All Forum Posts by: Joshua Powell

@Ashish Acharya I had a feeling that would be the case, and I appreciate the honest feedback. I've read quite a few real estate investing books at this point and I guess I was looking for in depth understanding, but it seems the general advice is to outsource to a professional considering the complexity that can take place in real estate transactions

@Markus Shobe Thanks for the response, I appreciate the honest feedback. It seems to me that this is something that is best to outsource to a professional bookkeeper, considering the amount of time it would take me to learn how to do it at a professional level myself would take massive amount of time. I always had a plan of outsourcing it eventually, but it's hard to justify the cost when you only have one property. I guess I'll stick to KISS in the meantime until I have a few properties under my belt and can afford the services.

So I'm starting to put together a fairly simple P&L in excel for the house hack I just acquired. I'll eventually move over to a more complex accounting software such as quickbooks down the line, buy I want to wait until I a have further understanding of basic accounting beforehand. This coming spring I plan on taking some accounting classes at my local community college.

My question is, how do you go about recording the actual acquisition of a property and the initial rehab that takes before you rent it out? Do you input them as expenses, just as you would anything else, or is there specific way you should record these items? And is there any resources that you would recommend to learn the accounting side of things on a more real estate specific level?

@Nick Rutkowski

No worries Nick! Despite my ties to Florida as I do see myself investing here for quite some time. Familiarity with the market I think trumps any sort of location dependent advantage you can get, and now that I'm licensed I'm really starting to get a feel of things around here. The baby boomer question is good one, and I'm honestly not quite sure. It's no secret the boomers are heading to warmer climates in the south. I would most likely stick to where the millennials are heading for long term gain

Personally just bought my first rental property in Cohoes, NY. The Capital Region has three big cities that feed off each other and haven't experienced the decline in population found in a lot of other areas of the state. Strong student rental market (UAlbany, St Rose, RPI, and Union) and an abundance of state jobs keep a solid rental demand. Multi families are plentiful and affordable, although with these pros are always cons. These multi families tend to be on the side of of about a century old, so it's important to do your due diligence on the properties condition. Property taxes are high, weather can get rough and cause issues not found in southern states (freezing pipes) and the new changes to the tenant laws will add some new challenges (although could reduce competition with some people maybe wanting out of the landlord biz because of this). 

All in all I think just like any state it has its pros and cons. Because it's right in my backyard and I've lived my whole life here I'm personally going to be sticking here for a while. It would be much more difficult to move to a slightly better market and restart making all the connections necessary and gaining the market knowledge for success. I eventually want to get into some vacation rentals once I have a foundation in place though, such as west Florida.

@Bevla Reeves Thanks for the suggestion! should be arriving tomorrow :)

Hello, so about a month ago I received my Real Estate License in New York. At first, I just wanted to use it as a little tool to help me with my pursuit of being an investor (MLS access, networking, having access to houses, etc.) but I soon realized that I wanted to pursue being agent more as a full time job that I give my full efforts too rather than just a side gig for a little extra cash and the parks that come with it. It became apparent being an investor and an agent work incredibly well together, with a lot of things overlapping each other. That being said, I understand that becoming an agent is almost like starting your own business (as is being a real estate investor) and needs to be treated like one in order to be successful in both areas. My question for those out there who are both investors and agents, how do you keep both businesses seperate and in what ways do you let them overlap? Do you use a seperate CRM for both? Same with databases? And for marketing yourself through business cards and different lead campaigns, do you do those separately for each or do you find a way to do them together? Sorry for the overwhelming amount of questions, buts its been a bit of a headache try to basically start two businesses (closing on my first buy and hold as we speak) at once and any insight would be greatly appreciated from those who do it themselves!

     Hello fellow Biggerpockets members! I've been lurker for quite a while now, soaking up as much information as possible through all the educational resources Biggerpockets has to offer. Back in January of this year, I picked up my passion for real estate after being dissatisfied with the higher education offered at my local university, and started my search for a different approach to life that involved reaching financial freedom as quickly as possible instead of working an unfulfilling corporate day job for the next 40 years. It became apparent real estate was my best option to lead to the promise land!!

In the past 8 months or so, I have listened to hundreds of podcasts, read more than a dozen RE focused books, joined my local REI Network, optioned my RE License, and am now closing on first property! My goal as an investor is continue a focus on acquiring a mixture of SF and MF properties with an emphasis on cash flow, with enough units in 5 years to take my first "mini retirement"(Yes, I am huge "4 Hour Work Week" fan) and travel the world freely. That means having efficient systems in place to allow the flexibility for traveling. As an agent, I want use my profession synergistic with what I want to do as an investor, meaning helping others finding investment properties for themselves in the capital region while using the capital, market knowledge, relationships, and leads I gain to put back into my investing business.

     I look forward to making connections with others in the Biggerpockets community, whether in the Capital Region or all the way across the country, and helping each other make our businesses  and portfolios grow more than we ever could do on our own. If anyone is interested in finding an investment property in the Capital Region themselves, feel free to send me a message and I can help you out!