All Forum Posts by: Michael M.

Oh, and also all of the BiggerPockets books. Haha I’ve read pretty much all of them and they’re super good resources. 

Oh man so many good ones, How to Win Friends and Influence People, Never Split the Difference, and The 4-Hour Workweek were all great books. So many more though. 

Welcome to BP! My wife and I live in Moorpark. I read The Millionaite Fastlane by MJ Demarco, I haven't read Unscripted yet, I gotta read it soon.

@Carolina Brembilla yes that is a great neighborhood. It’s still considered Thousand Oaks, but it’s practically in Westlake Village. Great schools, and it’s close to shopping, restaurants, and grocery stores. 

Carolina, Thousand Oaks is an extremely desired area to live in Ventura County. The problem that I have seen is a lot of retail buyers are willing to pay upwards of 600k for houses that need a decent amount of work. But there are definitely plenty of houses in Thousand Oaks that can be fixed and flipped for a healthy profit. 

I'm finishing up The 4-hour Work Week, so this question was perfect timing for me. My wife and I have a goal of doing a mini retirement somewhere in the next 5 years. To answer the question, I lived in Crete, Greece for a year while I was in the Navy. I'd love to live there again, it's a beautiful place. So much to do and see on the island.

I am a Civil Engineer, currently working as a Construction Inspector in Southern California. 

Are you looking in the la market? It may be difficult to find a good brrrr deal. But as long as you have a good contractor, can get preapproved for the refinance, and find a good deal I don’t see a problem with it for a first deal. Personally, I would probably look into house hacking a duplex or a 4-plex. 

@Russell Brazil thank you for the response. Hmm I guess it could be unethical, but if it's a clean deal and the agent know's it'll close quickly, I could see it being more advantageous to a distressed home owner as well.

Yeah an extra $5k doesn't exactly move the scale for someone making that kind of money. WOW.

@Charlie MacPherson thank you for the response. I guess I was thinking the listing agent would still do both ends of the deal, my agent would just facilitating the deal, so he wouldn't necessarily be foregoing his commission since his name wouldn't actually be on the deal. But your second point of an agent not being paid by someone other than the broker would make things unethical. To give him more of an incentive, is giving him let's say 3.5% rather than 2.5%, a way around that issue? It's not exactly a crappy little commission when the crappy houses are $500k. But I get your point. And again I'm new to all of this, I've only done a couple of primary residence deals. So thank you for your advice.