All Forum Posts by: Neil Henderson

Colleen, I can say very confidently, that Scott Meyers is a great place to start.

Beware small multi family in Las Vegas. They are all in very tough neighborhoods. Little to no small multi family has been built in Las Vegas since the 1980’s. Mostly C class properties in C and D class neighborhoods.

I lean towards none. Less liability, upkeep and guest questions.

A couple of suggestions: 1. Hire a professional photographer to take photos. That’s the first thing people look at. Your photos are good, but they aren’t great. 2. Try to get specific with the title of your listing: “5 Bedroom Home, minutes from (landmark)”, “Perfect Family Getaway near (landmark)” 3. Take the things that your previous guests have raved about and use those to write the description of your listing. 4. With the photos. Make sure you have a photo of each bedroom/bed with a description of what it is: “Master bedroom has 1 king size bed”, “Bedroom 2 has two queen size beds”, Bedroom 3 has 1 full sized bed and a bunk bed”, “Queen sized sleeper sofa in the living room”. The most common question people will have is “What are the sleeping arrangements?” Otherwise, your listings look great.

I have one young child (3) and a full time job. I often see discussions around strategies of how to invest while holding down a full time job, but I don't often see discussions about when there are also kids in the mix.

I'm curious for those aspiring and active investors out there with kids AND a full time job what your strategies, habits, systems etc. are for balancing job, parenting and investing.

Here are a few of mine:

• Get up early and get as much done as possible before the little one wakes up. 

I typically wake up at 4:30am and do a very brief morning ritual based on Hal Elrod's Miracle Morning and then bang out as much real estate related work as I can, it's usually not much. As soon as the kid wakes up, typically between 5:45am and 6:30am my time is not my own. It's not a lot of time but it's something.

I try to schedule a breakfast/coffee meeting with someone at least twice a month.

• Bring my lunch to work. Healthier and much faster than going out to eat somewhere and it leaves me some time to do the following:

A. I typically eat at my desk and pull up Offer Memorandums or notes from talks with sellers and use that time to evaluate deals. I use Evernote to save the OPM's, Deal Evaluations and my notes for each deal. Evernote allows me to access those files anywhere, home, office, cell phone, etc.

B. Eat at my desk and then go out to my car to make calls.

C. Schedule lunch meetings with investors, brokers, lenders, property managers, mentors etc. 

• Evening. I usually get home around 6pm, have dinner with the family, play with the kid, do bed time and then around 8:30pm my time is mine again. 

I will typically use this time to respond to emails and write offers. I'm usually in bed by 9:30pm and I typically read for about 10-20 minutes before falling asleep around 10pm.

• Make best use of the Weekends. My wife and I typically take turns watching the child. She's a stay at home momtrepreneur so depending on what she's got going on she'll try to give me about 4 uninterrupted hours on Saturday or Sunday to get some work done:

I will typically do mailers on the weekends with the help of my wife. We are starting to involve the kid a little bit with stamping envelopes but the results are not always...desirable.

If I want to go looking at properties, weather and neighborhood permitting, I'll usually throw my kid in the car and drive around with them. My kid is the ultimate ice breaker with property managers and owners.

I usually try to take one of the two days completely off and just spend it with family, but that's not always possible if the "Ops tempo" is high.

• Make 90 Day Plans

Something new I'm trying out are 90 day plans (quarterly). I write down what I'd like to focus on each day of the "working" day and do my best to stay laser focused on that activity.  That looks something like this:

Week 1

Monday - Brokers, reach out to 1-2 brokers and set up appointments

Tuesday - Database, populate and refine property and owner database

Wednesday - Internet, search internet for new property listings

Thursday - Marketing, create or refine my marketing

Friday - Education, read, watch, practice evaluations, etc.

Weekend - Visit properties

Week 2

Monday - Lenders, reach out to 1-2 lenders and set up appointments

Tuesday - Database, work on mail merge

Wednesday - Internet, search internet sites for new property listings

Thursday - Marketing, create or refine my marketing

Friday - Education, read, watch, practice evaluations

Weekend - Mailers

I try to send out mailers at least once a quarter, it's all I can handle at the moment. 

Mondays are typically for reaching out to potential team members, Brokers, lenders, Accountants, Lawyers, Property Managers, Realtors, etc. I just focus on one team member type each week. 

Weekends are typically for property visits and putting together mailers.

• Make the most of my commute

My drive to work is about 45 minutes too and from. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays are real estate podcast days. Tuesdays and Thursdays are Audible business books. 

If I find myself with some extra time in the morning between leaving the house and driving to work, I may swing by and visit a property.

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That's me in a nutshell. Someday soon I hope to be able to focus on investing full time but this is what I do to make it work for now.

I'd love to hear how some of you make it work.

I'll be there! Wouldn't miss it! Pretty sure @Omar Merced, @barrigriffiths and @Erik Hemingway will be there if they can.

I have a landlord friend who use to except people which past evictions if it was beyond 7 years. Not anymore. There is a mindset for someone who goes all the way through the eviction process that you want nothing to do with. Pass!

AirBnB isn't going away. I've been a host for the past three years and can tell you the demand from consumers for short term rentals outside the normal hotel/motel market is solid and growing as more people experience it. It's not strictly about price, it's about having a completely different travel experience. 

For families, it's about having a kitchen, separate bedrooms, a high chair, a pack and play and a stroller already on the property for them to use. Being able to park in a driveway and walk in to the property without going to an elevator.

For business travelers, it's about having solid wireless high-speed internet, a quiet place to sleep, a kitchen to cook and eat healthy meals, a desk to work at and a home dry cleaning system to clean their work clothes after unpacking them. Also, being able to park in a driveway and walk in to the property without going to an elevator.

Are their bad actors out there who need to be reigned in. Absolutely. 

Is it right for an AirBnB host to sublet their rental on AirBnB without telling the owner? You bet! It's up to the landlords to know what's going on in their properties and it's up to hosts to not be bad actors. 

As far as illegal AirBnB rentals, I think most cities are over reacting due to pressure from the hotel lobbies and NIMBYists who probably never knew their was a short term rental in their neighborhood before they looked it up on one of the marketing sites.

I'm not opposed to regulation but right now, short term rental owners have to navigate a regulatory mine field in many cities that seems to change by the hour.

https://m.lasvegassun.com/news/2017/jun/21/las-vegas-puts-more-restrictions-on-short-term-ren/

For the better part of a decade, Las Vegas Councilwoman Lois Tarkanian has wanted new rules governing short-term residential rentals in the city. That might come Wednesday, when the City Council is slated to vote on an ordinance that would give the city more oversight and create a more rigorous approval process for where short-term residential rentals can go. “I don’t want to go through another three or four years of them saying they’ll police themselves, when in the past they’ve done zero. Zip,” Tarkanian said. >>more https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/las-vegas/las-vegas-city-council-to-vote-on-short-term-rentals-rules/