All Forum Posts by: David H.

I've heard of landlords who give their tenants deposit slips so the tenant can pay directly into a bank.

If I have two tenants, both with the same rent (let's say $1200), how do I know who paid and who didn't if I see one transaction for $1200?

we still got stuff from the S&L crisis, so older than some of our members.

while the portfolio is older than ten years, there's a vintage effect. It's not like you buy stuff that's really old, then stop buying and never sell. There's constant inflows and outflows.

i think what you're asking is what do the reinvestment costs look like. In general, I'd say they are in line with expectations. Just make sure you expect to have hail damage, new carpet, damaged appliances, plumbing problems, fires, and hurricanes. We run into all of those problems and expected to.

if you didn't expect to get those costs, then you need to reassess why.

I'm sorry, but this thread is full of amateurs.

401k is a law, not an asset class. Real estate is an asset class. My 401k plan is partially invested in real estate. True statement.

I think the partly ignorant op was probably asking if he should invest in common stock or real estate. Why does it have to be one or the other? Do both.

The advice bring thrown around against diversification needs to stop. The benefit is real. There are some young kids reading this, as evidenced by several prior posts, who could get seriously hurt following bad advice posted on this thread.

yeah. I'm pretty familiar with the area. It helps to know blocks and neighborhoods. You get a leg up on the out of state investors who think looking at pictures and listening to an agent works. Building relationships with the same people matters a lot when a deal dies and someone needs an investor who can close.

I actually rent a place in ne, which I guess is closer to 1500mi, but who's counting. It ends up being a plane ride away. I'll probably give up this gig in a year and retire back in LA.

two thousand miles, have PM and agent who knows what I want, local bankers who understand my strategy and know the neighborhoods.

If you try to  buy off hubzu and finance with quicken loans, good luck. You need a team that knows you're serious. Going in with one house doesn't get you respect.

Mostly because I live in the "hot" part of town where it's basically cash flow negative.  My landlord thinks he's making money, but he's got so much cash in the property that I guess he's not losing like some of the others out there, but his return is single digits with lots of equity.  With the market being what it is, prices haven't gone up in my townhouse for 10 years.  That's right.  This "hot" townhouse is worth about exactly what it was ten years ago with no cashflow.

Instead of dumping my money into "safe" and "hot" real estate, I invest in places where others are too afraid or ignorant to go.  That's how I make my money.  Everyone has their strategy, but this seems to work for me.  

I'm investing in the South, and I'm getting 15-20% with medium level risk.  

It's not about retiring poor. It's about retiring and having an -AVERAGE- tax rate that lower than your current -MARGINAL- tax rate. If you deduct your taxes now at say, 30%, you need to be in a lower AVERAGE rate in your retirement years. Part of the assumption is that you aren't working in retirement, so your investment income from your 401k/IRA is tax free for the first 10-20k (depends on tax brackets), then 10%, 15%, etc.... progressive tax rates. It will almost surely be that you will have lower average tax on your distribution compared to your marginal bracket today. If many of you are like me and have a lot in your 401k and expect to be in a high marginal bracket at distribution, then it starts to make more sense to start using the Roth 401k so you can gross up the effective contributions and not have to worry about getting taxed on the back end.