All Forum Posts by: Michael Shear

I too am looking at my next rental being an ABNB, the reason being is beyond purely cash on cash. I want to get a real estate business going instead of purely a real estate investment. I believe that if I were to get single family maybe nothing bigger than a 2Bed near a hospital, the cashflow will be much greater than possible with a LTR. I will gladly be taking on the responsibility of business owner instead of hiring out the work. I can have my teenage son work for me along with my wife. This will cause us to create a professional cleaning business as well. The possibilities are endless. Either way, the best way to start on any journey is to take about 10-20 hours purely researching the numbers and what it will take to make it work. From there it is all about making offers and get a deal in place. No point in overthinking it.
I would make sure to check out Tony Robinson on the Rental Rookie podcast and maybe check out his book/courses/podcast/instagram for more helpful information on how to really make it work for you in a way that WORKS FOR YOU.

@Gabrielle Barnes welcome to the community! I started my REI in St. Louis as well. Had a fall out in the 9-5 job world and had to readjust. My first property was a 4 family on the southside, It was an amazing learning experience because I was so hands on with landlording, property managing, and maintenance. I ran into some troubles with flooding, tuckpoints, rats, and roofing. All in all I gained a lot of experience and sold the property for a profit. Now looking back 3 years later, I wish that I could have thought about finding a construction loan to really fix up the place and I could have made the rents go up and the ARV would have went up another 20-30k from where I sold it. Lessons learned and I survived. I currently have 2 more rentals since then with 1/10th the problems because I learned what I was good at and what to look for before buying.

I believe the first thing that you need to do is take massive action and really just get in there. Do as much research as you can and just DO IT. The worst thing you can do is wait 2 years and never actually take action. I mean could you imagine training for a marathon run for 2 years on a treadmill and never going to run a smaller 2k or 5k run?

As you may have seen from all the previous post. The podcast and all the books that they have made and the ones they recommend on the podcast as amazing. My favorite so far has been "Set for Life - Scott Trench". I am a big guy on the mindset of real estate and finance as a whole. The same goes for "rich dad, poor dad" as you mentioned as some of your first reads.
The best thing that you can do is watch a bunch of youtube and podcast. See how they analyse deals and go for what best FITS YOU. There is no such thing as an investor that does "It all" Some people are comfortable with low income rentals, some love mobile homes, some love to flip, so love to BRRRR, and some love the high network rentals or turn key rentals. Start with whatever if comfortable with you and start taking action on it. Run 25-50 home numbers before you even make an offer on one. After you have done that, it will all become much easier and it wont take you a whole day to look at 2 houses. You will know the area and the numbers you need for each of them.
Good look to you and ill send you an invite.
@Keith Winkler is a great resource, he has been working the real estate game on this side of the river for a while and really knows his stuff.
@Andre Taylor is an awesome investor in the multi-family space on the southside of STL. He also has published 2 books. Great dude with a lot of information on the BRRRR method

@Luke Marsh This is a great question. I have had 2 more properties since then and I have done one wholesale deal as well. For starters, I actually sold this 4 unit apartment for about a $20k profit after 2 years. I was in a really tough place financially and needed to sell and I actually got a offer after looking for 3 months at a price that was unexpected so I took it and ran. In the 2 years of owning this property, I learned about 10 years of real estate hard knocks. I will give a list of the following things that happened. @Bartosz Rosol @Varun Talluri @Domenick Booker-Pomata Sorry for taking so long to get back to you all. It has been crazy with the covid-19 and I just started teaching 5th grade as a first time teacher. Life caught up to me, but I wanted to make sure that I replied back to show you my appreciation for the kind words and my growth in real estate.

1. Non paying tenant
2. Evicted tenant
3. Huge mouse problem (I caught about 20 and they never came back...plugged up every hole I could find)
4. Found good property managers 
5. Upstairs shower plumbing busted and caused mold in the lower unit (massive hit to my cash)
6. Renovated a bathroom
7. Installed a new back door on my own.
8. Painted every unit.
9. Learned how to successfully negotiated with other investors and licensed professionals
10. Basement flooded and I had to get the city out to unclog their line due to a nerf ball stuck in the pipe. (Had to pay a plumber to get the video to prove where the problem was)
11. Hail storm came and ripped off the roof and the concrete plates around the edges. (Learned how to deal with insurance and get a brand new roof) This was the saving grace for selling the property cause the roof was bad already and it was a blessing that I was able to claim it for damage and also got to claim it for the reason for the mold in the lower UNIT...
12. Learned how to do my own business taxes.
13. I learned what banks to go to and what to not go to.

There are many other things that I am sure that I am missing, but it was a wild ride with many tears (literally made a grown @$$ man cry).

To end on a good note, the sale made me basically break even with about $1000 extra to pay off some credit card debt that was accumulated. All in all it is the reason that I am still going strong and working toward finding another one here in the near future. I am working on building my credit so that this time I will have a larger cash reserve when crap hits the fan....and I know it will.

Welcome Kacie from Fairview Heights, IL! I actually got involved due to seeing how people made so much money from rentals while I was in college in Carbondale, IL. I wish the best of luck to you and your husband. My wife and I are on the same path. Currently wholesaling our way to get income to make down payments on our own rentals.
Read all the books from the bookstore. My favorite is "Set for Life" by Scott Trench. It got me on fire for my life.

Wish I could join this, but it looks like it is on a day that I will be hosting at church. I am looking for a good group to get into for real estate and get myself going again. I currently own 1 rental (purchase 2017). Made many mistakes and hoping to learn from those mistakes and keep it moving

Following. This is an excellent question that I hope gets some good input soon.

@Bob Lachance I will for sure be looking into property management from here on out. I am the type of person that needs to do it to understand it. I also love to learn new skills. This has for sure been a learning experience and finding out the type of career in real estate that I will want to pursue in the long run. I know that I probably will not get into property management since I feel that it is a tedious job with lots of organization that I do not wish to expand on. I believe my time and energy will be best used other places. 

@Fabio Salas It is on the southside very close to Dutchtown. 4001 Hydraulic Ave if you want to google it. Yes, FHA rule and law is 1 year before you can move on to another property. It is worth it though to house hack. My family and I will really be growing through this. It is worth it to be out of paying $800 a month for rent.
Our next plan is to get a Du-plex. I think that a 4 unit doesnt allow for the size that we plan on having. Looking at having another child soon :D

I have been finding that in STL for your best investments will be flipping rentals with the BRRR strategy makes the numbers work great. Flips are harder to do since you will not be getting as much money from forced appreciation unless you score a deal in the central west end area.
As someone said earlier, STL is very patchy and if you are looking at investing in this city it is necessary to really do your homework on that areas and where development is happening. Except for that, the barrier for entry is much less than many other metropolitan and there is a reason for it.