All Forum Posts by: Frank Chin

I invested in real estate for over 35 years. I retired now, cashed out on a number, and left a few mortgage free ones with good cash flow.

I'm in the New York City area, and it's hard to cash flow initially. But appreciation is fantastic, so I put enough down for little or no initial cash flow.  But they all cash flow very well in about 5 - 10  years time. I sold my rentals for over 4 times what I paid for them after 20 years, and some over 5 times. Taking into consideration I put 10% to 20% down initially, mortgages paid down considerably, I made back 20 to 30 times the initial investment.

So, in answer to your question, I make my killing on appreciation, and the monthly cash low is just icing on the cake. 

Blue collar areas are the best. I prefer blue collar tenants as they don't mind to mow the lawns, and get their hands dirty doing minor repairs. I rented to blue collar tenants who stayed with me 8 - 10 years, and never called once on a repair, even though the lease calls for them to cover repairs up to $100.00. At one house, the gutters were all crooked. A few months later, I went by to see if it got worst before I call a gutter guy. I was surprised it's all straightened out. The tenant told me the nails got loose and he just re-nailed everything, and it's no big deal. It was funny his wife heard it, yelled over to say he was besides himself one day, complaining he had nothing to do, so she said "in that case, why don't you get busy and straighten out the gutters".

This compares to a white collar tenant. Got a complaint that a doorknob is is loose, so I told him just to tighten the screws at the doorknob. His answer?? He doesn't own any screwdrivers. What did I do? I bought a screwdriver set, went over to tighten the doorknob, gifted him the screwdrivers, and told him "next time, you don't have to wait for me.

Make sure you feel comfortable with the neighborhood. I usually walk or drive around the neighborhood to make sure I'm comfortable living there before investing.