All Forum Posts by: Jim MacBean

@Joshua Fass Absolutely. I like to collect a lot of data before I make any big decision, which is what led me to find all these resources. You do have to be wary of "analysis paralysis", and I'm sure you can find good deals even in areas that don't look great on paper, but at least this can help make an educated decision.

Good luck to you!

Jim

Hey @Michael Geraci!  I joined BP recently and am based in Long Island City, right next door to you.  :)  I am in the same boat as well in terms of investing out-of-state.  I have 5 units so far in Memphis and SW Florida, and funny enough, now looking at the same markets you are.

I'd be happy to share my experiences so far with you if you'd find it helpful.  Cheers!

Jim

Hi All,

I've been using one for my SFRs and Duplex called "PropertyTracker" (I don't think I'm allowed to post links so just give it a google). The software is fairly basic and doesn't have a ton of parts to it, but if all you're looking for is a way to track your properties, your tenants, property managers, lists of contacts, income, and expenses, this software does it, and does it pretty well in my opinion. It also creates some nice reports showing the full string of financial metrics (NOI, CoC, Cap Rate, IRR), and will even show you when your property will have a good amount of equity built in to do a cash-out refi (or when it would make sense to sell). I believe it also has a 30-day free trial.

The caveat with this software is, it looks like it has not been actually supported in several years.  They still sell it, but I put in an email to their support team once and there's been no response at all.  So, it's pretty much "as-is" as far as I can tell - last posts on their social media were sometime in 2013 I think.

I'll probably move on to something else at some point, but like the others on here, I'm not seeing anything that's really geared towards landlords like this software is.

Jim

Hi @Gina Birdsong, I have used Capital One 360 for many years now (since it was still ING Direct), and I have closed on several properties by doing a wire transfer from my Cap One 360 Savings Account.  They do charge $30 for a wire transfer, and this process recently got a bit more complicated (you used to be able to just select Wire from a menu on the website, but for me it's been unavailable now - you have to call them to make it available, which is supposedly due to increased security).  But overall, I've been very happy with them.  As you said they just increased their Savings interest rate to 1.0 %, and I also just opened up a money market account with them (still provides the same liquidity, but requires a $10,000 balance) at 1.4%.

Hope it helps!

Jim

Hey Ryan!

I'm new on BP.com and I am still very much in learning mode, but I am going through the process you're going through right now, and I thought I'd share what's helped me out so far.  No doubt others will have tried-and-true methods, but here's what I'm using:

1.  city-data.com:  This has an amazing amount of detailed statistics about every city I've thrown at it.  Unemployment rates / trends, poverty level, median household income, etc - this can provide you with a large portion of your data.

2.  zillow.com:  I use this to check on appreciation % and appreciation forecast of an area, whether it's currently a buyer's or seller's market, and average rents.

3.  Comprehensive Annual Finance Reports (CAFR):  You can google the city and state name, then just put "CAFR" afterwards, and usually the links to these will come right up.  This is the city's annual report describing the state of finances.  Contains lots of useful info like top employers, the way the city is spending money, projects planned, etc.

4.  deptofnumbers.com:  Seems to be lots of good info on this site - just discovered it recently and I'm using it mainly to check vacancy rates for an area.

5.  huduser.gov:  Also just started looking at this site, which is hosted by the Housing and Urban Development department.  It actually looks very useful, as they have nicely-put together PDFs of a lot of info about a city - similar to the CAFR, but more condensed and easier to read.

6.  neighborhoodscout.com:  This is a paid site (and quite expensive if you're not a pro yet), but it provides a lot of the same data as city-data.com, only you can narrow it down to an ultra-specific geographic area (neighborhoods).  I like the idea a lot as sometimes a few blocks can make the difference between a desirable part of town and something less so.  You can still sometimes get some useful data for free in some markets, but mostly it's paywalled.

7.  realtor.com:  I'm using this site for a relatively small amount of data - # of homes currently for sale and # of homes for rent in an area, as well as Median Listing Price and Price per Sq Ft.

Hope this helps, good luck w/ your research!

Jim

I'd love to, @Lane Kawaoka - I'll reach out to you!

Thank you @Joshua Diaz!  I'll be sure to follow Darren, appreciate the tip!  I too hope to gain the knowledge (and courage!) to move to the next step from attending some meetups...  :)

Hi @Taylor Brugna, I actually live right in the same area!  It would be great to chat some time and share experiences with real estate investing, if you're game!

Hi All!

My name is Jim MacBean - my wife and I live in Long Island City, NY (part of Queens), and we are burgeoning real estate investors, who also own our condo here in the city. So far we have 4 residential income properties under our belts - 3 SFRs and 1 duplex we just closed on in the last couple weeks. All our deals so far have been out-of-state, and I believe that pattern will probably continue, given we're in NYC. I am an engineering team manager for a popular internet music streaming company (take a guess!), and my wife is a musician (piano, pipe organ) and working to be an opera conductor.

I was aware of BiggerPockets for some time, but I had never really dove into the site until very recently - and WOW, I'm shocked by what I've been missing. I am happy with the path we took to get our foot in the door, but my short time on the site so far has broadened by horizons tremendously, and has me thinking bigger than I ever thought possible - so thank you to Josh, Brandon, and all the other contributors who have made this site what it is today!

My real estate investing goal is to duplicate my current job's total compensation with passive real estate income - the idea being, to be able to take time off whenever I'd like to, and of course - the holy grail of early retirement. 😃 I intend to try doing this by pursuing a couple of main strategies, those being buy-and-hold medium and large-scale apartment complexes (probably often with a BRRRR strategy), and hopefully some Triple Net Deals (NNN), but I am definitely open to trying other things such as Fix & Flips, Partnerships, Syndications, renting out a vacation home (or two!), foreclosures / REOs, and maybe even some private lending at some point.

Everything I've been doing so far has really just been what I've learned through self-education and the little experience I have.  I'm definitely looking to improve my knowledge by interacting with the community.  In addition, I'd love to build up a network of comrades / business partners in the disciplines of Real Estate Agents, Financial Advisors, Listing Brokers, Property Managers, CPAs, Real Estate Attorneys (I have so many questions about LLCs!), Lenders (conventional and private / hard money), and Contractors. I have already joined up with some Meetup groups in my area and am planning to start attending and networking with like-minded folks, soaking up everything I can learn to help us on our journey - and hopefully giving back whatever minute knowledge / experience I've gained along the way as well!

So please, feel free to reach out if you'd like to connect, chat, ask me any questions, etc - would love to meet you guys and slowly become part of the BiggerPockets community!

Jim