All Forum Posts by: Jim K.

Before the fur starts flying, can I at least make one simple statement about this situation? To live multiple states away and run a string of successful C-class long-distance BRRRRs anywhere in the Rust Belt is practically impossible. I think the OP is lucky not to have experienced catastrophic failure yet. This was taking on suicidal risk to begin with, and it's just going to get worse. I'm actuallu surprised and I'm sure there are volumes left unspoken here by the OP about how hard it must have been to make it this far. I only hope my own posts recounting what my hyperlocal experiences have been like here in Pittsburgh, the self-styled "Paris of Appalachia," do not in any way encourage people to follow the OP's lead. There's an omnipresent, ubiquitous brutality to life in general and running rental real estate in  prticular here that just doesn't translate well into metrics and data.

I'd do what @Wesley W. is suggesting. But then again, I'm just sick and tired of the smell of weed coming out of my apartments, as it is so very closely related to late rent and other habitual-loser shenanigans.

@Spencer Herrick

You say you have police reports. Are they police reports that will verify drug activity? That will make this an open-and-shut case. If the police reports will not verify drug activity, you will have a longer path to eviction.

Let's say the reports verify your allegation of drug activity. You can immediately post a 10-day Notice to Quit. As soon as those ten days are up, you can file a Landlord-Tenant complaint at the local district court. They will schedule a hearing. Call the police agency that responded and get the police report numbers for the reports before the hearing, they will not release the reports to you, but they will to the district judge.

Show up at the hearing, explain the situation, give the police report numbers to the judge.

If they check out, you will usually get an order of judgment immediately. Keep checking the unified judicial portal on the day the judge says he'll issue his ruling.

The guy's in jail, and he likely won't appeal. 11 days after the order of judgment is issued, go and file for an order of possession. That will usually be ready the next business day. Get in touch with the constable listed in the order and go from there. Do whatever the constable tells you to do, he is the real hands-on expert at the actual eviction process.

@Jonathan Greene

"You discouraged me...you shattered my dreams...how could you..." And it typically  goes on and on, a wall of unstructured, unedited accusatory logorrhea, and all you're thinking is that you don't have time to respond to this BS.

@Nino G.

Well thank you, Nino!

I just have a couple questions: how do you typically get your hands on probate properties? For a while, we used an agent who was in the right age group in the region, and we still own some of the pocket listings he sold us (including the home I live in). We learned that a LOT of people are willing to get rid of their father's or mother's home for a song because they can't come up with the tax money to keep it.

I would say we do much the same sort of thing these days but our focus is shifting to finding small multifamily where the landlord just doesn't want to go on with what he has.

Thanks, Michael.

@Jonathan Greene

That's exactly what I was thinking all through the crackpot initial person exchange in your thread. The gurus just make money by stroking your ego all day long and telling you that you can do anything you set your mind to. I've told this story a dozen times here on BP, but it bears repeating.

A few years ago, I went to a very well known three-day guru seminar. We were supposed to learn how to flip houses on the last day. So in the middle of the session, without a word of warning, the seminar leader calls for volunteers to come on stage. Once he gets people up there, he tells them they're going to do a dance-off.

Yes, it happens. The winner of the dance-off is congratulated and told that they don't need to worry about flipping houses. They did a dance-off! In front of all these people! Of course they can handle a silly little flip!

And that was how we were taught how to flip a house.

@Chris John

That sounds wonderful. 37 doors, part-owner in another business, and not all your time is spent on making sure your property managers don't steal you blind. It turns out you were dead right on refinancing and acquiring during COVID.

Are you still teaching at 37 doors?

 Thank you, John. So how are you doing it? If the goal is to be working part-time in your W-2 five years down the line, how are you getting there today? I'd like to know your plans for long-distance flips, that you could do from anywhere. How's it working now, how do you see it working in the future?

Something that @Don Konipol recently pointed out in another thread of mine is that successful real estate investors from all walks of life really do seem to share a unified trait: THEY LOVE REAL ESTATE.

They're obsessed by it. They talk your ear off about property given half an opportunity. It's a lifestyle for them, not something they pick up in their off time and leave off easily when there's something else to do that occupies their interest. NOTHING ELSE occupies their interest in the same way.

So this is an informal poll: does anyone here in the BP forums do real estate purely on the side and doesn't wish they did it full-time? Is it a contained interest for you, and you could either take it or leave it? If you day-trade or read the tea leaves for hot stock tips or play the ponies or simply put your money in index funds, do any of these things occupy your interest like real estate?

Ultimately, does anyone really ever set out to do real estate as a minor part of their life's ambitions and succeed in it as a side hustle that they spend a carefully limited amount of their time and energy on?

Or do you simply have to be obsessed to even have a chance to make it in this business?