All Forum Posts by: Chad Carson

I personally use real estate investing, but there are also other viable paths.  Stocks, businesses, index funds, etc can all work. I think a lot depends on your personality and interests.  

But I will say that real estate investing gives much more control with things like the timing of your wealth building. For example, you can buy rentals, do a  debt snowball , and time pretty well when you'll be financially independent. Other avenues - you're more at the mercy of the market. 

So pretty much real estate people seem to be control freaks (in a good way:)!

Hi fellow BP members. I'm helping Bigger Pockets work on a project about using real estate investing to retire early (aka achieve financial independence).

Would you mind taking a brief survey (mostly multiple choice & took me less than 2 minutes to answer):

• Real Estate Early Retirement Survey

This survey will help us learn more about how you use (or have already used) real estate investing in your wealth building and retirement/financial independence plans.

Thank you for your help! Feel free to reply and leave comments to let me know what you think. 

@Matt H.

 Why not make a loan to your girlfriend? She then uses it plus her cash to build the accessory dwelling unit. Secure your loan with a second mortgage against the property. If anything changes in your relationship in the future, she'll have to pay your loan off when it's due or when she sells.

And in the loan documents, you can either have her pay you interest + principal (simplest) or do some sort of profit sharing.  

I like that mortgage much better than messing with an LLC, shares, etc. You don't want any more messiness or complication than necessary.

@Matt H.

Tyler, I don't have anything for sale at the moment or have any properties to broker. But I Clemson is where I've lived and invested for 15 years, and I own student rentals and know other people in town. I'd be happy to connect and perhaps there's a way to help each other down the road.

@Andrew Merritt - yeah, Clemson is a small market with big demand. You'll need to hunt some and be patient. Good luck.

@Damion Anderson , I'm out of town from Clemson this year, but I know the rental laws pretty well in Clemson. I have not heard of any major changes that would prevent you from doing BRRRR deals, house hacks, rentals or anything else. For duplexes or houses you're already required to get a rental license, which is $100 per year fee and a yearly inspection with a city official. The only change I could see is requiring all apartments to do this.

The issue you have may be just finding inventory. You'll have to hunt around. But there are plenty of smaller, more affordable townhouses even if you can't find bigger apartment units.  You could then rent out extra bedrooms to other students to cover your mortgage (house hack).

Good luck getting rolling! And Go Tigers!

@Bob E. - Thank you for your detailed answer. That helps a lot.

If you can't use an online portal, do they send any kind of statement? Or is there just a deposit to your account and that's it?

Hey Andrew, I also invest and live in Clemson.  I self-manage some, but others I have Eric Newton and Tiger Properties manage. They do a good job,  and Eric is a good guy. He can also be your agent (if he has time - he's super busy). 

http://ericnewton.com/tiger-properties/

There are also a lot of other good agents. I personally like John Malmgren with Carolina Realty , who is a long-time resident, knowledgeable about the market, and a super-nice guy.

best of luck!

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for a 3rd party loan servicer for some private/seller financing notes. If you currently use a loan servicer, would you mind replying and telling me:

• who you use?
• how much they charge you?
• your thoughts/experience with this company?
• what are the most important criteria you recommend in a loan servicer?

Thanks for your time! I've searched past posts for recommendations on loan servicers. I have same names, but I was hoping to get some first-hand recommendations and experience from others.

Cheers!

Really interesting stats, Chris! Thanks for taking the time to put this together. I find it interesting that more IRAs are buying then lending and that more are flipping than renting.