All Forum Posts by: Joshua Hilliard

Think of the podcasts as a College lecture series and listen to all of them. That's almost 300 hours of pure educational gold. Listen to 2 a day. This is your college course. When you get done you'll feel like you have an MBA in real estate!!! Best thing I've ever done for my investing career!!!

Think of the podcasts as a College lecture series and listen to all of them. That's almost 300 hours of pure educational gold. Listen to 2 a day. This is your college course. When you get done you'll feel like you have an MBA in real estate!!! Best thing I've ever done for my investing career!!!

First of all let me commend you on already making these kind of plans and asking these kind of questions. Good for you. My suggestion is you are already investing and receiving an employee match. Don't stop. That's your bird in the hand. You don't know how your real estate career is going to look in a few years. Best case scenario you blow up in real estate and your retirement account is just a little pocket change. Worst case, the rentals fall apart and and the retirement account is a nice little parachute you'll be glad you have. Invest in your retirement account and forget about it. Learn to live without it. Do your real estate with the assurance that you have multiple retirement strategies. An example would be for me. I have a Roth IRA that I haven't touched for 20+ years. Today I'm already drawing a great pension from the military and I'm looking for my second rental. I no longer need my Roth IRA. But it's grown to a nice little chunk of money so I just started looking at it again and thinking is there a better use of that fund. I found Note investing through a self directed IRA. Now I'm doing rentals, notes, and have a pension... oh and did I mention that I work full-time. Anyway, the direction that maybe the most lucrative of all of them might just come from the notes that I'm able to buy from putting money away every month into an IRA. Bottom line is give yourself as many options as possible and don't go all in until you have a firm foundation so if you fall, you won't fall too far. Good luck in your investing!!!

I'm in the same boat. I'm moving to NJ in a few months and I'm debating if I should buy a multi family now and figure it out as I go or wait and learn the market. I hate the idea of paying rent but it could keep me out of a bad decision. I was thinking of picking up another place where I live now but prices are shooting up so finding something I can make work will take more time. I am starting to feel good old analysis paralysis creeping in. It makes me want to just jump into the first thing that makes sense. Please keep posting on this thread. I'd love to find out what you end up doing.

Originally posted by @Joshua Moore:

@Joshua Hilliard

I am only nearing 4 years, so retirement would be way down the road. I would like to start flying as soon as possible, and if I were to wait for OCS to pick me up, it would probably take 2-3 years minimum before even getting selecting (from what I've seen from other co-workers). Plus the time commitment of 11 years is not appealing to me. My job in the military is not that bad, I am thankful for the experiences I've had so far, but overall, it is something that is just bearable, nearing total boredom at times, and I couldn't even imagine staying in for a whole 20 yrs. I would like to have a little bit more control over my life. Money is great, but I value my time a lot more, I don't need much, I'm just looking for ways to end up with a flying job that I enjoy, while pursuing passive income. I do find a situation that is doable as far as finding a house hack to get that started while making decent progress in flight training, then it would be worth staying in for another year or two (I'm still chating with the local flight school at the moment). Otherwise, I would have to hold out for about 2-5 years before starting a house hack. 

I admire your commitment to your dream. I wish I was so sure of what I wanted at your age. One thing I know though, if you truly want passive income through real estate investing then you are in the right place. The people on this sight are amazing and the values of those running it are beyond reproach. You're in the right spot. Chase your dreams in both your career and investing and don't get discouraged when the hard times come. The rewards on the other side are far beyond anything you could ever imagine. Welcome to BP!

Welcome Nicole to the best place on the internet! You will be blown away by how many tools and assets are now at your finger tips. Take some time to learn and connect with as many people as possible. Get out, network, listen to podcasts, and read, read, read, read! People here are amazing! Use them! Good luck to you with all of your endeavors! Happy house hunting!

I have a question. How much time in do you have? If you are over the hump for your retirement I'd advise staying in then pursue your flight school and real estate investing after. Those retirement benefits are worth their weight in gold. I know this because I'm there brother. If you have only been in a few years then why not go to flight school in the military? Get paid to go to school, make way more than your income cap of $70k, and retire with experience and a pension (passive cash flow). You can invest the whole time with your W-2 income and your VA loan intact. Don't throw away that military time. As someone who knows from personal experience, maybe consider some other options. I think you have cards to play that you didn't even know of.

That's funny. I found a house with very similar circumstances where I'm moving. It's an abandoned house surrounded by $400- $500k houses in a beautiful part of town. The neighbor said it's been abandoned for over 10 years and it might be a tear down. I agree. It's in pretty bad shape. I was thinking about looking into the tax lien situation. After 10 years it would probably be pretty ugly. But with all said and done it looks like there could be a huge opportunity. I'm just nervous to have to put in all the work. You've laid out a nice path to follow though. Thank you.

I live in the DMV and I'm getting started in buy and hold for college students and in note investing through a self directed IRA. I've tried a couple of the local REIAs but find that I like the BP committee better. I'm totally down for any BP community meet ups if anyone wants to get one going. I'm moving in a few months but I will definitely participate until then.

My wife and I are getting ready to start marketing our basement two bedroom space for the local university. We checked with the city and county and do not require a rental license because we will still be living upstairs and we are only bringing in 2 tenants. They have a private entrance, a kitchenette, a private bathroom, dedicated bedrooms, and a private entrance to the washer and dryer. We live less than two miles from the school and have a number of college students already living in our neighborhood. We have people interested already and we haven't even started marketing yet. The plan is to being in both tenants in on one lease using parents as cosigners. We want the lease to be one year so it renews in the summer. What things should I include on the lease specific to college students? Should I consider two times the security deposit? Am I missing anything big? I'm looking for advice from anyone that has done student rentals. My wife and I are excited but wanted to avoid any obvious landmines that I am too new to see. Thank you in advance!