All Forum Posts by: Chris Stroup

I suggest Alotta Properties.  Gil and his team are great.  

For higher-end rentals I recommend Nest.  

I got medically discharged from the Army late last year.  It can be a tough transition but having something lined up for when you get out makes it easier.  Having a purpose and a group to belong to is really important.  Real estate has provided all the for me.  I found a great team to be a Realtor on and I partnered with a couple other Army guys.  It is going to be tough but there are so many options and you will have the freedom to create the life that you want.  

It is definitely possible to scale that quickly.  The fasted way to do it? Find other people with the same goal and the same amount of money as you.  Make sure each person has different skills.  In my partnership, we have a contractor, a Realtor, a guy that deals with the book keeper and all the money things, and well a guy that is always deployed. hahahahaha.  Everyone has a strength that complements someone else's weakness.  An example, 2 of the guys are quick to take action, sometimes in the wrong direction.  Quick to action can be great but to compliment them, I am a bit calmer and collected.  This comes in handy when a contractor does something stupid but we still need to keep the relationship.  The quick to action comes in handy when we have a person that won't leave our Airbnb hours after their checkout time and they are causing problems.

Real estate is amazing and if you really dive in it is life-changing.  

My real estate investments are almost to a point where they fund themselves. We have enough in our partnership to keep recycling the money by doing BRRRR's. We also don't take out any of the cash flow. But, I am a real estate agent and that money is for real estate investing. Knife-making money goes towards growing the knife-making business.

Since my post, I hired a full time employee and I started talking to two more gun stores.  No more houses under contract though.  

My goal is to purchase 1 investment property a month.  

So far this year: Closed 1 SFH

Duplex closing next week.

SFH under contract

Triplex under contract.  

If all of those close that is 7 in the first quarter.  So I am on track to at least meet 12 this year but hopefully crush it.  I have partners so this is not just me, alone.  

I am also growing my knife business.  By the end of the year, I want my knives in 10 high-performing gun/ outdoor stores.  We got 3,4 and 5 locked in over the last week.  Right now we are out of knives and have tons of orders to catch up on.  

We just brought a guy on full time and we have our nanny helping when the kids are in school.  We are working on buying a CNC machine this week to cut out the handles and drill the holes for us, saving time and material cost.  

That's a neat idea.  Find people that are doing short-term rentals in your area and pick their brain.  Are you going to manage it?  If so have a maintenance person and a cleaning crew on stand by.  Get professional photos and stage the place with quality furnishings.  Find people in the area that are doing what you want to do and learn from them.  

It seems like you are pretty confident in your numbers, what is holding you back from pulling the trigger?

We are buying when it makes sense. We just closed on a SFH last week. We close on a duplex this week and just got a SFH under contract over the weekend. We are also working a sub2 deal on a townhouse.

Deals are harder to come by but being patient and tell everyone you know what you are looking for helps a lot.  

With that much money, you have so many options.  All the options!  What are you interested in?  What do you have experience in?  With that amount of money you need to be careful because it is easy to burn through money in real estate.  Do your research on you can do something great.  

I like the idea of vacation rentals.  Right now we are doing short-term rentals in our local area but I'm positioning to purchase a small multifamily in Carolina Beach to make into short-term rentals.  

I have no experience with apartment complexes but I know people that do great with them.  

There is no wrong or right answer to your question.  Do your research.  I find that people do their best with things that they are interested in.  So find what excites you and get after it.

The hardest and most important step is the first one.  Do your homework like @Joe Aiola said.  When you are confident in your numbers it is much easier to purchase and feel good about your decision.  I also recommend getting a partner or two.  I have four people in my partnership and it is great.  Each person specializes in one aspect.  Being able to bounce ideas and review numbers with each other is worth so much.  I would not be able to scale as quickly as we are by myself no matter how much money I have.  

I'm also a Realtor and work with investor clients.  Helping them with transactions has helped me learn faster and be more comfortable buying my own properties.  I have only sold a few houses to people as a primary residence, all the rest have been working with investors.  

Any reason you don't want to invest somewhere in the States?  There are many people that invest from afar.  If you find the right team and learn the market it is a great way to invest.  I have clients that have never been to my area that own investments that are doing really well.  I don't really know but it might be a lot easier than trying to learn all the rules and get funding in Germany.  

This all depends on your goals.  It is not performing as well as other properties can in Fayetteville.  My goal is passive income and I would sell and roll the money into something profitable.  If you use a 15% down investor loan you might be able to get two properties or a duplex.  In Fayetteville multifamily homes can be hard to come by though.  There are so many things you can do with that money that can create more cashflow.