All Forum Posts by: Cory St. Esprit

I agree with JD. If you have the funds back let it go

Try RelayFI

 Agreed. Our vacation rental is international and 99% is AirBNB

I think the biggest question is why you want to do it, aside from not wanting to waste it. Real estate requires a certain set of knowledge, skills, and abilities. If you don't want to squander it but want more passive, you could invest it in tax-advantaged mutual funds. 

Now, if real estate is something you do want to do, that's a different store. I'd look in your local area for meet up groups, get to know some people, and be patient. Don't think you need to buy the first property that comes your way (I did that initially...actually just sold it at a break-even after all expenses). Now we have 6 more properties (multi-families, vacation rentals and commercials) and have started to "figure it out."

So, should you wait?

1. Is college in your future? If so, your best bet is to graduate debt free. 

2. Do you have consumer debt (car notes, credit cards, etc.)? If so, become debt free on those. 

3. What's your current living situation? (renting, paid for house/condo, etc.). 

4. Do you want to be a landlord? It's not just sitting back and collecting rent checks. Trust me. Listen, my full time job is I own a restaurant franchise portfolio and then we have real estate. This past week, I feel like I spent more time on the real estate than the restaurants (city inspections, building permits, managing a construction crew, late rent from tenants, etc. etc. etc). 

I don't think there's an inherently wrong or right answer here. My biggest piece of advice is don't jump. Just wade in, figure it out, test it out.

@Zac Gorski would love to know what happened here a month later..

There's a lot at play here - but if you don't have the money to repair the problem, you most likely need to look at selling the building and getting out from under it. If you own it outright you could do creative financing, but more than likely selling it the typical way would be easiest/best IMO. 

You could look at filing a complaint against the original contractor - realizing those don't often go anywhere, but it's something. It at least affects ratings on Google and Angies List, maybe saving people in the future from a similar issue. 

We absolutely do pay for things. I mean, I own the building and things break over time - that's my "fault" so it's my expense. That's why we reserve CAPEX. However in this case they knew the water was leaking and didn't notify us. They even said as much to us - they just didn't think anything of it. Well, that's not my fault. I can't fix it if I don't know it's leaking because I don't want to inspect your apartment every single day - you're renting a space for quiet enjoyment....that includes not being bombarded by the landlord daily.

Hardly a progressive but OK and not sure why you're saying I'm being unkind. The OP literally said they're doing illegal things, so I feel zero remorse when folks willingly break the law and then get in trouble. I'm hardly a jerk and I'm hardly trolling. If they didn't want advice, they wouldn't put it on an open forum for the public to judge. 

We had a similar issue - typically $150 a quarter just went to $500. Water company called us to let us know there was high use. Tenant let us know the toilet had been running for a couple months but they neglected to tell us....I told them that was on them. I get things fixed w/in 48 hours, but they admitted they knew about it for 2 months and didn't do anything. 

All I'm reading is "did illegal stuff and got caught..."

Why not just do better?