All Forum Posts by: Mark A.

Welcome to the BP forums Chris! Sounds like you've gotten the ball rolling already and headed for a prosperous future. Just wanted to wish you luck and maybe if I stop by Phoenix or you stop by LA we can network. 

@Sean OToole @Andrew Johnson Thank you for your advice and encouragement, seeing that both of you also struggled with pulling the trigger on the first deal puts a little faith back in myself that I'm not completely missing something. I would say in the very beginning I had no idea what a good or bad deal was. I relied completely on rule of thumbs and although I created a spreadsheet to analyze my deals I had no real "feel" if you will for what a good deal looked like. I agree completely with you Andrew. I feel like the more I analyzed and actually drove to inspect, the more comfortable I began to feel that this was indeed a good deal. However, I definitely admit I am very conservative with my numbers and thinking back I can confidently say that I missed at least two multifamily properties because of it. Touching upon your point as well Sean, I feel that especially in Southern California the cash offers from other investors definitely is a huge advantage. Although my partner and I have saved a good amount of mutual capital we still don't have enough to submit a full cash offer with reserves for rehab costs. We have however met with a hard money lender to make an introduction for future needs. My self diagnosis is that I should stick with my numbers but be less hesitant to pull the trigger and submit an offer on as many properties that conforms to my own risk profile. Once an offer has been accepted I still have the opportunity to do a full inspection and back out if I am not comfortable with the deal anyways. I will definitely keep you all posted when I get my first accepted offer, the combined experience of everyone here is an invaluable asset.

Its been about a year now when I decided to take a serious look into real estate investing. Stumbled upon this community and decided to dedicate my time outside of work to educating myself on this venture. At the beginning of this year I set my goal to close on my first property. Now I've set aside a solid amount of capital, about to take my exam for my RE license, started to build a small network, and about to send out my first letter from a small direct mailing list I made from driving around with property radar on. After countless hours of searching through MLS, driving for dollars, meeting with agents, going to department of planning; I'm fully realizing this is hard work and I have a lot of respect for those that have succeeded before me and for those in the trenches with me (fight on!). But at the same time I don't mind the grind. I know I'm just steps away from my first deal and although I'm feeling eager, I know hard work and patience will eventually pay off. Just wanted to vent and say to those who are feeling a bit discouraged as well to keep at it and I can't wait to read more success stories on the forums and one day be one of them!

Nigel Boles Hello there from another fellow novice. Immediately from the overview I noticed vacancy rate was not accounted for in the analysis. From someone starting off to another, I would definitely figure what strategy works best for your area. For example, in my immediate area I have found that value adding 2+2 to 3+2 etc. seems most plausible. However, just a few hours away there have been a few opportunities that I am currently offering on that are more buy and hold that cashflow. In my limited experience I would say that you will find that one or the other works best. Good luck on your ventures, the rest of your analysis seems to be pretty close to what I have on my own spreadsheet that I created.

ahhh cant make it :( have a good meeting! Hope to make a future date soon.

Generate Passive Income

Still in for a meetup at a later date!

I have used zecco and tradeking in the past. They have since merged and I believe the cost per trade is about $5. They are definitely one of the lower priced options and preferred if you will be actively swing trading. However, I've since moved over to holding longer positions and I am now using TD ameritrade. I chose it primarily because their mobile app is unmatched. Its reliably smooth and has a lot of tools. If you don't mind the higher cost of $10 per trade then I would recommend it.

@Jasmine Flores @Becca Shaw I'm currently in the process myself of getting my RE license in California. Just finished RE principles and should have my license by the end of December. Now that I'm getting closer I wanted to get some input from both of you as I will soon have to find a broker myself. Since I have a full-time career that is my main source of income but looking to invest in rental properties, I worry that many brokerages may be turned off to the amount of time I will be able to commit. Would love to hear your experiences and what you decided to look for in your brokers! Best of luck to both of you.

@Tim Jones Sounds good, please keep us posted. I would love to attend a meetup!