All Forum Posts by: David Zheng

I feel like as a section 8 landlord you have to be more unfeeling and rock solid than most. If you continue to go about the emotional route of treating your tenants, you're going to burn yourself out really fast. Business is business.

personally  I would buy a starter home that can become a rental when I decide to move out.

here's my story for what its worth

I bought my first 1000 sq ft 2b1b condo when I was 24 for 100k. didn't even think about REI seriously but I figured the area was a good rental place for when I wanted to get out. started investing in real estate late 25 years old. kept grinding it out and finally decided to upgrade.

at 26 I bought a nice 2200 sqft 3b2b house for 300k (yes just for my single self). is this my forever home? nah...but definitely still something I will be in for at least a couple years and is a good home base close to my rentals.

the area is coming up nicely and I'm pretty sure any interest I "lose" will be recouped and then some with the appreciation (hopefully) if I sell. Worse comes to worse, the interest in my mind is worth the fact that I'm happy with living here.

The condo I used to be in is now generating rents of 1550/m  so that turned out great too.

ultimate goal? beachside home in Cali. and some nice condos among different countries.

so hopefully it gives you an idea that things change. people change. where you want to live will probably change. don't worry about losing interest now to a starter home as long as you have a good exit strategy. besides you're gonna lost more interest on your expensive "forever" home.

Love that you hit all the big strategies in REI (wholesaling, flipping, and buy/hold). Congrats on the success!

Do you mind sharing how your 2018 income is split among wholesaling, flipping, B&H? which ones seemed to be the most profitable for your time?

Again super inspiring :)

@Victor S. still need a downpayment

@Kai Van Leuven

The only reason I did the cashout refi as fast as I did was to get out of the HML and private loans. high interest only payments and no equity paydown. not worth it to wait it out in my book

I'd wait if I were you unless you also have some ridiculous loan or theres a killer deal you cannot pass up

@Thomas D.

Fight me. Seriously.


@Ben Leybovich


As others have said, it might help to go straight to  whirlpool, fridgeair and ask for a discount with no middleman

OR get yourself a nice alliant 3% cashback credit card/lowes 5% card and then buy one of those Lowes 10% off coupons on ebay and bam that's a a couple hundred in savings per set right there

@Steve Vaughan

Haha you may be right. I had a glorious $2.5 million value in my head and thinking about cashing out $450,000+ had all kinds of lambos driving around in my head. just kidding :p

But that would have been some nice money to play with on future investments which will in turn...= a better car haha

@Cristian Aviles-Morales I don't really like sharing the nitty gritty but here's some short answers

1. tenants moving in earlier than they should have caused occupational permit issues. work permits I didn't know I needed were required. some ahole competitor who lost the deal to me I'm pretty sure knocked down some electrical wiring to one of the buildings and mysteriously the day after an "anonymous" caller reported it to the city. some guy harassing my contractors while they were working which I'm pretty sure was the same guy who vandalized my wires.

2. my elevator pitch to short term investors. would you rather generate .01% in a checking account or invest with me and get an annualized 8% back on your money. you're basically making 800 times more. Also you can ask me REI questions in the future cause I ignore most of the people who do ask me

@Kai Van Leuven I'm a single guy with no family so not much else to stress about. the thoughts of riches and freedom in the future. I had a very Chinese upbringing so really just putting myself in the emotionless robot work mindset most of the time.