All Forum Posts by: Martin Lindsay

Congrats Brian! You made a decision that you won't regret especially being aware of embracing the process and challenges to come. I actually did quite the same thing over a year ago. Worked at a great job where I was a top performer with good income, benefits etc. but I just didn't love it anymore and wanted to dive into real estate investing. I'm curious what is your plan of action or strategy once you jump ship? Flips? BRRRs? Rentals? 

Firstly congrats on the success and progress of scaling your business Gus! You're where I hope to be in the next 6 months or so. I don't have a ton of advice since my hands aren't quite as full as yours but following the same path you have with launching direct-to-seller marketing, my anticipation was always that if I have a lot going on I would just wholesale other leads that I can't take on. Have you considered this or perhaps connecting with a reputable wholesaler to partner with? 

Obviously no one wants to let a good lead go to waste but I can certainly understand how it may get overwhelming as I'm experiencing that myself even at my smaller scale of current project juggling. 

Ryan Pineda posted a good quote last night that resonated with me - "Can't complain about having a lot on your plate if you said your goal was to eat." 

Great insight Scott! I have to agree I feel I'm at my best performance when I'm somewhat at a distance. The more hands on I am on every part of a project the more it takes my mind away from the bigger picture of running and growing the business. Relationships are always going to be valuable if not imperative to the success of a lot of real estate investors, but business relationships can be strong without getting personal. I think if we didn't learn anything through the lockdown and pandemic, we either did something wrong or missed something huge to learn from. 

Buying your first house at that low of an interest rate is awesome and is by no means a mistake. I bought my primary residence in 2017 and didn't have real estate investing on my radar whatsoever but my house has fortunately gained equity and I opened a HELOC on it to access it, meaning it still turned out to be a great investment.

I've gone through what you're debating and have lived and learned. I think the best is to address what your goals are and where you're at currently. 

My real life example lesson: I quit my job to invest in real estate full time and started with a chunk of money saved up like you. I bought 4 rentals and 1 flip in my first year. My mistake was that I bought too many rentals relative to how much money I had. What I should have done was do 5 flips my first year, hopefully profit off of them all and grow the amount of working capital I have to reinvest into more flips and then rentals. 

Hope this helps!

Great work! I had a perfect BRRR for my first investment property as well and I wish I'd asked the same question you are because from there I felt like a genius lol, however the rest of my deals came with a lot more challenges.

Embrace the process and stresses of every step along the way, and pay attention to each. The more you learn and understand what you're doing/have done right the better you'll be at overcoming things that go wrong on the next ones. Keep it up!

I'm actually doing this on a BRRR rental that I have owned for about a year. It wasn't my exact plan to sell it at this point but the value has gone up and it makes sense for several other reasons.

My thoughts:

-Wait until the tenants are out before doing any heavier updates for the flip sale. Tenants maybe damage your property to a degree and I wouldn't want them to damage the new work that was done. 

-You'd also be able to save up money from what would have been your repairs and capex reserves throughout the rental period which could go towards repairs and updates for the flip. 

-Depending on the market the value may go up over the rental period as mine did, however I'd never bank on this happening, it's just a plus. 

@Alexander Felice That's awesome man! I'm local to Charlotte NC and typically invest there and surrounding areas, but I'm actually starting to explore the Fayetteville market too. Currently buying two duplexes in Hope Mills but I've also wondered about the potential of flips. Prices are low so the margins seem strong, I've just been wary of flips right now due to the uncertainty of buyers with Covid-19

@Alexander Felice Great job!! Was the $55k figure the rehab only or does that include your purchase price? Great margin either way. Also is that Fayetteville NC? 

@Matt Jones Totally agree with you thats a great point. I've always read that typically when the economy takes a hit the housing market has a delay before home values start to take a hit too. I'm in the Charlotte NC market which was incredibly hot, however we've already seen some slowing down. Inventory is up, most listings on the MLS are going back on the market or having price decreases. I hope you're right about things bouncing back!

I'm also glad you mentioned vacation rentals, as that was also one of my goals this year was to buy or build a mountain cabin with a partner of mine. Now definitely might be the time to look back into it!

@Tim Sipowicz Welcome to BiggerPockets Tim! You made a great first step in joining the community and posting to ask questions so kudos! My suggestion would be to listen to the podcasts to get a better understanding of the modern terminology and strategies that investors use today, and join some local Facebook groups for investors. In those groups you'll often see deals posted by wholesalers, sellers, agents etc. This can be a great place to get details on real deals that you can analyze as well as network and connect with some valuable people. 

I personally love the BRRRR method for picking up rentals, and I did one without using any of my own funding which you can read about on my profile if you want to see an example. This may be a good strategy for you seeing as you're the provider in your home and obviously would want to hold on to as much of your investing capital as possible. Best of luck!