All Forum Posts by: Ethan Lee

@Rich Becker yes we set up an LLC. We've been told conventional loans are extremely difficult (if not impossible) to get under a business name, so we acquired them in our own names and will transfer them to our LLC. We've read that this may trigger the due on sale clause and banks could call our loans in the future, but apparently this is highly unlikely to happen. Moving forward, we will struggle to get conventional lending with our current DTI and rental income not showing up on tax returns quite yet, so we will probably use portfolio lenders, which are easier to use with an LLC.

Thank you @Jennifer Williams @Sam Albert!

Thanks @John Moon! Yes it's 50/50 although I own one property by myself from just before we started our partnership, and he owns his primary residence himself that he house hacks. I have the majority of the total cashflow because the property I own myself is the largest in our portfolio (for now :) 

@Eugene Beard I just moved from LA to Florida. I started investing while in LA, but the numbers worked much better elsewhere, so I started with out of state investing in the town I grew up in in Delaware. Now we have rentals there, in South Carolina where my business partner lives, and working on getting some here in Florida. 

We typically look in C areas as they offer the most cash flow without being too low income or dangerous. Cash flow is our priority until we can both go full time and make $5k+ per month, then we'll transition to more steady/passive/appreciation areas that will give us the best chance to grow long term wealth. They'll also be easier to manage which is important as our portfolio grows. Hopefully this will include apartment buildings as we move bigger over time.

We pick the best deals we can find in all three locations, put them in our calculator to figure out a return, then do in depth research to see if a deal is worth the risk/reward! We won't look at anything unless it's at least 20% cash on cash return, although we prefer the 30-40% range (especially since we're in C areas) which we've been able to get on a few of rentals so far thanks to great deals on the front end.

Thank you @Alex Shaughnessy! @Lauren Lockett thanks, let's grind this out and build empires! haha. Means a lot @Kalyanii K. thank you!!

Thanks @Account Closed! Absorb as much as you can and start evaluating deals, even if you don't have the money, so that you're good at it and can jump on a good deal as soon as you're ready. Good luck!

@Eric Armstrong thanks for the suggestion! I'll check it out

I left the Los Angeles area a month and a half ago and moved to Jacksonville. One of the biggest reasons was absolutely financial. I started investing out of state while I was in California, but it's nice to be able to go visit properties and literally drive through neighborhoods now that I live where I will be investing. So far I love it here and there seems to be decent opportunity for rentals and flips. Obviously I'm not an expert yet and quick searches on listing sites do not show many multifamilies for sale, but from what I can tell there are plenty out there to make your house hacking strategy a possibility.

@Eugene Beard thanks, it feels great! I've been frugal all my life and continue to live that lifestyle to reach my goals. For example, despite living in expensive Los Angeles for 1.5 years and having jobs that did not pay much more than minimum wage, my wife and I saved about 35k (half of our gross income) while we were there. We rented a bedroom in a house, packed our lunches every day, rarely ate out for dinner, and started a side business of wedding photography to use our skills and free time to bring in money outside of our 9-5 jobs. We invested in a quad first (closed in August) using about 75% of our savings (we had a nice chunk even before saving 35k from income). That cash flows $1000 per month, so within a few months, we felt safe getting another property. Meanwhile, my business partner found a triplex to BRRRR (October), so we found a private lender (his grandmother) to cover the purchase and we split the rehab cost. In May, we will refinance and should get all of our money back out.

In December, we found a duplex, which was not hard to afford with savings from our jobs and income from the quad. My business partner was able to get a cheap condo in there too and house hacks that to have all of his expenses paid. Now, my bare minimum expenses are paid through cash flow and I rebuilt my savings a little bit before quitting my job at the end of 2017. We still live frugally because we want to keep saving money to buy more properties. We did all conventional financing as it was not hard to qualify with my job and my business partner's fairly high paying job.

@Jailen Holt @Nahid Alipour @Ujwal Velagapudi @Jay De Guzman thank you all!