All Forum Posts by: Chris Nance

I have a wife and kids, who would not be OK with house hacking. I would love to start investing. A lot of the solid examples I have seen for starting out are house hacking. Does anyone have some alternatives?

Do you have examples of where to look for some "small" investments?

I am really nervous about trying to get even a "small" investment to start with. The ones I find that seem at a price point I could get into right now, are really seedy/in really bad areas.

The better ones I keep finding are at price points which seem to high for me to get into with what I have available. I guess I am fighting my "I can't afford this" training.

I am interested in getting to know some established investors in person. I have always been more involved when I am meeting in person. Where should I look to meet a few people, who share this new interest I have found?

I am not looking for a mentor. Just where the professionals go to share experiences. I guess I want to see what I can lean through osmosis, In addition to the other resources I am looking into.

(I am in the Raleigh,NC area)

Thanks @Lana G. I hadn't actually thought about pitching numbers to the forum. I think that would be really helpful. does everyone use the calculators here or are there spreadsheets I can get to do the same thing? I don't really want to put the money into going pro yet (haven't looked into it much), but I know that right now I have a limited number of uses on the calculators. I would like to save them until I am ready to pitch to her again.

 I made it sound like it was mostly her fault that the money goes away. She is really mindful to ask me before spending money, I just say yes to about everything. So offering a bribe when she can have it if she asks is not much incentive. But I like the idea.

Iis there a clearing house of common rents by area? Or do I just have to search the webs, hit the pavement to find them?

I really want to get into multi family. but my only experience (4yrs) is owning my own SFH. How do I get a good feel for repair/maintenance numbers so I can show her accurate numbers?

Yes she was brought up in a wage slave environment, her dad, and gradnpa are retires (with pensions) from IBM, and her mom is still working at her employer hoping that they will come out of bankruptcy so she can retire with the pension she built up (forfeited if she retires while in bankruptcy protection). So, yes that is her mentality. She at least understands that pensions don't happen any more, and that 401k is a equivalent replacement. I used to think that 401k would even be sufficient.

I am having a problem getting her concerned about money. I have a great 9-5 job. As far a the rat-race goes, it is near the top of options. But she is content paying interest to everyone. I want to get on the other end of the interest. We took loans (from family) for my grad school, help with down-payment on our house, etc. She is happy to keep paying these off rather than using the raises I have received to pay them off faster.

Also our family expenses have magically kept up with my raises, even though nothing else has changed.

I took a few moments and read the samples of rich dad poor dad on amazon, and that pointed me to the game cashflow(R). She loves games, maybe I can sneak it in that way.

@Lana G. Thanks for your reply.

One thing is that I don't have the experience to make accurate estimates. I know it and she knows it, so my estimates are subject. (I would hold them as subject, to some degree, even if she did not). It would be nice if there was a (current) resource where we could get examples about properties, practice running the numbers, and then compare against what is actually happening at the property.

Is there a place to get something like that? I can run projections all day, but it would be really helpful if I had some feedback that my numbers are not totally off kilter.

@JD Martin My father first mentioned that he wished he had done real estate investing. She sees other choices he has passed up and thinks everything he suggested is a bad idea.

And what tools did you use to demonstrate to her?