All Forum Posts by: Chad Carson

@Brent Varnadoe Great to have you on here. I'm live and invest nearby in Clemson, but I'm familiar with much of the Upstate.

As a part-time investor, time will be your biggest challenge. There are full-time people who scour deals and lists daily, and when they find a deal they jump on it within seconds.

With that said, you can also have a lot of advantages if you have a full-time job, good credit, etc. Banks like that a lot more than an entrepreneur, so you can get mortgage financing for investments easier.

I don't know what your personal housing situation is, but if you're flexible and willing to move a couple of times, I love the idea of making your residence your first investment.

I used to live in one unit of a 4-plex and lived for free AND then some. I've also moved into houses that later became rentals or flips.

Around here people call those live-in-flips or house-hacking.

Here is a good house hacking article:

https://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/2013/11/0...

And here is are a couple of links about live-in flips:

http://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/2015/07/02...

http://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/2013/02/09...

If you have any questions, feel free to ask any of the great Upstate group on the site.

@Steven Myers, you can't do any better than The Book on Flipping Houses by @J Scott.  I would just focus there for now.

I have bought dozens of copies of that for friends, colleagues, or new investors when they tell me they're interested in flipping houses.  It's got a ton of detail, it's to the point, and it's real world stuff. I've been flipping houses myself since 2003, and I also learned a lot reading (and rereading it). 

It sounds like you're studying, which is a great first step. What are you looking to do? What are the next steps for you?

Best of luck.

@Alexander Bibovski

We use Buildium for a lot of different functions, including as a sort of CRM.  When we get maintenance requests or any other kind of tenant complaint, it goes through the Buildium system and gets attached to a particular tenant.  When it's solved, it gets archived.

What within your business do you need a CRM for?

@Zamir Kazi recently switched to Buildium for 55 units. Previously we used Quickbooks.

We love Buildium so far except it's not as robust for accounting as Quickbooks was.

We particularly like it for the integration of rental online apps, online maintenance requests, and online payment. It's really made our life easier having many different management functions in one place.

Best of luck! That's a lot of growth in one year.

@Joshua Jarvis I saw keep your overhead low and use Mailchimp, which is free for up to 2,000 names. If you just need a list software to let buyers know about deals, it'll work great. You can also segment lists by locations, how they found you, etc.

I think we can complicate the business and spend a lot of money on stuff that doesn't really make us money.  As a wholesaler you'll make your money doing lead generation and making offers. Spend your money and time on that.

Best of luck.

Beautiful rehab, @Austin Lee! I hope you get it under contract soon.

I'm not too far away down in Clemson, SC. I love coming up to WNC. Those views are spectacular. 

I think flying and real estate investing are great comparisons. I actually use that often when talking to others about real estate.

I think the risk similarity is right on.  "Risk-free" is an illusion in investing, flying, or life, so risk mitigation and risk awareness, as you said, are the key.

I think the best at this in the investment world is Warren Buffett. His #1 rule for investing has been not to lose money, and that is all about mitigating risk.  He certainly looks for a return, but he is first and foremost attempting to estimate the risk that a certain purchase will lose principal.  Once that criteria is out of the way, he'll then proceed to look at other factors.

Thanks for sharing! Best of luck with your commercial loan.

Welcome, @Baylus D. Nicholson. I replied to your message as well.

You've chosen the right place. BP is a great resource in so many ways. Be sure to intereact as much as possible here on the forums and in the comment sections of blog posts. That follow-through learning is where a lot of the aha-moments come. Plus you can get help applying what you learn.

Best of luck and we'll stay in touch.

Chad

Best of luck, @David Grimm.  

In addition to posting here on BP, I recommend meeting people locally out in the field. You can do that at local REIA groups, local civic clubs and business groups, talking to realtors who understand investment (not most), and sometimes even just riding neighborhoods and talking to people.

Sometimes boots on the ground are where the magic happen for finding key relationships.

Nice work @Chris C.! Congrats on a job well done and a well-deserved profit.