All Forum Posts by: Henry J.

I only have couple of years of working with turnkey so take it with a grain of salt. I have had good luck working with my PM / provider after meeting her 3 years ago and I'm still working with her on new deals. Responsiveness is key IMO. If they don't get back to you promptly, it's a red flag. Double check the numbers - you have to do your own due diligence. In addition to the CMA I get from provider, I usually check the rent and sales price around the neighborhood on zillow just to make sure it's within range. I'm sure people have better tools than zillow so please share your thoughts on that. I'm old school so I like to meet the person. I send an email with questions to get an idea 1st. Also ask for references with more than 1 year relationship. One more thing - everyone is different so it's important to set proper expectation. You can't stop people from lying to you but do your homework and hopefully you can eliminate some of the bad apples before your start. Good luck and share stories when you have some!

David - get info from your HR dept on the plans they offer - if they offer ROTH 401k or not, in addition to the fees and stock/funds they offer. You need to spend some time studying them. I think people already gave you the difference between 401k and ROTH 401k. It depends on if you want to take advantage of the tax defer (401k) or tax free earning (Roth 401k) advantage. Depending on your tax bracket, if it's low, it makes sense to use ROTH 401k option. If you are in the 28+% it may not make sense. If your company doesn't offer Roth option, you can always open an account with Vanguard, TD america, etc low fee providers. Google the Roth IRA income limit to make sure you qualify - I think it's somewhere around $128k. There is a lot of info already so figure out how much you can afford to stack away and keep going.

You might want to do more study on investopedia site or the likes on 401k... Quick things to consider - What company is the 401k offered through? If it's one of the low fee companies like Vanguard then you are in good shape, but still do more work on fees. If it's not one of those low fee companies you will need to spend more time studying. Find out what options your company provides, with fee info and type of investment and past performance. Find out the matching amount. Know how much you want to contribute to get the 'free' matching company contribution. Definitely contribute to get the maximum matching amount you can afford. Decide if you want to use target date fund, if your company offers it, and if the fee is less than 1%. (Target date fund usually has a name with a year in it) If the fees are high, find total market index fund or S&P fund and check their fees. Usually index funds have lower fees but not always true. Hope that helps. Henry

It's been a while since I did this because internet is widely available where I travel so take it with grain of salt and test it. I believe you can always print the web page into PDF format to read on your laptop, if you have PDF converter type of software. Yes, it will require a little bit of planning ahead, but I guess you'll have to choose between planning ahead or give out your email address. Hope that helps!

I'm very new to RE investing so just sharing my experience. I don't know about other DFW investors but I'm experiencing major property tax increase this year due to comps going higher. I can't raise my rent high enough since I don't want to take the chance of a vacant property. There are also quite a lot of for sale and for properties there if you look on zillow. I got discouraged many times looking at an area seeing a sea of blue and red that I don't know if it's a good decision or not. Insurance was rising last year but I ended up raising my deductibles to lower my premium. I'm not sure how bad it will be next year. Lastly I'm hearing there are a lot of hedge fund activities. Not sure how that is affecting my holdings but it may come to play when I sell my properties. I'm hoping that I will hold them forever but one can't plan everything... Happy investing!