All Forum Posts by: Michael Key

The best advice I've been given about real estate is that it's all about relationships. You can be in business for yourself, but don't be in business by yourself.

You can certainly learn plenty by going at it by yourself and making all the mistakes. But you can also advance yourself and save time learning with someone else whose already doing them in your area.

Maybe even offer to help them source their next deal.

If you never have vacancies, you aren't charging enough.

I first ran into this when investing in Boise, Idaho in 2016. Boomers had tenants they never increased the rents on paying 500 bucks when PITI at the time was around 900-1000 bucks a month and market rents should have been 1200-1500

To be honest, being kind does a disservice to people. 

 This all day. You'll want to focus much more on finding a great deal, possibly off-market. If you can find a seller-financed deal, even better! 

I'm of the personal opinion of house hacking and doing a traditional FHA style loan on the first investment property, especially if you're a single guy and looking for a triplex or fourplex.

That being said, I didn't know seller financing was a thing when I got started. And today, I'd spend all my time networking and building relationships to find older investors in my area who are tired landlords looking to cash out without the tax hit and wouldn't mind carrying the note. But those deals are relational. Especially if you want a good interest rate to be negotiated. 

Pro-Tip: Don't listen to realtors or brokers. They have an agenda.

You don't need to buy properties on the MLS. The key to your journey in real estate will be NETWORKING and RELATIONSHIPS with OTHER INVESTORS, not service providers. They have their place and utility. 

You don't need to get your first deal off the MLS. There are a lot of places to find great deals, off market, preforeclosure, probate, estate attorneys, wholesalers, auctions, etc.

Rule #1 Don't pay retail. 

You need to pick your niche and market and then focus on that, don't get shiny object syndrome and start networking to make connections and find deals. 

I'm in Boise and our market went to clown town. You can't get anything less than 400k here. And I had a probate deal brought to me through a connection that I put an offer in at 275k. I'll be able to plow 25k to bring it up to date and then list it at 475k.

Those don't come from agents, they come from relationships.

So I want to re-enforce this point, because it's not told to new investors. Relationships are the key to doing real estate. 

You can be in business FOR yourself, but don't be in business BY yourself.

My family is originally from Youngstown, OH, and I still have family in that area and the surrounding areas. 

Ohio was never on my radar because .... well have you been to Youngstown? I know, I'm throwing the state under a bus here.

But now Columbus and its projects have piqued my interest. Where I got started investing in Boise was great years ago for appreciation. I have so much equity it still boggles my mind.

But getting cashflow here is impossible unless I can get an estate sale, probate, or preforeclosure.

I'm curious though, a number of people mentioned appreciation, but I thought Ohio was mostly a cashflow market with little to know appreciation. Has their been upwards appreciation lately?

I get it. I grew up in Virginia and spent 26 years of my life there. Moving was hard. But it was the catalyst that led to us being able to live the life we dreamed of.

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have reached financial freedom if we had just stayed in Virginia.

Moving is hard, but sometimes the catalyst for a radically different life comes from changing your environment. 

PS: to the tech job, it's called remote work. 

Leave CA

You can get into a lot of real estate elsewhere with that 400k. I'd just start researching, like right now. "Where I am I moving to"

I've built a few brands, and if I can be honest, no one wants to follow your real estate company.

No one cares.

There is a big trend right now with brands following off their radar. What people are looking for is originality and authenticity. 

What people want, is to connect with Kobe McDaniel

Think about the biggest investors you follow on social media, who are playing at the level of influence you want. 

Maybe you don't even want to be that big. But social media is attention, and attention is opportunity.

Who is Kobe? What is he about? What is he doing? What message are you passionate about, and can you share and talk about? We are in the knowledge economy right now.

@Ran Iarovich makes some great points. Who is your audience? Who do you want to attract to you?

It's pretty easy to tell you to post 5 reels a week and 2 carousels and use hooks, but that isn't really going to help you.

You have to have the deeper discussion of figuring out why you're posting, what it's purpose is, and what your long term goals are.

Propstream is better for data. I've used a lot of others out there, and most have bad data.

One of the things to know, is how you properly skiptrace a list. Most of the big services, they pull nationwide data once a year or worse, every few years and then resell that over and over and over again.

Some of the best data you can get is from Corelogic, they run stuff against the credit agencies. Also, I've had huge success with the tools inside Salesforce.

Chase is great, but also annoying. It's 2023, why must I sit in your physical branch and watch some dork type on his keyboard for an hour?

That being said, I have several business checking accounts with American Express. 

Link here: https://www.americanexpress.com/en-us/business/checking/

It's really easy to use. And then also, you just easily get more credit from them too. But Chase is like that too.

Chase & Amex are my go to.

I still have one business account at NFCU but... local banks are also a pain. I might be too much of a millennial, but I want to open an account online. Not sit there for an hour wasting my day away.