All Forum Posts by: Jake Cowley

@Eric Blackwell @Christopher Burge @Adrienne Green @Phillip Moses
I'm happy to talk to anyone looking to get started in the Chatt market. As a FYI, we have a solid FB presence in Chattanooga where we do 2 monthly meetups non-REIA. Great group of investors always get together and love meeting new people.
@Kelly Rastatter is the one who runs it. 

@Joshua Nason 
I've used Chattanooga Appliance Doctor and Mr Electric for those small repairs. They are both great.

@Cody Gagnon- I actually looked into this strategy within the UTC area earlier this year after hearing some podcast interviews from investors like @Todd Baldwin and others out in PNW. I spoke with some of the zoning and ordinance people and their recommendation was to focus in on properties zoned for boarding houses (R-3/R-4) if you plan to look for properties where you will not be living in it and has 3 or more bedrooms and renting to un-related tenants. 

I didn't research too much into it because an STR opportunity in the smokies popped up and I jumped on that. I'm sure there's plenty of people doing it in our area but there is a HUGE need for it here in Chattanooga. I do plan on checking back into this soon because we want to add this strategy to our portfolio.

@Marlen Weber Thank you! I'm happy to share so that hopefully others don't make the same mistake that I did. :)

@Will Fraser Thanks Will! Great point on re-visiting the goals. We actually schedule date weekends specifically for us to send the kids off to the grandparents and for us to sit down and discuss our current/future goals along with role check-ins. We picked this up from Wendy and Jay Papasan's episode on BP. Their episode is full of great tips!

Hi BP community,

I wanted to take some time to share some lessons I learned while trying to get my wife onboard with REI.

Hope this helps others!

1. Don’t wait to share your ideas or goals until you think that you have all the answers
I LITERALLY did everything wrong on trying to get your significant other onboard with REI.
Everything ranging from giving vague answers as to why I was spending long nights on the computer searching a website about real estate to talking about buying our 1st property without seeking her input as to why this would be a good thing for our family.

What I should have done was this:

• a. Share with her what my thoughts and goals were for this new journey.
• b. Explain how this new journey could benefit our family in the short and long term.
• c. Ask for her thoughts so she could understand the WHY behind this new journey.
• d. Then, if there is mutual agreement, together we could craft a strategy to invest in real estate that would meet our goals.
• 2. Listen to RE podcasts of investors who have similar life situations
  For us, this started with listening to BiggerPockets podcast episodes of other husband/wife teams or investors who had similar life situations. We heard countless stories of investors who were tired of working long hours at W2 jobs and did not have much time for family fun with their kids. We were in the same situation and loved the idea of creating financial wealth for our family so that we could spend more time with our kids.

Think of it this way:
If something were to happen to you today, your employer would likely post a job opening for your job the next day.

Do you think your family would have the same reaction?

3. Talk about whether or not they would want to be involved in the business
Perhaps your significant other is supportive of your REI dreams/goals but they may not want to be an active business partner. The last thing that you want is unknowingly pressuring your significant other to become business partners if that's not something that they are interested in.
Just having the support of your significant other is a gamechanger for you so look to avoid any un-necessary pressure to become business partners if they are not interested.

For us, my wife’s strengths are developing and implementing process and systems. Together, we agreed that she would be our property manager for the rental properties. This works for us and our business but don't assume that your significant other can or wants to be involved.

Hope this helps someone! Each of you are amazing and I love hearing your stories! Feel free to reach out to connect and would love to hear your thoughts on this topic.

Thanks,

@Yinglu Wang I just used simply bank on our duplex. They were great. Feel free to DM me if you want contact info.

Other suggestions based on what I hear from others investors:

pinnacle, smart bank

@Kurtis Montgomery @John Preston Neely @Yinglu Wang. I can vouch for Kurtis. My wife and I just got started in REI this year and Kurtis was kind enough to answer my newbie questions. Great guy with alot of wisdom!

I'm also happy to help out to share my limited experience.

We closed on our 1st property a few weeks ago. Duplex in Chatt. Both are occupied.

The chatt investor network is super strong and everyone loves to help each other so feel free to reach out.

A tenant asked me if she could paint the kitchen/bedroom in her unit. She's a good tenant who takes care of the property. Nothing in lease about this, what are pros & cons?

For those of you who have allowed tenants to do some painting did you regret the decision later? If so, why? What stipulations did you apply? Such as, did you say yes you can paint but you must return the walls to their original color before you vacate?

Any and all context/experience/advice welcome.

@Bernard H. Before I became a PRO member, I used an app called DealCheck. They use similiar metrics as the calculators on BP but they offer a free version where you can analyze 5 or so deals depending on the strategy (Rental, BRRRR, Flips, and Wholesale). You can actually delete the properties you analyzed to keep using the free version. If you use the paid version it's like 9 bucks a month or something for the full version that doesn't limit you to 5 properties. It's a great way to get used to doing quick analysis on properties if you are getting started. Feel free to reach out if you have any other questions.