All Forum Posts by: Mark K.

Ths is a much better price than what's on my area.  Can you message me more info?

Hello Bigger Pockets Fools,

@Brandon Turner, first of all, thank you so much for your podcasts, webinars and books. You have made me a true believer in investing in real estate after nearly 30 years investing in stocks with an XIRR of around 17% over the past 13 years. 

I'm Mark, a guy who is retiring from his police job in just over a week. I've been frugal all of my life and as I said above, I started investing in mutual funds around 1990 as a young man. In 1999, I found The Motley Fool and I learned that even us little guys could buy positions in companies. I really learned how to invest from the Fool and I'm forever in their debt. As a result, I'm now a CMF at the Fool and I try to help other Fools learn to invest.

I bought my first rental house in 1/17. Just like with buying stocks, I didn't really know what I was doing with that first house. The house wasn't a problem, it was my first tenant. Yep, I got the bad one first and I learned a lot. I did get my rent checks for 2 months, but then excuses, and I was quick to get her evicted, but it still took close to 2 months to finally get her out as she hung on to the very last minute. 

Since then, I got a great family in that SFR.

In 12/17, I bought my 2nd SFR. I hadn't found BP yet, but I found a SFR that stunk, was filthy, but was sound and only needed cosmetic work and cleaning. And, some minor repairs.

I got the home about $25K under appraisal value. Knowing what I know now, I probably could have gotten it another $5-$10K cheaper than I did. 

I have a great couple in that home. They keep it absolutely spotless and treat it like their own. 

I'm now looking at a triplex. I live in a small area, population about 23,000 in my town, 23,000 or so in the next town 12 miles away and about a population of maybe 120,000 in the county with the two small cities included. 

So, multi-family homes are a tad harder to come by. Owners seem to hold onto them longer and try to sell the more expensive. 

The one I'm looking at isn't listed. So, others don't know about it.  That's a plus. Odds are I'll not get it for the offer I plan to offer, but I hope I can get it cheaper than what the seller says they want. Even if I had to pay asking price, I think it worthwhile getting. I do need to raise rents thought as they are below market value.  If I can get if for around what I plan to offer, I will have a nice cash flow. 

After this, if it goes through, my guess is I'll go back to SFR. Playing with my numbers, I hope to get a 3rd SFR in about a year. With the triplex if it happens and my 2 SFR, that would put me at 6 units in about a year if the plan goes accordingly.

I'm 50, so it's not like I'm 25 doing this. So, I hope to get up to 10 units within 5 years from now. Perhaps even 11 or 12. We shall see. 

I was turned onto bigger pockets by @Caleb Teachout. Thank you, young man if you see this. 

Even though I'm retiring in just over a week, with a pension, I still plan to work PT. I want to speed up the house buying as well as I want to keep up with my stock investing. 

I know not many here talk about investing in stocks. Just like at the Fool, not very many talk about investing in real estate. 

I hope to be successful at both. I'm still a small time investor as I've never made much, but time and compounding does help us little guys to move up. 

I really love this site and I appreciate all of the posters, bloggers, pod-casters, webinar folks and on and on. 

Oh, @Brandon Turner, my oldest son is a LTJG in the US Coast Guard and he's currently in Hawaii, on the island where Honolulu is. I texted him a picture of two of your books that I got and he's ordering them as well. He also wants to invest in real estate. He also has taught himself how to surf. If you care to meet him, I can put you two in touch. 

Thanks again, everyone,

Mark

Hello everyone,

Are there any BP IT folks hanging out here?  I'm still a newbie at BP as I've only been here a few weeks.  

I've been at the Motley Fool since 1999.  A complaint there over the years have been that there forum boards are antiquated.  However, maybe since  I'm so used to Fool boards, these seem a bit old.

If not, is it possible to do the following?

At the Fool, we can click a red heart for any board to make it a favorite.  Then, if we click My Fool, we can see our favorite boards and any unread posts.

Here, as far as I can tell, we can't do that.

As an example, I was reading BP forums last night at midnight.  Around 11:30 this morning, I look at BP and it shows I have over 500 new posts.

Now, many of those posts are perhaps on boards that I don't necessarily read.

FYI, the Fool is like BP in that they want to help everyone learn to invest in companies.  BP is all about real estate.

I now have two SFR bought in the last 14-15 months and I'm looking at buying a triplex.

My XIRR with stock investing since 2005 is over 17%. Stock investing to me is easy.  Buy quality companies with the intention of holding forever.

Real estate is more work, but it's addicting.  Stocks can be bought on margin, but it's risky and I don't do it.

However, we can buy our real estate with leverage.  I find that intriguing!

I love investing in companies, but I'm finding I love Investing in real estate just as much.

At the Fool, I sign out with Fool on,

Maybe I'll use the same here at BP. ☺

I wish the best for everyone with real estate investing.  I trust I will be successful with it as I'm learning so much from the forums, podcasts, webinars and books.

If I do get this triplex I'm looking at, I'll write about it when the time comes.

Fool on,

mazske

@Gordon French, thank you for your reply.

I have decided not to get the property I wrote about. The seller is a friend of mine who is also an investor and realtor. I don't want to get in over my head in my early days of being a REI.

The seller did find out about a triplex in my area that the owner wants to sell. He is also an investor and doesn't want to list it. 

My 2nd SFH I bought was found by my friend (seller) and I ended up getting a great buy on it. It also was never listed.

So, I really hope this triplex works out as well. I haven't yet been inside it, but I've seen the outside, have been told about it, it's currently rented and it appears to be a good investment for me. I've run the tentative numbers on the BP calculator and it has good cash flow and such. 

I bought my first single family home rental about 14 months ago. I took a small Home Equity Line of Credit and used it to pay 75% of the down payment and closing costs. I had been paying this HELOC off as quick as I could until I recently found BP. Now, I'm thinking I may slow down on paying it off.

I'm also thinking of doing something else. 

See this post of mine and see what you think. 

https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/311/topics/54...

Any and all replies are greatly appreciated. 

Hello everyone,

I'm a new landlord as I got two SFH's in 2017, the first in January and the 2nd in December. I had to evict my first tenant and she drug it out to the last minute. Basically, it took 2 months, court, a visit from the deputy's and finally at the last possible minute, she got out.

I'm retiring from my current job soon with a pension. I also have access to my funds in my 457 plan, deferred compensation. For years, I was thinking I'd roll the entire amount into my Traditional IRA as I could defer taxes. I've invested in stocks for almost 30 years now. I learned what I was doing though in 2005 and since then, my XIRR is around 17%. I don't think I'll get that with real estate, but I like the idea of diversifying into real estate.

Let's say my 457 plans funds, after taxes, if I withdraw the funds will be around, plus or minus, $40K.

I'm analyzing a commercial/residential property. It has 9 commercial spaces and 5 residential. The monthly gross income averages $5570.  

Mortgage with P and I, water, sewer, insurance, taxes, electric and such comes to $3569. 

I used 7% for repairs ($389.90), Cap Ex ((389.90) and 5% for vacancies (278.50)

So, I came up with a cash flow of $5570 minus expenses of $4628 which comes out to $942 a month. 

If I pay a 20% down payment and closing costs, it will be about $116K.  

So, the COC ROI seems to be about 9.744%

Not as good as my stocks, but still not too bad.

However, my credit union says they can get creative with my financing and use my equity in my personal residence and/or rental homes to cover my down payment. If that happens, my debt goes up a lot more, but my monthly expenses go way down. 

It appears my monthly payment if I refi'd my down payment would be about $506/month.  

If I did that, it decreases my monthly cash flow to $436. 

Annually, that is $5232.  My only cost, I think, would be closing costs and I used $10K as that. 

That gives me a COC RIO of 52%.

However, I'm leveraged a lot and either my personal home would be at risk and/or my rental homes due to the home equity loan that would cover my down payment. 

The current property has 5- 1 bedroom apts that are all currently rented.  Most of these rents seem a bit below market value. 

Most of the commercial spaces are rented and include a church, bakery, beauty shop and an office with one current vacant office. I'm not familiar with commercial rent, so I don't know if these rents are cheap, fair or expensive. I can find that out though. 

Any help in analyzing these numbers is greatly appreciated by this RE newbie. 

Mark

Oh, and she seems to keep her rents below market value.  Knowing that, if I did buy the property, I may slightly increase rents at renewal time.

I was out looking at single family homes today with a realtor friend. She's a friend and mentor to me as I already have two SFH.

I knew she had a property for sale that she owns, so I asked her about it.  

It has 9 commercial and 5 residential units.  Monthly rents are about $5500.  

If I put 20% down, my mortgage would be about $2750. 

The properties appear to be in great shape with maintenance records.

The bank, a CU, also said they could help me to pay the 20% down by refinancing my paid off personal home so I could hold onto my cash.

I'm just in the beginning stages of looking into this.  Do you all have any thoughts?

@Michael Kalis, it works great for me. I live in a small area, so it's easy to stop by both places. I usually get in a long talk with the tenants though. So, after close to an hour, at times, I head to the next one. I am looking for a 3rd home to buy, but in this area, it's hard to find the right rental home to get at the right price. 

I have two rental homes.  So far, I just pick up the rent checks at the rental homes. That way, I can chat with the tenants and also see the home.