All Forum Posts by: Devin Deswert

+1 to REIT's. If you use robinhood it's no commissions. I actually don't know why a lot of people don't use that as a entry into REI. Low entry buy in's and real returns.

When it comes to taxes and people say creative it generally means tax evasion or fraud. Black and white the answer is no but you can find a CPA that will say yes but will more then likely not back you up during a audit. At the end of the day the burden of proof is on you. So notes of who you talked to mileage and addresses you drove to things like that. As for meals it's only 50% if it's a business expense. But not a CPA but have regular talks with them.

Cap rates are a good initial number to run. And I like the bond analogy. Cap rates vary from area to area and from type of building. But I've found north of 6% and under 8% seems to be a solid band to work in. Less then 6% I find the quality on property and tenet isn't much better on 5% cap property. North of 8% you start seeing a diminishing quality in tenet and deferred maintenance. This is from my experience from the west coast and the Rockies

It's not French. It's terms investors know. This site kinda blows my mind. I've been investing 10 years now. Only recently did I get referenced to the site by a friend, almost as entertainment. If I was on my computer I would use the @ to call out the investors that it's clear they have been doing this awhile and know how to run the numbers. I just wish there was a way to identify these people better. It's like day traders who don't know what the 10-k form is or P/E ratio. Just new flashy terms like house hacking or brrrr. Anyways rant over. Just dig deeper in your education. Goto your local real estate club with a folder of a deal you put together find the commercial lender hanging out and walk though putting the financing though.

I can't speak for 100% of the markets and I'm not saying there isn't one off deals that pop up. But I know for my areas I can expect a cap rate of 5-7% and to put down 25% for non owner occupied. So when a seller is selling a place he's going to know that investors are going to run the numbers looking at cap and cash flow with 25% down. He's going to price his property accordingly. But if you feel he needs to take 25% off the property price to be a worth while investment then go for it. But first I would run some numbers on some comps. If your area runs a cap around 8% and this one is coming in at 6% then you know you might have some wiggle room. In that cases that guys only getting lower offers sent in so you might as well be one of them. Because in a case like that no one is rushing to pay full price.

You really can't expect a owner occupied property to cash flow with 3.5% down. Start looking at it with 25% down, that's what investors look to put down on a place. If the numbers still don't work. Then the price needs to adjusted durning negations.

I would keep it if your income can support it. With a exit of selling it or cash out refi your main residence when you have enough equity to pay off the rental, or just refinance the rental. You are in cheap money right now. The reason I say that is you are about done with a 15 year mortgage. Most of your interest has been paid. If you where to sell and leverage into multiple places and end up with a 400k dollar loan on multiple property's you will of made 90k or so in interest payment in the same 5-6 years it will take you to pay off the one property. You can't invest in real estate with taking some lumps. I would take the pain now. A paid off rental in your portfolio will lessen blows down the road. But personally I would take 1 rental making 1400 a month any day over 14 places making 100 a door. It's only ever 1 bad tenet and only 1 broken water heater... etc. But the general consensus on the forums is leverage add doors leverage some more. To me that gets you a house of cards. And I'm not sure what's up with the short sale comment. I must not be read up on them. I though that's for when you are underwater and can't make payments.

The company I work for does this a lot. I think we prefer it to hotels, just feels more like home when away from home. I can't speak for everyone. But we have always treated a place like home assign chores and alternate cooking duties. You can get more by charging per head then just a flat rate fee and more along the lines of hotel pricing.

I'm going to say bad deal and not even going to run the numbers. Just with signs of deferred maintenance in a C neighborhood. And for the fact you are in escrow and can't tell if it's a good deal or not. Bakersfield is a rough town so being brand new in a Bakersfield C area... well your about to learn and either be able to handle any deal or get broken. But best of luck... have the home bar stocked.

Vacancy rate is a little low for west valley city depending on where you are I would run it at 10%. One of the biggest hurdles I've found in the area is not lack of people to show a place to but instead 30 applications with bad credit or can't meet the income requirements. Not a bad area but it seems to attract the lower end of tenets. And what Williams said your financing numbers are pretty low unless you plan to occupy.