All Forum Posts by: Matt R.

@Matt R. and then there was this pilot that was getting super rich trading options with Apple stock. He started off with his entire 200k retirement account and quickly ran it up to millions. Apple always goes up right? Do you remember when Apple hit a rough spot and tanked. He lost it all including his $200k seed money.

When I drove bus I had a friend who ended up with 4 free and clear rentals after a divorce. She sold them and invested in the tech bubble (and just like the pilot who made millions) buying start ups some guru was telling her to buy, She was just getting ready to retire as a millionaire when the bubble burst so she sold all her speculative positions and sank all of it into a safe stock, a well known name, Intel. Intel then tanked and took her net worth (what was left of it) and divided it by 4. I remember saying to my brother just think I could refinance my rentals and get rich investing in tech. Many bigger players did that with large apartment houses.

So many stories. The very thing that gets many people rich is the same thing that wipes them out.

Should have bought bitcoin. Should have bought Google and Tesla and on and on... I am satisfied. Is it bigger pockets or is it bigger problems? I don't envy the super rich.

@Casey Mayton they are similar in that there are loser and winner stocks just like rentals. The average stock investor earns around 1.5% per year because like me they sell when the market tanks. You can build a stock portfolio for 10 years and watch it get cut in half in a week.

In 1992 the Dow Jones was $3284. That year I bought a duplex for $48,000. I sold the duplex this year for $650,000. Granted there was work all along the way but I also earned around 3% on the value as it increased.

The BIG difference is I put down $2,000. There was no way I had $48,000 to buy stock or properties.

The way to do the stock market is to hold for 30 years. The biggest problem is many of the the darling stocks of yesteryear turn to...there are too many to list here.

thank you I have talked to Yonah on basic seg so understand it for more traditional commercial assets but was wonder from those of you in the business how you set up the other things that make your STR cool.. for instance my new one is water front with a very expensive dock LOL.. and it needs maintenance as its in the Columbia River within 15 miles of the ocean so it takes some wear and tear.

Along with all the other accoutrements that make these places desirable. 

while I have you on the phone  can I ask you this

1. when I consider to the Airbnb and look at comps there is really only a few even available some must rooms in a house and or they don't have the great beach dock that i have that allows one to boat to the property and being in the happy fishing grounds in a matter of minutes.  

2. 1 hour from 2 million people 

3. Rural Island in the Columbia river  Puget Island 

4. 2.5 hours from Seattle not sure if it will draw from there. 

2 bed with loft  A frame older cabin.. will do new counters appliances and bath room  has one full and one half  great deck and beach and peir as noted..  

So how does one go figuring out what it would rent for ??? 

It scares the crap out of me how fast the value has gone up. 

Bitcoin has no advantage over other crypto currencies, other than first mover advantage. Governments hate crypto currency and are looking for ways to regulate and tax it. The main reason people love crypto is because it is not regulated and hard to monitor or tax. In other words, the main advantage is that it is non government controlled. That is the main thing governments will look to change. Up until this point crypto has been small enough that it has flown under the radar of governments, but that is changing. I feel like buying Bitcoin is betting against the US Treasury, Federal Reserve and the IRS. That is a bad bet in my opinion. 

Another problem is crypto currency requires miners to support transactions. That means if there is a crash, the financial incentive to support the system goes away. I just don't see the transaction fees supporting it in that scenario.

There is also the threat of hacking the system. As value increases, the incentive to hack the system also increases. The other threat is technology evolving with faster and cheaper processing power. Historically there have been more than one encryption schemes advertised as "non hackable" only to later be hacked. The beauty of stealing crypto is that it is hard to trace the owner, which is the thief in this case. 

I prefer real estate because it is tangible and physical. I see Bitcoin like baseball cards or any other collectable. It is subject to volatility and even crash. If you woke up tomorrow and Bitcoin was worth pennies, there would be no miners left in business. There would be no government bail out of crypto currency. All you would hear is a bunch of pundits saying "I told you crypto was risky". 

All that being said, what the hell do I know? I said they same thing when Bitcoin was at $5000 and people have made a killing since then. I could be totally wrong. Maybe our entire global financial system will move to crypto and those who bought in early will be billionaires. 

Hey everyone,

I live in Phoenix, AZ and have 2 properties there that are appreciating like crazy!! I want to get into multi family but that is difficult in the Phoenix Metro area due to the ballooning prices. My question is this:

Should I invest out of state in multi family to gain cash flow, or should I invest in SFR in Phoenix "knowing" that it will appreciate??

I want the cash flow because I want to be FI, but I also feel that in 5-10 years it will be even more difficult to get into any type of property in the Phoenix area. 

Any advice is appreciated.

Originally posted by @Matt R.:

Originally posted by @Account Closed:

Originally posted by @Tony Kim:

Originally posted by @Account Closed:

Forgot to put the picture of the house that just sold in Torrance California

 Come one Jack, you and I both know that this property is hardly representative of Torrance. This location is in one of the worst parts of Torrance and if were located near the courthouse it would be well over a million. Anywhere past Anza and we'd be talking 1.5M. I know this because my wife have been combing the neighborhood looking for a new house to buy.

Also, we both know that prices have shot up tremendously since 2001. I don't think anyone here is naive enough to believe Torrance SFR prices are the same from 21 years ago.

I concede! After doing a lot of research, the statements I made are not correct and it appears that property values increased by about 30% to 50% since 2001. At least according to what I see. I looked at a history of the Trust Deeds for homes near the Torrance courthouse and I could not find any homes that sold for near $1 million and every home I looked at appeared to have an increase in value of 30% to 50% since 2001.

I use a propertyradar.com to do a lot of research for properties and the amount of information you can get from this website is amazing. I showed what the website does to two brokers and they both subscribed to it, immediately, because the website give more information faster than the websites licensed brokers use and the cost is only $79 per month.

The website gives the name of the current owner of the property, date and price paid, a history of past owners, list of all the Trust Deeds, names of lenders and all you need to do is click on a button to get copies of trust deeds, liens, and whatever.

I don't want to spend a lot of time, but the search capabilities is super amazing and you will never find a website that can do what propertyradar.com does. I suggest anyone serious about investing should have a good look at this website. I use it for my plumbing and construction business every day because before I sign a contract with a customer I want to make sure the person signing is the actual owner of the property and then I use it all the time to check the spelling of their names.

For searching for houses to flip the search capabilities is unbelievable and there are even searches where you can pull up a list of all the houses one flipper flips. So, if you sell services to flippers this is the website you need. If you flip houses this website gives you a good idea exactly how well other flippers are doing because it tells you the price flippers paid and how much they sold the houses for. If you want to buy foreclosures then this is the website to use. It will search for foreclosures with the specifics you want, but I use auction.com and one other website to find foreclosures and I use propertyradar.com to get the current owner's name, their loan balance and the best comp to know the ARV.

 Not 30% to 50% either. At least 100% and in the worst area, refinary style. Better areas easily more than 100% min since 2001. This is LA come on now.  Jack remember this is Torrance beach, outstanding schools, some better than PV. 

update its all good Jack, just saw post above, you got a lot of nums to know, understandable. 

Agreed. It's all good. I love your posts and love your energy. You certainly do make this forum a more interesting place... You're like the West Coast version of Joe Villeneuve.  i.e., totally opposite strategies, but both very knowledgeable and experienced.

And for the record, both my wife and I are in our 50's and I grew up in the South Bay (Manhattan Beach) and also lived in Torrance for a while. I've been buying and selling real estate for over 20 years :).

Originally posted by @Matt R.:

Originally posted by @Account Closed:

Originally posted by @Tony Kim:

Originally posted by @Account Closed:

Forgot to put the picture of the house that just sold in Torrance California

 Come one Jack, you and I both know that this property is hardly representative of Torrance. This location is in one of the worst parts of Torrance and if were located near the courthouse it would be well over a million. Anywhere past Anza and we'd be talking 1.5M. I know this because my wife have been combing the neighborhood looking for a new house to buy.

Also, we both know that prices have shot up tremendously since 2001. I don't think anyone here is naive enough to believe Torrance SFR prices are the same from 21 years ago.

I concede! After doing a lot of research, the statements I made are not correct and it appears that property values increased by about 30% to 50% since 2001. At least according to what I see. I looked at a history of the Trust Deeds for homes near the Torrance courthouse and I could not find any homes that sold for near $1 million and every home I looked at appeared to have an increase in value of 30% to 50% since 2001.

I use a propertyradar.com to do a lot of research for properties and the amount of information you can get from this website is amazing. I showed what the website does to two brokers and they both subscribed to it, immediately, because the website give more information faster than the websites licensed brokers use and the cost is only $79 per month.

The website gives the name of the current owner of the property, date and price paid, a history of past owners, list of all the Trust Deeds, names of lenders and all you need to do is click on a button to get copies of trust deeds, liens, and whatever.

I don't want to spend a lot of time, but the search capabilities is super amazing and you will never find a website that can do what propertyradar.com does. I suggest anyone serious about investing should have a good look at this website. I use it for my plumbing and construction business every day because before I sign a contract with a customer I want to make sure the person signing is the actual owner of the property and then I use it all the time to check the spelling of their names.

For searching for houses to flip the search capabilities is unbelievable and there are even searches where you can pull up a list of all the houses one flipper flips. So, if you sell services to flippers this is the website you need. If you flip houses this website gives you a good idea exactly how well other flippers are doing because it tells you the price flippers paid and how much they sold the houses for. If you want to buy foreclosures then this is the website to use. It will search for foreclosures with the specifics you want, but I use auction.com and one other website to find foreclosures and I use propertyradar.com to get the current owner's name, their loan balance and the best comp to know the ARV.

 Not 30% to 50% either. At least 100% and in the worst area, refinary style. Better areas easily more than 100% min since 2001. This is LA come on now.  Jack remember this is Torrance beach, outstanding schools, some better than PV. 

update its all good Jack, just saw post above, you got a lot of nums to know, understandable. 

Agreed. It's all good. I love your posts and love your energy. You certainly do make this forum a more interesting place... You're like the West Coast version of Joe Villeneuve.  i.e., totally opposite strategies, but both very knowledgeable and experienced.

And for the record, both my wife and I are in our 50's and I grew up in the South Bay (Manhattan Beach) and also lived in Torrance for a while. I've been buying and selling real estate for over 20 years :).