All Forum Posts by: Matt Lyons

@Yuki K.

Personally I like cash flow ans would only buy a negative cash flow deal for two reasons:

1. I was buying undervalued and could flip quick, I would take a short term loss if the upside was appreciation and fair market value

2. If it was part of my entire portfolio and took some profit (saved some taxes) from some gains one year to trade off the next

Again, I have to have a reason to take a cash flow hit and that reason cannot be just: I lose 5% a year but it SHOULD appreciate 10%

@Linda S.

Awesome post... and kudos to your success as well!

@Alecia Loveless

Keep it up! The extra time you are putting in is for YOUR benefit and because you are more motivated than 99% of the world.

Don’t let others bring you down, people want others to be average, it is easier on them.. they say Misery love company but honestly AVERAGE loves company

I now have a dozen people wanting to be part of my deal (as they see me profiting) but most of them still sit there and “consider” even when I show them numbers and guarantee them no loss... amazing how people think

Be true to YOURSELF and don’t be AVERAGE

@Bradley Post

First you don’t need a license to make money in RE and some find it helpful not to have one.

Second don’t let age be a factor because it really is not one

Third congrats on getting your $hit together young! Wish I would have started at about 19 years old.

The easiest way to get rolling is to house hack the crap out of a place.. first, know and believe you can find and afford a place, then search for it daily, find a place you can live in and fix to either flip or rent.

Not sure of your funds but let’s assume you have none:

Look for a very motivated seller who will owner finance. Or find a person with a ****** place and strike a deal: you live in and fix then you sell it and they get what it is worth before your fix and you split what it is worth after your fix

You can easily bring two things: Hustle and the Deal! If you can find the right deal and you are willing to do the work to make it profitable then know that someone will be happy to invest the money... so network, find the deal, offer tk do the work and someone will fund

@Michael P.

Don’t figure out how to link a screen shot to this... sorry

Just go to www.dealmachine.com it shows you what it can do and be used for

@Michael Johnson

First, sorry to hear about this crap... truly sorry!

I would try the following:

Be nice: talk to tenant and explain he had NO lease and therefore is either a squatter or trespassing. Explain that you need him out. Offer the carrot: move out by X date and if you do I will give $X dollars cash (basically pay him to freaking leave)

Then hit him with the stick:

You have no lease and are trespassing, you are going to call police and shut all power off and so forth, in addition you are taking him to court and so forth

I usually play the “I am trying to be a nice guy and need you out, if you go I will Grive you cash to be gone”. If you won’t leave I have to go down the legal path where we both lose a lot

In the worst case:

Go there when he is not there and break your own door, literally break it so it won’t hang or shut or anything.

Then when he calls and says “I need a new door mine is broke and gone” you say “who are you I have no tenant there”.

See how long he stays with no door!

@Jon Kelly too funny... I am also a spreadsheet guy and have made a promise to myself and my accountant to move to some sort of RE software THIS YEAR!

If you find one you like please let me know which one... I need to find one and actually created a second post today asking for opinions

@Stephen Brown good question. First, I am unapologetically weird so my process may not be everyone process

For me it went like this: I was 45 years old and hated the stock market or 529 plans to pay for kids college so I decided “buy cash flowing real estate to pay monthly for college instead of other vehicles”. So I began to look for cash flowing and needed to decide what was enough let deal.

I decided that I wanted my down payment back in free cash flow in 36 months or less, that just seemed right. It is tough to find these places but when you do they are well worth looking at.

After I got my cash flow to where I needed a deal presented itself that I realized did not fit my 36 month cash on cash return plan BUT it was an awesome flip... so I just did that without knowing a thing about it.. jumped in with hope, swear and expectations. Deal took 6 months during COVID and netted almost $70k!

Then I decided that what I needed was some diversity... my cash flowing deals were great and I had reached my goals but these places I bought would never appreciate much, so I bought a couple of Airbnb places (one in the Ozarks and one in Bonita Springs FL)

The one in Bonita closed I December of 2020 and I opted to keep it as Airbnb but put on the market as well, it is currently under contract for almost $100k more than I bought it for

So for me the trip just took steps based on my feeling that I needed to diversify my holdings from all cash flow, to a flip when that math makes more sense and finally some Airbnb for appreciation in hot markets.

My initial goal was simple: cash flow enough for college for kids, when achieved it spread to diversify a little with flips and a little with appreciation plays.

Hope that helps... in short, I pivoted when it made sense after achieved goal... if I would have failed in my goal I would have pivoted constantly and often to find the right lane to become wealthy

I have about 50 rental doors over 10 properties and find myself wanting to put them in a format better than excel to track my PNL per property and as a company.

I need something very easy to use (I am a kid of the 80s so I know the internet and use it but was not built on it)

I dont need it to collect the rents (many of my tenants pay cash)...just need it to be a place where I can put in what I collect and what I spend on each property to make my monthly income/loss more understandable and also make year end tax prep way easier

Any advice or opinions would be helpful

Thanks in advance for your time

I am not the absolute best real estate investor, nor am I a tire kicker thinking about getting into this...I own a little over 50 rental doors, I have owned a dozen small businesses and completed over 10 flips profiting up to $72k on my best flip... so in the end, take my advice for what you feel it is worth

Lessons learned:

1. Bigger Pockets is AWESOME and frankly all you need to be successful... listen to the podcasts daily, believe in what they are telling you, use their networks as you see fit... they really know what they are doing and you will find help and information around every corner

2. Look at the downside FIRST:  when looking at a potential deal, look at the downside (what if the entire place is vacant or no one pays rent) and then decide if you can LIVE with that downside.  Any property I buy I say to myself "if no one pays any rent can i cover things for that one month"  I may not WANT to cover things but in a worst case can I do that... or more realitic: "If only half the tenants pay is my mortgage covered"...if the answer to this is yes then you likely have a safe deal

3. Set VERY clear goals:  I will own one rental property by May 31, 2021 is far more powerful than I want to own a property this year!  You can listen to 100 podcasts about how to set goals and in the end the advice is always very similar: Create a clear goal, then work back and decide on the DAILY actions and WEEKLY performance to reach that goal.  Example: I want to lose 30 pounds in 90 days...that means I need to lose 1 pound every three days.. to do that I need to work out 45 minutes per day, track my calories daily and consume no more than 2000 calories per day, ever 3 days I should be 1 pound down

4. This one is MOST important:  TAKE ACTION!  Too many people sit around and debate, consider, analyze, talk, network, and so forth... all can be helpful but in the end YOU HAVE TO TAKE ACTION!  Doing the wrong thing is better than doing NOTHING.  There are lessons learned in making mistakes and there are things you gain by simply taking action and proving to yourself that you can do anything

5. BUY POTENTIAL but DONT PAY FOR IT:  You will see a lot of properties where they say "below market rents"  the property has a value right now for what it is generating NOT what it can maybe down the road generate... Pay based on what rents are TODAY, so you want to BUY POTENTIAL not pay for it, if the potential was EASY to get the current owner would have already achieved that potential (who doesnt want to make more money)

6. Treat your TEAM well... by that I mean when you find a great contractor treat them well, when you find a great property manager treat them well, when you have a great tenant treat them well.. you can still make money, but making a couple of dollars less because you treated someone well (bought them a gift, paid them a little more than charged, got them a new fridge or whatever) is well worth the long term investment in that relationship

7. The Bigger Pockets (or David Green) concept of every deal has three legs just bring two and you can find the third is 1,000% TRUE:  In every deal you need the following:  The Deal, The Money and The Hustle... if you can find a solid deal and are willing to do the work (bring the hustle) you can easily find the MONEY!  If you have The MONEY and you find the DEAL it is easy to find the person willing to put the sweat in to make you more money.

In my opinion these companies are EXTREMELY helpful to success in Real Estate: (I own none of the below and make NOTHING if you use them)

1. Bigger Pockets and literally ANYTHING they do

2. LawDepot.com: I use it almost daily and it saves me a fortune compared to a lawyer for every little thing

3. DealMachine: this app can tell you exactly who owns each and every property. I have closed deals and learned more from this app than any other one I have worked with, its not cheap but it is very helpful

4. Rentometer: this site is freaking great and well worth the money, it literally tells you the rental prices in every area, it shows what things have ACTUALLY rented for

And my parting words for those that took to them time read all of this:

A long time back I realized that I will NEVER be the richest, smartest, fittest, or best looking person in any room (far from it in all circumstances)...literally I would not be at the top of ONE of these categories, let alone two of them.  BUT what I could be, the one thing that was in my control, no matter the room or the group of people is I could be THE HARDEST WORKING PERSON IN THAT ROOM!  So each of us, in any given place and time CAN BE THE HARDEST WORKING PERSON IN ANY GROUP...it is the ONE thing we control

This post is simply my way of saying THANK YOU to The Bigger Pockets Family for helping any hard working American create wealth and happiness through Real Estate