All Forum Posts by: Heather Hatcher

We're booking a 2 queen bed hotel room at the Hyatt, and we are looking for another awesome couple to split it with. 
380/person for the room in the BP block for the Better Life Summit, Sun May 21- Wed 24

A couple days prior to the event, my partner and I will be taking paragliding lessons and driving around the island if you want to join. #betterlife

A little about us: We both call O'ahu, Hawai'i our home. My partner is a real estate developer, investor and owns his own business. I am a residential real estate agent servicing Oahu and surrounding Hawaiian islands. We hop over to Maui occasionally for showings, kitesurfing, and our new hobby- paragliding. 

Please reach out via text and we can hop on a quick call sometime this week to confirm.
We look forward to meeting you all at the Maui BetterLife REI Summit!

First off, congratulations on starting your journey into real estate!

Like Patrick said, it would be ideal if you could save up before you completely switch over, if being a full-time real estate is your goal.  I'm obsessed with organization, so I created a Google Sheet that automatically calculates what you should budget to save each month and will show you how to save more. You can also alter it as you go and see what your months will look like if you have 0 income (which is totally possible for a couple months starting in real estate).  If you want it, shoot me a message and I can share it via gmail. 

You could also start building up your sphere. Meaning, start reaching out daily to a couple different friends, coworkers or anyone else and catch up. This is so you're on their mind, and once you get your license they will be thinking of you. There are resources you can find that lay out different methods for building up your sphere of influence, but I personally like catching up via phone, meeting up for coffee, or doing something fun as a touch point.  You can also start to create social media 

Other than budgeting and building up your sphere, interview with a lot of different brokerages.  You don't have to go with the very first person you interview with. Make decisions based off your future business. Whether you're joining a team or going solo, ask a lot of questions and ask for the contract so you can review it at home.

And remember: you get out what you put in. So go all in if your goal is to excel as an agent!

Aloha Brandon! Congratulations on getting started on your real estate journey. It can be really fun working with your significant other as long as you both have constant communication about everything. And just like with any business partner, make everything clear by agreeing how things will work and who will have what responsibilities. Then as you go along your deals you can fine tune anything.

My significant other and I started off doing our deals separate and now we have become a team. I'll send you a message and you both can ask any questions you would like!

@Lyndsey Gordon, what a wonderful opportunity! I have the perfect person on Oahu who should be able to partner with you or help you out one way or another: @Zander Kempf

I talked Zander and he is looking forward to chatting with you both. You can send him a message, or feel free to reach out to me and I can connect you.

If you would like help with any part of this awesome real estate journey, don't hesitate to reach out.

Mahalo and enjoy,

Oh no, I'm so sorry to hear this!! If tenant was section 8, no point in suing. I think you may have to bit the bullet on this one, unless there was a lack of communication about a situation.

I would dig deeper into what happened. Section 8 does inspections. Did you get notified they were doing an inspection and that your unit was not in good condition? Section 8 will cancel rent if owners do not make the proper changes. Payments could also be terminated due to the tenant doing something criminal, or if they had an increase in income...etc. Some times section 8 is backed up as well. But since your unit is in bad condition, that may be the issue. 

Next time, call and get more information as soon as you don't get payments. 

@Dong Yan If it's the perfect property and only the side yard fence is facing the street, there are things you can do to limit sound. I have a rental also close to a street, similar situation. First, we replaced the window. Second, we created a barrier between the wall and fence with plants and soundproofing mats. Last tip, we provided the tenants with white noise type equipment! One is a small fountain and the other is a tower fan. It has worked great and there haven't been any issues!

If these things can potentially help, I would consider the deal if the numbers make sense and it's too good to pass up.

Mahalo,

When there's a beach in the basement..

In all seriousness, if the property is in a lava flow hazard zone or high risk flood zone, I will not put effort into looking at these properties. I know too many people affected by these zones and it's always so devastating. I don't want to put anyone in that situation if it's likely to happen.

I'm excited to see what others have on their 'no way list'.

Hey @Steven Foster Wilson Yes, there's a bit of maintenance involved since it's a vehicle and travels long miles. Luckily there aren't too many miles on it hasn't been bad. Regardless, I'd love to do it again. Next time I would fix and flip immediately rather than have it cash flowing for a year -vehicles depreciate so quick. 

Building out another one, traveling in it for the first month or so, then selling it would be the perfect way to invest and get my mainland traveling in since I'm based out of Hawaii. 

I'm curious to see the growth many investors have made!

What was your very first real estate related investment compared to the deal you're currently looking at? Feel free to share dates, tag your investors and reminisce on the good and the bad. Each deal is a stepping stone creating how we invest today or learn about what we should and shouldn't do.

@Scott E. and @Malida Suong we did most of the conversion ourselves to experience it, and we hired a couple guys for the plumbing and electrical work since we didn't want to mess that up.

We did have to go through a few electricians before finishing it. The first few guys who came and went said they could do the job but couldn't and left us with broken [expensive] parts or ghosted us. We finally took our beast into a RV specific electrician to finish the job after a little too much money lost.