All Forum Posts by: Joe McCarthy

Hi Good to see you starting a group.I am from Ireland but living in the UK now. There is another one on once a month in Dublin, Called PPN Dublin (Progressive Property Network Dublin) Worth checking out. 

Since I've started down the path to financial freedom, I have began to look at money differently .

I've become more aware of the flow of money, and how it can be used as a tool to achieve my ultimate goal - and also the goal of many here - financial freedom.

I have learned that when I buy a $5 sandwich, I haven't just exchanged $5 for a sandwich. I have , in fact, just sacrificed $25-50 worth of property.  How so ? Simple. 1 word. Leverage .

That $5 that I spent on a sandwich could have been put to use as part of a down payment  on an investment property. That $5 sandwich would just set me back $25-50 worth of real estate. Now, $5 doesn's seem like a lot of money.. but what if we run it over the course of 1 typical week. 

Here is how my typical week would have looked before I gained this awareness.. Every day mon - fri i would spend $2 on coffee , $5 on lunch and $7 on dinner every day. Over the course of mon-fri this adds up to $70 . (2x5 + 5x5 + 7x5) .  At the weekends I spend about $10 on groceries for food. Total $80

This means I am losing out on $400-800 worth of real estate each week if it was considered leveraged money. This is just the weekdays, not including the weekends.  Over the course of 1 year. that $70 a week on food and coffee at work adds up to $3640 per year... or, in leveraged terms , 20,800 - $41,600 worth of real estate (if using 80-90% leverage)

Of course, one has to eat. As of writing, I am spending about $40 a week on shopping , (about $30 worth of shopping used mon-fri) and  that coffee I used to buy at work I now bring from home.. Probably costs me about $0.10 a coffee. And the food I prepare the night before is now my lunch and dinner for the next day.

One might argue ''Well you are spending TIME to cook the food, so you are trading you time for money''

This is true, I am , currently , trading my time for money. But I am not yet at the stage where I have achieved financial freedom, and so I am happy and willing to put the work in now so I can achieve financial freedom in the long run.

That $80 a week I have reduced to $40 a week. Which, over the course of a year , saves $2080 . And if that $2080 is being used as down payments and leveraged to buy real estate, that means I have just gained an extra 10,400 - 20800 worth of real estate ..

I see this as a simple example of an actionable step to help people towards financial freedom.

I am currently applying this in my own path to financial freedom.

Would love to hear other peoples perspective and opinions on this

What are your thoughts and methods to achieve financial freedom?

Great to see the goals @Michael Ehmann  I hope you get to make an offer this month, would be great to hear how it goes!

Here's my March recap

What I accomplished in March

• Viewed more properties in person and calculated more accurately how much rehabs, rental incomes, mortgage repayments, taxes etc would be, and practised calculating the numbers more realistically while still being conservative on the numbers. (would rather underestimate returns than overestimate) 
• Began to add a daily routine,  and daily checklist of little tasks to do throughout the day. I write these tasks out the night before and start them first thing the next morning. Some simple daily tasks include making my bed, 10 minute meditation, exercise etc, along with any real estate plans I have for the next day. Basically I have a goal to be more disciplined in general and the daily tasks I write myself seems to add to that discipline.
• Started looking into commercial real estate in my area as something different to thinking just houses and apartments. 

Where I fell short

• Could have been more active here on the forums
• Didn't spend as much time taking actions as I wished. Felt like i could have done less thinking and theoretical steps and more action and doing steps. 

 Goals for April 

• Get mortgage approval. Have everything prepared and ready to go to be approved for a mortgage .
• Do up a plan to show investors going into as much details as possible, showing cash flow projections based on previous years for that area, rental demand, ROI, cap rates etc.
• Step out of my comfort zone. As a beginning person in this game my biggest fear is not knowing what I need to know when talking with investors, contractors, banks, estate agents etc. I've noticed this lead me to inaction and over analysing. So my goal for April is to get outside my comfort zone more and network with more experienced people in the game.
• Read more books. I do most of my reading on my phone, laptop or audiobooks, but have decided now to get some books. I have a few books ordered from Amazon, (namely Never Split The Difference  by Chris Voss, Millionaire Real Estate Agent by Gary Keller, The Book on Investing in Real Estate with No and Low Money Down by the one and only Brandon Turner , and also Make It Stick- The Science of Successful Learning by Peter C Roediger and Henry L McDaniel) I'm looking forward to these books.

Welcome Tasha! Hope you reach your goal within the year!

Welcome! I feel house hacking and even airbnb within the house hack could be an option to bring a larger cash flow

Interesting strategy, This is being added to my creative financing toolbox for sure!

Welcome to the forums @Chad Bilstein and best of luck with your goals 

Great post @Michael Ehmann 

I feel  its always good to keep tabs on active goals and actions completed / about to do. 

What i accomplished in February:

Started doing the maths on deals in my area and began to familiarise myself with various different aspects RE .

Listened to 1 BP podcast a day in work continually learning.

Went to the gym 3 day+ each week, (helps me with energy levels and concentration which has a positive knock-on effect on every area of my life)

Where I fell short

Could have ran the numbers on more deals 

Plans for march

View more properties in my area to get a feel for the market. Viewed 3 last week and plan on viewing 3 again this week and every week going forward.

Network and become active here in BP. 

Continue to go through the numbers and explore creative financing possibilities available here (Ireland)

@Michael S. @Thomas Downes @Julian Ballester thanks for the welcome I appreciate it ! :) 

Living in the West of Ireland most of my life I can say that there is a huge demand in the rental market here (Galway)  and I can say the same about Cork City having been there for 4 years . Typical rent prices here in Galway city/ suburbs would be about 350-450 euro per double bed per month.  Houses I've viewed last Saturday were 170k AMV for a 3 bed end of terrace ,  a 215K AMV 5 bed detached that needed about 60k to be brought up to standard, and a 3bed semi detached for 230k turnkey . Yes daft.ie is the main site ,  though rent.ie is used also and sometimes you can find properties listed on donedeal.ie .  If you have any more questions feel free to ask :)  -Joe