All Forum Posts by: Jack Galloway

There are lots of good deals in my area and it is a strong renter market. The variable that I don't know how nail down is how much a property will ACTUALLY rent for per month. Agents and prop mgrs seem to want to guess high. But I need to have a more realistic opinion of what houses in one neighborhood rent for vs a similar neighborhood across town. Any suggestions? Jack in Franklin TN

Very solid advice, thanks all.

Alex, I am in (Williamson county) Franklin TN just south of Nashville. The homes I am typically looking at are middle class homes in or just outside of Franklin. 1300 sq ft, 3 bdrms in a neighborhood. I am regularly seeing these homes that sold for $160k seven or eight years ago that are now for sale in the $125k range. Rents on these are in the $1300 per month range depending on the neighborhood and whether the home is in Franklin or if it's further out. And our area is a strong rental area.
The smaller/older/cheaper homes seem a little out of my league right now. I'm more in the market to buy four or five of these middle class homes I'm describing for cash and build a good income stream.

The hard part seems to be seperating the good deals from the really good deals. ~ Jack

I'm a newbie, ready to begin purchasing homes for investment income with cash. In my area, there are homes everywhere that are priced well below what they sold for a decade ago. And the rental market is strong. So my problem is that there so many nice homes priced low that it's tough to seperate the good deals from the best deals. Do you have advice on a resource or template or system that will let me quickly run potential deals through it in order to sort of "score" them in order to compare them to each other? Thanks, Jack in middle TN

I'm looking for a commercial real estate investing club in the middle Tennessee area. (Nashville, Franklin, etc.) Not on on the biggerpockets list nearby. Anyone know of one? ~ Jack

Thanks B!
Yes, I'd love to check out your prospective PM document. You can email it to me at [REMOVED]

If I choose to self manage, what's the single best place/book/course that will teach me the fundamentals of managing 1 property top to bottom?

I'm strongly considering diversifying my investment portfolio with real estate. My top three motivations are:

1. Diversifying: A place to put money in addition to the stock mkt.
2. Appreciation: Single family homes seem way undervalued still
3. Income: Building an additional income stream over time
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I am planning to find a good local prop mgmt co to handle details. My first purchase will be a cash purchase, so no mortgage to cash flow. My main goal is to learn the process with one property, make sure it's for me, then add properties later.

All of that to ask...is this likely to be a high maintenance investment? Or if I choose a decent property and good prop mgmt co, can it be low maintenance?

Does the location of your property mgmt company matter? If I live in one community and have rentals in another community 30 minutes away...should my prop mgmt co be located close to my rentals? Or close to my office in my community? ~ Jack

What are some creative ways to meet the requirements for claiming land as a farm for tax purposes, allowing me to deduct all related expenses?

Details: I recently purchased 10 acres with a house, barn, pond, etc. I do not intend to live in the house. It is a recreational farm for me now. I would like to find a way to ethically and legally meet the minimum requirements to claim this as a farm next year. But from what I've read, it's not easy to do, attracts the IRS and requires you to put a lot of energy into actually running the full time business in order to qualify. I would like to find a low maintenance way to meet the qualifications.