All Forum Posts by: Emily B.

@Jake Kozul I'm not in your position yet, but that is my goal as well. I noticed you didn't mention any reserves or savings and I wonder if that would help ease a bit of the trepidation you have with jumping out of the rat race for good. I have been taking this approach myself, both saving to pay cash for deals as well as a personal reserve that I'm hoping will both pay off for me in a couple of years when I too can be taking that first step onto the wire. :)

I'm very excited to hear about people like you actually doing this and hitting the "can I quit my job now" mark, it's very inspiring to a newbie. And while I'm not there yet, would you be willing to talk more about the system you've used to manage your properties while working? I'm planning to manage myself too and am looking for suggestions on how to best set that up.

Otherwise, it sounds like you're well on your way! Congrats!

@Eric Giovannucci I found mine at meetup.com by searching for terms like 'real estate' and 'investors', just to start. It also helped me find groups in surrounding cities as well. That's my next big step - going to one outside of my local area (and comfort zone). :)

Just start going to one (I found local meetups in my area starting with meetup.com) and chat with whoever will talk to you. It can be intimidating, I'm still new, but just start with one meeting, one person, and then work your way to the next one and the next. I found that some were quite willing to talk to me about being a newbie and it wasn't as intimidating as I made it out to be in my head. When you find those people, ask questions. Whatever newbie questions I had, I was always able to find someone willing to share their insights (deciphering the usefulness of those insights is another skill). Now I'm a regular attendee and still making new connections. Just jump in and do it, that's what I had to tell myself. Good luck!

@Tuan Le I have a little bit, but it got me thinking that maybe there is something else already out there, possibly even geared towards investors, so I wanted to ask.

@Fred T. thanks for the suggestion, I'll look into it!

Thanks for the example, @Joe Villeneuve it helps to see how that breaks down.

Hi all,

I'm wondering if there are mapping tools out there that easily allow the ability to highlight areas or neighborhoods for your own tracking purposes? I'm in the process of learning what are good neighborhoods and bad where I'm looking to invest and would like to find a nice way to do this electronically. Yes, I realize I can get a map of my city and use different highlighters to mark it up accordingly, but I want the electronic equivalent of this if possible. Any suggestions?

@Joe Villeneuve can you share an example of how this might work? Or has worked for you?

@Joe Villeneuve when you say that you move a property in and out of the LLC for financing, does that mean you are just quit-claiming it from your name to the LLC (or vice versa)?

This is something I have been trying to wrap my head around because I don't want to hold a property in my name, but it's difficult to find financing for an LLC vs. myself.

@Peter Mckernan for future reference, my experience with FreshBooks is that it's nice for invoicing, but a little clunky (in my opinion) for other things. I use it for my freelance web/design business, which it works great for, but I wouldn't use it for property management, given what other programs can handle.

@Kristy Jackson hello and welcome! A Lansing-area group that I have been going to is real estate investors of Lansing. It's been helpful whenever they've had speakers lined up. If you search the meetup site you can probably find one in your area too. Ann Arbor has one that seems very active, but I have yet to make it over to one of theirs. Good luck!