My wife and I started around 58-59 back in 2016. We are now looking for our 15th project. We got started by selling our first rental property we acquired in 2009 to get the cash to buy, flip, rent, more houses. We created our LLC in October of 2016. Since then we have flipped/renovated 14 houses and currently have 9 long term rentals and one of our son has one we helped him with.
Our goal, we are mostly working on passive income for retirement. Shooting for 30 doors in next 2 years that all have nice positive cash flow. We are also looking to consolidate and/ or moving to Multifamily in the near future.
Our why, very comfortable passive income in 2-3 years when I retire to give us the freedom to travel and relax more. We also want to have a legacy to pass down to our 3 Sons and their families.
Our Team, we have hired several contractors and they do most of the work. We keep an eye on them closely and only use the ones we like and trust. Believe me that is probably one of the more difficult tasks in this game. We do some (very little) of the work but mostly contract out the big stuff like Kitchens and flooring, our contractors that we keep close are an Electric, Plumbing, Flat work (concrete), and a good foundation guy (basements leak and or crack around here and that work can be very expensive from a big companies). We bid out drywall and painting. We have our great handyman do most of the rest of smaller jobs. The rest of our team consists of a good Realtor, Title Company, and Real Estate lawyer. We use a property manager for all our rentals. We just add that to the cost of the deal when we do the numbers on the property. We have our renters properly vetted using a through process the renter applicant pays for. Bad Credit, multiple legal cases, bad or no rental history, are all deal breakers.
One good note is... If we had it to do over we would have found and used a good hard money lender from the start. Instead we used our money for down payments, using Bank loans and or interest only loans then refinanced the houses using a local bank to do most of the rehabs and flips. We have more invested in the process than we would like to have. Even with that, we are cash flow and cash on cash return positive because the numbers always worked. Be precocious and always have a bigger buffer than you think you need. It worked for us at the time however we will use a hard money lender from now for future deals. They are faster to close and you do not tie up your own money. Ironically, the very first time we went to a REI group meeting, the first thing we were told and I remember it every day was, "Don't use your own money to buy a house." We did not understand the gravity of that comment then, but I can't think of a better thing to say to a new investor. I thought to invest you had to use your own money. But that is not the case. I could not imagine how to buy a house without using our own money. But you can. I remember several times throughout our past years repeating things I had heard on Youtube or BP to my wife like, "We need to buy another house but with no money down." My wife's normal response was, "No one will loan us money for another house with no money down". But the will.
It is good to look for a lender and know where they are - ask other investors (REI groups) who they use and the fees involved and build some kind of relationship with a couple of them. Keep a good credit score - this is all crucial - then when you find a good deal, you will be able to get financed. That is the beauty of this business. Finding a deal is hard and you need to be fast and good at knowing what a good deal looks like. Money will be there if the deal is good. At first evaluate every deal as if you were going to buy it. See what the numbers are and discuss with another investor for thoughts. Once you have evaluated several deals you should be able to get the feel for what a good deal looks like. Don't overthink and don't be afraid to pull the trigger. Not doing a first deal within the first year probably means you are not suited for this.
Another good note... Someone said, "With every deal you do, you either make money, or you learn something from it." We have worked out payments with sellers, and purchased houses with cash, paid for all the repairs and financed out 100% in the end. Those are the deals you really feel great about. Fortunately, the most we have lost on a house is $500. It was a house that could not be rented due to a new ordinance. We had to sell it. It was a good lesson.
Good luck and hope to hear from others on this also.
