All Forum Posts by: Chris H.

Personally that's frightening. What is your course of action/thoughts on this Michael?

The metrics you provided, as well what Scott suggested work well. Figuring out the market first will give you a better idea of what your Cap rate should be, what per unit cost is around, rent rolls, and the like. Also if you are able to see a general trend of the area, such as gentrification or increasing market rents it is a good area to buy into.

Once you have these numbers, then you can start analyzing individual properties. Drive around their area, obtain rent rolls, talk to tenants. You can use a simple + or - sliding scale to determine if the property should be looked into more:

+: is it around public transit? (BART or Ace train for the Bay Area)
+: below market rents
+: minor/cosmetic deferred maintenance

OR

-: bad surrounding neighborhood
-: next to an airport/factory/noise pollution.

etc.

There are many books around this topic, and I suggest "How To Buy & Sell Apartment Complexes" by Steve Vollusci if you haven't read it already. Good luck investing!

There are a few options for you, depending on your time availability & learning style. I personally used a mix of online and a city college to complete the necessary classes to obtain my license.

Here is the SF city website: http://www.ccsf.edu/Resources/Real_Estate_Education_Center/colleges/CityCollegeOfSanFrancisco.html

or visit Allied - http://www.alliedschools.com/ for online learning.

Hope this helps!

Scott,

Welcome to the boards. If you're ever in the East Bay Area of California let's grab coffee. Best of luck with your investments.

Chris

I really enjoy SalesForce. They have a lot of plugins & addon programs that help, and you can easily track leads, assign tasks, & have a history of your contact information.

Check them out @ force.com

I am (like everyone else replying to this topic seems to be) obsessed with RE. I sometimes catch myself when walking down the street just admiring and thinking about the buildings surrounding me. Not only if it had beautiful architecture I could admire, but the age of the building, its historical significance if any, the effort to construct it, etc.

I am still in the process of absorbing what I can of RE investing knowledge everyday, but I know that I will enjoy seeing my hard work payoff in something tangible and real. I haven't slaved over hours of painting, or dealing with tenant's problems or the like yet, but I have prepared myself for these situations and certainly think that the pro's outweigh the cons.

Wow.

Jak, that is absolutely amazing!

What cities are you investing in? I know that some of the not fun stuff such as being threatened by a lawsuit and evicting someone sucks, but I'm sure it doesn't outweigh the benefits and high you seem to be on. I hope that it doesn't change! I am still learning and hoping to make the jump soon, and I hope I feel the same way you do.

Best of luck, and I hope to hear updates from you.

I am new to posting here, but this is a great site. The only small nuisance I find is when I try to 'update' a post, or when I send/receive introductory messages (colleague requests) there is a certain character limit that is not known at the time of writing. I was wondering if it is possible to let the character count available be known, or even if you cannot type more after the limit is reached. That would be awesome.

I read the two books that J Scott and Kevin suggested, as well as the book Charles suggested "What Every Real Estate Investor Needs to Know About Cash Flow" for a property management class.

I found them to be very insightful, and got me excited to use multifamily apartment complexes as my investment vehicle.

Thanks again all!

Jason- I actually took a few classes over at DVC! I think I was a stone's throw from you. Feel free to reach out to me anytime.

iGSR96- I used Allied Schools for some of my online classes, and they have some test prep materials. The booklet and DVD's are virtually identical, the only difference is the DVD's have some guy telling you what is written in the book.

I personally didn't enjoy the test taking material, but I think that it did help a little bit.

When I took the exam, there was a lady there who was taking it her second time. She told me her boss gave her some test material known as "expert" something or other, and she said it was the best resource she used. It supposedly had identical questions from the test in their materials.