All Forum Posts by: Mike Johnson

 I would definitely like to form a relationship with a good pm company. My experience renting out my own house was that many pms are also realtors and could perhaps be willing to keep an eye out for good rental properties coming onto the market. 

I like the idea of a bulk deal but would wonder why they were selling. 

 I can pretty much guarantee you there are unethical Realtors who would try to convince a seller to take an offer that was lower than they wanted in order to secure 6% instead of 3%. 

My house in WA is worth maybe 165k and I'd be lucky to get 1,100 in rent. I mentioned in another thread the condo I live in right now would rent for maybe 500 and sell for maybe 350k. The idea of a 60k house renting for 800-1k seems nuts to me still. 

I don't really trust my retirement to the stock market (and long term returns of 8% barely keep up with real inflation imho). I basically looked at my house and thought "this will be paid off at 55...if I had 2 paid off houses I could at least retire in China and live ok." Upon researching a lot more than that seems possible. I can save $1,000 or a bit more every month without affecting my lifestyle and I don't want it to sit in a bank losing value. The exchange rate is quite favorable now too. 

10 mortgages max changes things a little. What if you incorporate? Maybe ten 90kish houses is a better idea? Or maybe start out smaller and just see how the market goes?

My actual salary is on the low side but I get free housing, insurance, and the cost of living is very low (I get by pretty well on 500 bucks per month, excluding vacations). But this will make it harder to borrow. What do people here think about having a family member co-sign? My mom could but I would never want to put her at any sort of real risk. I've seen lots of posts talking about doing an llc to shield yourself from risk and that worries me. But maybe that's more for flipping or investing?

So $60k house. 30yr mortgage at 5%. 20% down. 800-1000 rent. 

80 for PM

150 maintenance budget

50 reserve for if it's empty

Maybe 100 for taxes and insurance?

260 mortgage

160-360 net revenue.

Would I be correct in that the advantage of a more expensive house is a better chance for appreciation and a lower percentage of revenue going towards maintenance? Is there any sort of sweet spot people have found? Seems too cheap can be a hassle due to bad tenants?

Hi all,

I am in a situation similar to others on the board but a bit different from most. I work overseas for a foreign company so my retirement is basically entirely in my hands. I doubt I will get much, if anything, from social security.

I do not want to get into rental properties to get rich or to do as a full-time job. I just want to learn how feasible it is to invest in real estate as retirement income. I would buy and hold, have the property managed, and would not really be concerned with appreciation. If there's some that's a plus but not something I want to rely on.

I have a house back home in WA. I bought it thinking I would live there forever so probably paid a bit more than it was worth and it's about as far from the ideal rental property as you can get. I've had it for five years, tried to sell it but would have lost too much money, so now it's sitting maybe breaking even if I'm lucky.

I could afford to put 20% down on a 50-60k property every year. How much could I reasonably expect in rental income from that kind of property? It's easy enough to estimate mortgage payments and I have an idea about expenses, but I've never lived in a place with $60k houses, heh. Also I am living in Beijing right now and it's throwing off my sense even more. Houses here rent for a tiny fraction of their worth, to the point where many owners just leave them vacant. Not worth it to furnish it and deal with tenants for such a small amount of money.

My goal would be something like:

Next 5 years, buy a house each year with 20% down and 25-year mortgage

Next 5 years: buy a house each year with 20% down and 20-year mortgage

Next 5 years: buy a house each year with 20% down and 15-year mortgage

With the goal of the rental income from the first houses helping to make the mortgage payments on the last houses.

That would put 15 houses paid off around the time I plan to retire, plus the house I already have.

I would be OK if I got no income between now and then, if the houses were able to pay for themselves. Is that feasible? And how hard is it?

Again, I'm just looking for some security with retirement, not to get rich quick or make a ton of money.

Thanks for any help you can give.

I would be looking at turnkey properties and if anyone with experience buying them can throw me a link or an e-mail that would be appreciated.

Don't even try to predict Chinese people without having lived here, especially in real estate. I live in Beijing and the real estate market here makes no sense to Americans. The apartment I live in rents for maybe $600 at most. If you bought it, maybe $350k. There is a home worth maybe 1mil down the street that doesn't even have windows. Gated communities of 1.5mil homes with overgrown yards and no off-street parking. Beijing is nearing the occupancy rates of detroit and at the same time housing is basically unaffordable for the vast majority of inhabitants. You see people who bought long ago living in apartments worth half a mil and collecting trash for a living. Someone who was a dirt poor farmer 10 years ago might be worth half a million usd  (or more) today due to compensation when the government took his land. Also keep in mind that most residential structures in China are made of concrete and an extremely minimal amount is paid towards maintenance, and the vast majority of Chinese people lack a basic understanding of how western housing is built and maintained. Also not much understanding of inflation. 

With many rich Chinese lacking education or knowledge of the outside world, and with how different real estate works in China, you get people doing some things that don't make sense to Americans. 

The anticorruption campaign isn't really targetting money going overseas. You get some municipal official of a small city with a dozen rolexes and a million dollars cash sitting in a big pile in a condo under his aunt's name. Seafood was noticeably cheaper last new year due to a decrease in expensive seafood "gifts" to government officials. The people investing overseas are generally more savvy business people who have spent time overseas from what I understand. They are the people bribing the officials (which is not punishable legally), not the people receiving the bribes. 

Stopping money from going overseas is more an effort to protect the values of housing in the major cities.