All Forum Posts by: Mark K.

I'm using @Rob Drum .  I recommend him.  He's a fellow investor and a real estate agent! 

Hi, Lukas,

I live a few hours south of you in the Staunton area. I closed on my first SFR in early 2017. I closed on my 2nd SFR in late 2017, closed on my first triplex in spring of 2018 and now I'm looking in Alabama for my next buy.

If you want to meet up over coffee or something sometime maybe in the middle somewhere, I'm all for it. We can talk real estate investing and hopefully learn from each other. 

Jen Allred, I've used Dupont CU for my last two buys.  They are quite helpful.  Message me if you want the name of a person there. 

Oh, Bowling Street is literally on the other side of the tracks.  I've looked at a duplex there.  The train tracks run across Bowling.  I think I would try a year long lease there and not an Airbnb.  

I have 2 SFR in Staunton. I bought both within the past 18 months. I have year leases on both. I also recently got a triplex in the general area.

With my rentals, I have listed on hotpads.com and it then gets shared to Zillow and Trulia. I also put it on FB Marketplace. I put my tenant criteria in my listing, but I still get close to 100 inquiries each time, with most just kicking the tires. My best tenants so far have come from hotpads, Zillow or Trulia and on one yet from FB. 

If you have a copy of the landlord book, you can get access to a lot of forms on the BP site since you have that book. They include applications and leases and much more. 

I live in Virginia.  I just closed on a triplex last week.  All 3 apartments have tenants.  The law here is that I have to honor the lease from the last landlord.  None of the 3 families meet my screening criteria and all 3 rents are under market value.

However, there is nothing I can do until their leases are up.

I plan to incrementally increase the rents over two years to get them up where they should be. 

I'm debating buying a triplex that was built in 1995. The cash flow and COC ROI are both ok. The building does have quest water lines that are all behind drywall except when they connect to fixtures and appliances.

It would be expensive to repipe this as a lot of drywall would have to be cut and then repaired.

I know it's a risk to wait for a leak to start and then to repair just that section.

I'm getting an ok buy price and the seller won't go any lower.  

Any thoughts on this?

Thanks, 

@Scott Trench

I appreciate your e-mail reply and this post. I am sorry for my title. 

Anyway, I have helped 7 or 8 young people start buying individual stocks with about $500. So far, all are beating the market. My oldest son was the first I helped to start. He now has an XIRR of around 23%, not counting any dividends he has received. 

I think it's best for younger folks to start with individual stocks, if they go to the Fool and get advice there. Just like at the Fool, if some young person wanted to invest in RE, I'd recommend they go to BP to learn here how to do so. 

I personally think if anyone goes to the Fool, in minimal time, they can easily learn how to pick individual stocks. I think anyone who comes to BP can learn how to get RE, but it's a steeper learning curve with more elbow grease involved, more dealing with humans, more dealing with potential bad stuff, more dealing with a bank, and so on. 

Sure, someone can make a million bucks by age 30 with real estate. They can do the same with stocks. Yet, the majority of folks who are 22 and starting won't make a million in either by age 30. 

If someone works for BP or who reads/watches as much here and as I have, may do great. 

If someone goes to the Fool and reads just that one board I linked, they should learn a ton and do great. However, on that board, it's also a learning curve. 

If someone subscribed just to their flag service they can just copy the Fools stock picks and odds are great they will beat the market by a lot. 

You can get a ton of free stuff at the Fool. Just like here at BP. However, at both sites, you get even more information by subscribing to a service. 

I'm helping a young lady I know who is currently in flight school buy stocks. I have talked to her about buying a rental property, but she is nervous to do so and won't do it. She knows stocks are easy and she can turn to me or the Fool for advice. 

If she buys an investment property, she needs a team of folks to help her. And, as busy as she is, she doesn't have that team. 

I just signed my mortgage paperwork today to buy a triplex. I also have 2 SFR so far. Last week, I bought small positions in 5 companies to add to my positions in them. I had free commissions. Those 5 buys in 5 companies probably took me 10 minutes.

With this triplex, I started making an offer back in March, I think, and the estimated closing date is late May or early June. 

In that triplex, I hope to get all existing tenants in it out of it within a year or two. As they move out, I want to renovate each unit. 

With those stocks I bought, I'll just hold them. Maybe at some point years from now, maybe sooner, maybe never, I may decide to sell those shares. 

Scott, in my e-mail to you, I referenced a service at the Fool. I don't want to name it here as I don't want to come across as promoting any paying service there. I do encourage you to subscribe to it and see what I mean. Just today, 2 new picks were released. And, during the past 2 weeks, 10 new best buys were recommended. They do this each and every month. If you are like me, you can read every article and every post they write. Or, you do like some, and read basically nothing, and just copy their recs. They are transparent and will show you all returns of all their picks from day 1. Good and bad. 

Thanks for your e-mails this post of yours. I wish I could change the title of this thread, but I can't. 

@Edward B. 

There's no way I'd want to manage a fund. Small investors can almost always beat the fund investors.  Every year, something like 85% of all managed funds loose to the S&P 500. At the Fool, the goal is to beat the S&P 500.

Saul is a guy who has averaged something like 32% a year since 1989. He runs a board at the Fool, completely free, where he is very open about all he buys and sells.  He calls his way of investing modified buying and holding.  He tells folks not to copy him, but to learn from him.

Here's a link to his board.  I think you will have to create a user name and password to access it, but it's free.

http://boards.fool.com/my-portfolio-at-the-end-of-...