All Forum Posts by: Mike Moles

It looks like a great return to me!  I'm a newbie myself and still learning from BP, I have been running these analyses on properties in my area.  I am still trying to figure out the estimates and I have included much more than you did for legal expenses.  I figured to be conservative I would need to hire a lawyer once every two years for a potential eviction or just small claims stuff.  This is on a SF, of course I would hope it would never be that frequent and some I could possible handle myself but I want to be conservative with my estimates to ensure positive cash flow.  With 8 units is $500 per year enough?

Thanks Katharine Chartrand , that's what I figured. If it wasn't deductible then it would be taxed twice, once as my W2 income and then again when I retire and withdraw the interest portion from the 401k.

@Jimmy Wilson , interesting plan despite the issues addressed by @Dmitriy Fomichenko and @Doreen Chaisson. I'm new here as well and I haven't yet made my first investment. My plan is also to invest in SFH's and I had planned to use personal savings to do so. I do however have a 401k from a previous employer and after learning about Solo 401k's from the Podcasts the idea of using this vehicle to potentially fund some REI's appealed to me as well. Taking a loan and paying it back with interest would add to the retirement fund, I assume the interest rate would need to be reasonable, anyone know the IRS guidelines on this? I would probably want to charge myself the highest interest rate I could that would pass the test. I would presume that the interest payments on the loan would be deductible on the REI's books so it would be a way to defer taxes on some of the CF profits from the rental units. I would more than likely have a long-term buy and hold strategy.

Thanks all for the feedback, @Account Closed I did a search for rentals and the Zestimates do seem fairly close at least for the area where I looked. My guess was that is how they determine the Zestimate.

Actually this is what I just found on Zillow:

What is a Rent Zestimate?

A Rent Zestimate (pronounced ZEST-ti-met, rhymes with estimate) is Zillow's estimated monthly rent price, computed using a proprietary formula. It is a starting point in determining the monthly rental price for a specific property. The Rent Zestimate is pulled from public property data and similar local properties listed for rent; there may be special features, location, and market conditions our algorithms have not taken into account. Variations in rental price can also occur because of negotiating factors, special incentives, and length of lease. We encourage renters and landlords to supplement Zillow's information by doing additional research such as:

* Talk to a local real estate agent, or property manager that specializes in rentals
* Compare rental to other nearby apartment and homes for rent on Zillow
* Visit the rental (whenever possible)

So I will plan to use these estimates as a starting point as they say but of course do more research to verify them and to include them in my analysis before I make the investment.

Thanks for the additional source of data @Victor Ortiz .

I'm looking at my first SF rental investment property and I was wondering how accurate the monthly rent estimates are on Zillow, anyone have any experience with this? I think they seem reasonable but I'm not sure. Thanks!

Thanks everyone for the warm welcomes. Bethel is a nice community Jonathan B., I am also considering investing in this town where I live or possibly in Danbury where there is certainly much more inventory and possibly more attractive opportunities. We will see, I need to do a lot more research before I jump in.

And thanks for the invite to the meet up Jonathan M., I will definitely look into possibly attending if not this one then one in the near future.

Hi all, I just joined BP this week and I have already learned a lot! I have a fairly long commute to work so listening to the Podcasts has been great, very informative and entertaining :) I really appreciate this network and I plan to learn a lot from it over the next several months.

I have been considering making an investment for a while and decided to begin preparing for it by educating myself, I can tell that this is the place to do it. Thanks everyone for making it so useful.

Mike