All Forum Posts by: Anthony Gayden

Well you can start looking for private money from other sources, or you can start doing owner financing. You might just have to step back for a while to build up cash to start investing again.

If you want to do multi-family, then by all means, don't let anyone on this site convince you that you need to start with single family homes.

I always hated that advice. I knew I wanted to own and focus on apartment buildings, and I had people telling me to buy something that I didn't want because that is the way they did it. They also told me to buy in the market where I live, and they told me that I should be my own landlord. Let me just say that I ignored all of that advice as it would have gone totally against my plan.

@Rizwan Alam honestly, if I could do things over again, I would have started off even bigger. The only thing that held me back was fear. I would go out and look for owner financed multi-family deals. With a little foot work, you could probably find some good deals and need far less money down than with a conventional loan.

I noticed the same thing, a lot of investors bought when the market was at it's lowest and made huge returns. Unfortunately, you and I missed out on this incredible opportunity, but that doesn't mean that there are no opportunities out there. It is just harder to find them, and you have to look farther. You also might not get the unbelievable returns those investors received, but you can make good returns.

Whatever you do, don't give up.

@Mark Ferguson I completely agree. My father once told me that the things that require the most work, often have the biggest profit.

I have tried telling coworkers about the benefits of simply a Roth IRA, and most of them just think that is too much work. Many of them don't even contribute to our 401K plan. These are people making $100,000+ a year, and living pay check to pay check.

In terms of real estate, I share with them what I am doing, and they are interested, but then they forget about it 5 minutes later and return to thinking about the next episode of The Bachelor.

I live in a rural town near the south west border with Mexico, and invest in Phoenix and Tucson. I have no desire to be a hands on landlord, so I budget with property management included.

I think the biggest pro to this method is that it gives you time. I have a very demanding job and have to work 10+ hours a day, five days a week. I also at times may have to spend weeks or even months out of state or in areas where I simply can not manage my property in any way.

I don't invest in the market I live in for a multitude of reasons, including lack of job growth, stagnant population growth, very low median household income, and too much stock in terms of rental properties, driving rents lower. Meanwhile housing prices seem high, making turning a house into a rental have an even slimmer profit.

@Randon B. I would look in lower cost areas that are close to you, for example San Antonio.

I grew up poor as well. My parents taught me about hard work as well, but my parents did not like to read, they watched television, they did not believe in lifelong educational self-improvement, they had little financial education, and believed the path to wealth was a high paying job.

I love my parents, but they had the habits of poor people, and not surprisingly, we were poor.

I think about things like changing skylines, revitalizing urban cores, providing jobs, really making a difference and leaving a mark.

I imagine something being where nothing existed in the past. I imagine cities being born or reborn. That is why I do this. The other facts about security and freedom are contributing factors.

@Trevor K. I hope this works well for you. I prefer multi-family for a number of reasons

I consider myself a real estate investor. That being I work a full time job in an unrelated field and invest in real estate with my income.

I see myself on a smaller scale, but that doesn't mean that I lack ambition. I see myself owning thousands of units. I knew from the beginning that I wanted to own apartment complexes and wanted to start in commercial real estate investing, but had difficulty getting financing, so I started with multi-family residential. I bought one 4-plex, and am trying to buy another right now. I am pushing hard to "Buy a Million".

I see myself reaching the stage of Receive a Million from the book The Millionaire Real Estate Investor, where basically I will be earning over $1,000,000 a year from my real estate investing. I honestly won't stop until I get to that point.

As a buyer, I would prefer that it is 100% occupied, or close. That way I am experiencing cash flow from day 1 of ownership. Also, I will know what kind of rents the units can attract. When you see a pro-forma and an empty building, you have no clue how the building will perform or what kind of expenses it has.

The only exception to that would be if I was buying a distressed property that needed substantial work. It would be much easier to do the work with no tenants living there.