All Forum Posts by: Steve Carlson

Thank you, Joel.  I've been on here for a while and I guess there was an update asking me to introduce myself, or something.  

What an amazing site.  You're probably too young to remember the infancy and heyday of creonline.com but that's where I learned SO much about investing. Largely from guys like Jim Kennedy and Steve Cook.  Now I'm proud to call those guys friends.  BP is like that on steroids...amazing

I'm a full time investor; been in the game for over 15 years now so I've seen a lot.  I fix and flip and have a rental portfolio as well as sell houses with owner financing.  Target market is in and around San Antonio, TX.  If you're in the area reach out and we'll chat.

Regards

Steve Carlson

That above is great advise. I feel the exit strategy always depends on the value of house and the available financing. If your marketing brings you deals to fix and flip, then flip them and reinvest the profits into cash flowing investments. If you get a great little deal you can buy for 30k and owner finance for 60k as-is, then that's an incredible ROI. Exit strategy to quicky pay down the debt then cash flow it for a while. If the house is in a great rental neighborhood, then rent it and refi in 6-12 months.

If you want to go full time, the goal should be to maximize the return of every deal you can get your hands on. And if you're doing 5-10 wholesale deals /year there is no reason whatsoever you shouldn't be able to maximize the return of your deals by having multiple exit strategies. So find private lenders or a hard money guy to go purchase some of these deals, fix and then flip them and have a 5 figure gain as opposed to wholesale them and get a modest 4 figure gain? If there possible L/O deals, then utilize that strategy.

Get beyond the wholesaler mentality that the deal has go fit into a certain box.  But rather create a solution to every potential sellers problem.  

That all depends on your needs and goals. If you want massive paydown of debt and desire to have the property free and clear in 5-7 years, then work real hard to get $0 cash flow now and big cash flow later. If you need to live off some of the cash flow now, the minimum I would target with a private lender loan of 8-9% is $200/month after PITI, modest vacancies and repairs.

I like the question a lot. My opinion is that the real estate entrepreneur needs to think of their business generating 1) cash now, 2) cash flow and 3) cash later. Here's how my business has evolved to get that result. I fix-n-flip median or higher priced houses for cash now; buy really cheap houses and sell with owner finance for cash flow; and buy just below median priced houses and rent for cash later. Now if you have a great day job and want to leave the flipping (a job itself) to others, then by all means, purchase cash flow and/or cash later properties.

Timeline: I started flipping 14 years ago, then started buying cash flowing and rental properties 10 years ago… all part-time. 3 years ago I was able to leave my job because I had almost replaced my engineering income with the occasional flip and 15 or so cash flowing properties.

Now, it's still not by any means all passive income. I work at least 5 days/week with the occasional week vacation and half days off here and there, but it is work I thoroughly enjoy. And in the past 3 years, my net worth has skyrocketed, income has doubled, and quality of life increased infinitely.