All Forum Posts by: Johnny Lau

I bought 4 OOS houses about a year ago, 2 in Michigan. One in Detroit and one in a Detroit suburb-Southfield. The cash flow is really good on those 2 houses. Be sure that you find a good team to work with, and make sure the properties have a great property manager. They ultimately make or break your investments.

The Detroit house cost me about 60k all-in (repairs etc) and rents at 1,050/mo. The one in the suburb cost me 75k and rents at 1,000/mo. Both have section 8 renters which I prefer since that program pays me directly and I don’t have to worry about the tenants paying the rent.

I bought 4 last year sight unseen, it's easy with the right amount of due diligence. 2 are doing well (set it and forget it), 2 are doing so-so because of unexpected expensive repairs needed such a a large tree falling onto one and another needing foundation repairs of all things, one needing sewer main repair. Each repair being around 4k on a 115k and 130k house. Really disappointed on those ones because it's a turn key! But, oh well, they all should do ok in the long run.

They all paid last month and I expect the same in May. 

10+ houses, majority in Bay Area and rest out of state

Have you looked at syndications?

8-10 million plus net worth 

25-30k/mo passive income 

It’s a good goal to reach for, and the path is set...

I talked to a few of them and started investing already. Brian Burke-Praxis Capital  has been around for awhile and has gone through the housing crash of 2008 and has a strong history,  I am just waiting for their next opportunity. The others I mentioned have good records also and I am looking into there offerings. 

I’m reaching out to BP to see where others would invest in their next syndication.

So, I have added syndicatons to my investment portfolio and I have a few favorites that I started with and I plan to do more deals in the near future. The following sydicators caught my attention. I have read up on them and listened to their appearances on various podcasts. Here they are in no particular order:

Praxis Capital (Brian Burke)

TruePoint Capital (Kyle Jones) and Wolf Investments (Kenny Wolf) via Simple Passive Cashflow (Lane Kawaoka)

Arcan Capital (Steve O'Brien)

What are your experiences with these companies and were you completely satisfied? Also, do you have your own favorite syndication companies that you had really good success with? Syndications are the way to go for passive investing, and even active investors would have a hard time beating their numbers. Let's just say I am very high on going into this new strategy for my future investing! Just sit back and watch your money grow, I am ok with giving up control to the experts...their records speak for themselves.

I am doing both currently but plan to do more passive investing in the future. I did put an offer in last week on a local muli-unit that needed some work, but the market is still too hot and the price shot up way over asking with multiple all cash offers with 2 week or less close. My offer just wasn't high enough over ask. I thought the market cooled down a little but not my particular market at least. My agent told me the open house was crowded with international investors. 

So, I will most likely add more to my syndication portfolio while I look into more providers. I am leaning more towards more passive investing anyways, but still keeping my eyes open to good deals.

Lots of great ideas and feedback here, thanks for all the valuable information given. I feel that I'm at a turning point in my investing future and will most likely focus on finding more syndications to partner into. I am working with 2 syndication companies that look very good and I plan to jump in again soon. I like the passive part of investing at this point, but I will still consider something local if it's a great deal. My portfolio consists of local properties (most are located about an hour south of the Bay Area), OOS (turnkey and mls), and now syndications. I am leaning towards being more of a passive investor than actively looking for a great deal. To be honest, I'll probably continue to do a little of both! 

I was wondering why an investor would continue buying houses and small apartments, building up their portfolio to dozens of doors or more. They keep brrrr-ing and brrr-ing and then get to 10 loans, then I guess they get private money or portfolio loans to continue acquiring more doors. At that point, they are probably an accredited investor and can buy into syndications which give very favorable returns. The General Partners do all the work and the Limited Partner goes for the ride and gets good cash flow and shares in the profits while being totally passive. The syndicators have the track record (easy to check with a little research) and do all the work,  vetting properties, etc. 

So, why buy SFRs and small multis when you can just buy into syndications and kick back and let the pros do all the heavy lifting? After acquiring 10+ doors, instead of adding more doors, why not instead of buying 10 more doors, buy into 10 different syndications? I've done some research and partnering with the pros just seems like a better choice. I've just started investing into them and am looking to scale. What would you do?