All Forum Posts by: Brett Wolk

Thank you for the responses guys. The person who suggested the age limitation was a retirement planner, so he may not have been up to date on the details; I'll talk to my mortgage lender and figure things out. Thanks again

Hi,

I'm 26 and do not currently work. However, my father, 85, receives a decent government pension of around $50k a year. Together, we have a large amount of cash that we'd like to invest in rental properties, but I spoke with an adviser today who said that we may have trouble getting banks to give us loans, citing the age of my father and my lack of an income. I should add that both of our credit scores are excellent, and that we have 2 fully paid off properties from which we could draw equity.

Would anyone be able to speak on this matter? I've read that traditional banks will offer around 4 mortgages, and then it gets much tougher, probably requiring new avenues such as portfolio lenders, but I wonder if we could even get those first 4 mortgages?

Thank you,

Brett

This is an interesting question. Even though, as @Wayne Igo pointed out, the rational decision would be to gamble for the $100 million, we humans are not entirely rational creatures. Or maybe, it's just that our rationality can at times take forms other than pure profit maximization.

Another lesson from Economics is the concept of utility. Utility is vaguely (yet precisely) defined as a person's satisfaction. Utility on a product usually has diminishing returns - that is to say, your first ice cream cookie sandwich will be blissful, but your 3rd one 10 minutes later won't be as satisfying.

Perhaps the people who chose the green button felt they'd get less satisfaction, less utility, from additional millions, and would rather take the safe - but highly satisfying - bet to receive their $1 million.

Personally, I'd gamble on the red button. My lifestyle wouldn't change too much with $1 million. But with $100 million... you can start to shape the world.

@Aaron Norris - Thanks so much for those REI club mentions. I hadn't heard of all of those. Will be careful with out-of-state. Wishing you the best in Riverside!

@Paul Timmins - Certain financial goals would be most important to me, but I know you have a point with the benefits of staying local. I will have to do a little more exploring before I can decide. Thank you

Thanks to everyone else who answered here as well. I hope to build continuing relationships with you all in our time here on BP, and I wish you all the best of luck :) 

Hi all,

I'm getting into real estate investing at the age of 26 after graduating from UCSD with a major in Economics. I worked as an Accountant for a little bit, then decided that I really hated waking up at 6 AM every day to go sit down for 10 hours. After quitting that, I went back to community college to study music, and I'm halfway through the program now. it's been a lot of fun, but now of course I must seriously consider my financial future if I want to continue with a music career.

The good news is that I have a significant amount of change to invest in thanks to a fortunate family situation. As I was pondering what to do with this money late one night, I googled "Investment Blogs," then found an article titled "8 Best Investment Blogs for Millennials;" on that list was Invest Four More, and from there I found BiggerPockets!!

So I've been reading everything I can overthe past couple weeks - and I know that's a paltry amount of time - but I'm very eager to buy my first property and get started on my goal!

The goal I came up with was to buy 6 properties for $150,000 each, with $50,000 down on each, each renting for $2,000/month. Does anyone think finding such deals is feasible? I ran the numbers, being sure to expense 50% of rent, and saw that the cash flow would pay them all off in 15 years and leave me with a nice passive income. Just the ticket

However I know the path to getting there isn't so straightforward. The step I'm stuck on right now is deciding on a market, as San Diego isn't good for rental investments. I'd like to invest out of state because I've heard finding properties that abide to the 2% rule is much more likely, but I'm open to in-state if good deals can be found...

To help me decide on a market, I am asking Google for lots of help. So far I've really dug this article: Forbes Top 20 Best Cities to Invest in Real Estate in 2015...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erincarlyle/2015/01/09...

And this RealtyTrac research:

http://www.realtytrac.com/news/real-estate-investi...

But I'm not sure how accurate these articles are? In any case, I figured I'd take a look at Craigslist rents in these cities and try to cross-reference them with their Zillow values in order to figure out if these cities would have houses that would meet my criteria.  I haven't done this yet, but am going to do this tomorrow if you guys think this is a good idea.

My next step will be connecting with a Realtor, or another investor who's skilled at finding deals, and partnering with them. 

All-in-all, I'm excited to be starting this new adventure, and look forward to facing the challenges and triumphs ahead.

Thanks for reading, and see you on the forums!