All Forum Posts by: Steve S.

well I tried the analyze tool and it appears it wasted 5 minutes of my time. Once I keyed in all my data it tried to sell me an upgrade with no option to move forward without purchasing the upgrade.

Unless I'm using it wrong, it would have been nice for them to tell me that up front and not sneakily collect all my data on my prospective property without me being able to get to the calculated data I was expecting.

I'll probably have to try a tool from another site I suppose.

@Michael Seeker

cool! i'll give that a try. Thanks

What resources or tools do you use and what numbers do you crunch?

Is there a sticky link or website (there has to be something here on bigger pockets) that would allow you to plug in the numbers and make certain etimates and judgements about the quality of a property of a rental) y'all could point me to?

I'm trying to determine what the key metrics are

For example, cash on cash return. NOI, etc. There's so many different numbers and formulas, i'm lost in the ocean of data but clearly not getting to the correct information.

I'm trying, for example, to determine if I purchased a house for say $150,000 and rented it out for $1,500 per month what would tell me if this is a good investment or not?

I'd have to take into consideration all the usual expenses such as taxes, repairs, interest on note, cash down, vacancies, etc. so I get that, and I also have found resources that can help you understand what comparable rents may be going for in the area, but beyond that, I'm not sure how to value if it's a good purchase to rent or not.

These are obviously newbie questions so if there's a link to point me to, that would be awesome. I just haven't found something yet that summarizes that info well and I'm, probably just overlooking it.

Obviously both play a roe, but I have some money to invest and am having trouble getting started.

I think it's more an issue of too much information and knowing what to look for and what the right measures of a quality investment property are.

I'm in the Dallas / Fort Worth area. I'd love to have a realtor or someone that is experienced at acquiring rental properties to work with, but more someone I can trust as opposed to just looking to make fees from my purchase(s).

Any specific links or resource you could recommend to help identify quality properties?

For example, there's a couple of homes in a nice middle to upper middle class neighborhood near Watauga that are going for about $180,000. .15 acres with about 2,300 square feet.

I'm not sure where to begin to evaluate those properties to determine if they would be a good rental investment or not.

I'm trying to get a feel for rent to property value. DFW seems very hard to get to 2%. You're probably lucky if you can get 1%.

I'm looking in areas such as Garland, Mesquite, around Plano and possibly further north past Allen.

Even over towards Ft. Worth near say Watauga, etc.

essentially, I'm evaluating having say $160,000 in a bank account yielding 1.25% vs in a rental property.

thanks Jay. That's exactly what I'mooking to do. I'd like to, in 5 years, be able to generate a minimum of $3,000 / month in profit from a portfolio of real estate assets. That can be done many ways of course and so I begin the DD journey.

I don't want to count on the stock market to provide all my cash flow for early retirement and look at this as a potential hedge against the profligate spending our government has taken on and it's potential impact to stocks.

thanks for the responses. Sorry I wasn't clear. I want to keep about 70% of my investments in stocks / bonds.

The other 30%, give or take, I'd like to invest in a rental property or two. I'd like each property to net $500 per month.

I'm trying to generate cash flow. My net worth is primarily in the stock market. I'd prefer to take upwards of 30% of it and invest in 1 or 2 rental properties.

Should I just randomly call a realtor and provide them this info and get to work?

Is there a better way to find someone to help?

I'm tired of reading and want to start doing but doing the right way so as to help better insure successful cash flow generation.