-7 days a week. I cleaned up my diet. I make sleep a priority. I feel amazing! I figured , we worked so hard to get to this point in real estate. I want to be healthy to enjoy the fruits of our labor as long as possible!

@Jim K. AI is going to make this soooo much worse. AI can have a full conversation on the phone and sound exactly like you!

OMG!!Finally some truth!! I am so over people telling me I'm doing it all wrong because I still work so hard on my rentals after 15 years. 

We purchased 200 year old value add 4-11 unit properties. ( Our more recent stuff is much larger) Not that that was our niche , but it was all we could afford. I refused to bring in partners or borrow from friends and family to buy nicer newer properties. That was the biggest blessing of all!! We accidentally stumbled into the BRRRR method because of all the sweat equity we did for pennies on the dollar.

Years 1-5 were very slow. Just purchased a few properties and invested ALL of the money back into the properties. My wifey and I did all the work. By all I mean every turn over, mowed every lawn, managed every property.  This stage was easy. 

Years 6-10 were a lot more difficult as the unit count increased. Our commitment to sweat equity caused us to  miss out on most weekends and even a few holidays. We still did not spend ANY of the profits. It was all about re-investing. 

Years 11-15 ( current). I quit my 6 figure w-2, my wifey will be done with hers by the end of this month. We live off of the rental income. ( NOTICE I DID NOT SAY PASSIVE) We finally pay someone to mow, we do hire help with renovations and we are training a girl to help manage as well. After 14 years of grinding and sacrifice, Our life finally  looks a lot like the picture you painted. Except my abs aren't as pronounced as "that guy", I don't drink light beers, we are at the bay not the beach,  and there is NOTHING passive about it. How ever, Life is amazing and I would do it all over again! It is so rewarding to to see what my wife and I have accomplished by simply living below our means, a **** ton of hard work and tenacity. 

Years 16-20 should be as passive as we want it to be. I plan on taking a few month long vacations a year but grinding on our portfolio otherwise. What can I say, I love hard work, and It's hard to turn your back on what got us here in the first place.