All Forum Posts by: Justin S.

Just wanted to throw my two cents in about Grant Cardone. He has been completely bashing single family investing lately in hopes of getting people to invest in his fund and I really don’t like it. His entire argument against single family is that if it ever goes vacant you lose money. Obviously this is true in the short term, but the goal is never to own one house. I started six years ago buying, flipping and holding very small rental houses while I worked my regular job on the side. I started with one, and I can tell you that when you only have one you make sure that it’s never vacant. Then two and three and four, and at that point even if you have a vacancy for a small period you still cash flow just fine. Long story short in a small period of time you can build up a portfolio that is diversified enough to handle some vacancy and you’ll get a lot more than the 6.5% Cardone wants to give you. Last year I left my job and now live off my real estate income. I now focus on larger commercial deals, and it’s all because I started with small single family homes. I wish everyone the best. Feel free to message me if I can ever help.

Ebay. $12

What questions do you ask before setting up a showing with a potential new tenant? I prefer to not ask a million questions, but doing some light screening on the phone can often save me time.

I actually messaged my banker early this morning about getting a credit line equal to the amount of mortgage equity I have. This would keep the LTV less than 80% of the original loans, and when I have extra cash flow I can pay it towards the credit line to save me interest charges, and then pull it out when I need it. Over time, the credit line can be increased based on the amount I've paid down, and then maybe at some point I could refinance everything if needed. I just don't like the idea of having to do an entire refinance anytime I want to pull out equity.

I'm in a tricky position, because my portfolio is very established and has very little risk. I hate to go re-loan all the properties and increase risk more, but I want to use the cash flow and equity I do have to expand when the right deal comes along.

I've been doing real estate for a long time. I started with some multi-family properties, then bought a lot of single families, and now own some big commercial. My portfolio is doing very well and my lifestyle is fairly inexpensive, so I'm at the point where I don't know the best way to use my cash flow. All of my mortgages are less than 4%, so it doesn't make too much sense to focus on payoff. All of the properties I am interested in would take about a year of saving up to purchase. So now I'm in a spot where I don't know what to do. I've thought about paying a few of the mortgages way ahead to create more cash flow, or pay off the smallest mortgage and then potentially refinance it later if I want to buy something bigger...I'm torn....help me out.

Originally posted by @Thelonious Jones:

Our site needs some TLC, but hopefully it give you a basic idea.

www.gphrents.com

 I like that. Clean and simple. Probably even more info than I want to post on it.

Now that I'm approaching 40 units and dealing with huge nationwide tenants in some of my properties, I've registered a domain to make things a bit more professional. I don't like the idea of my tenants sending me an e-mail using my gmail e-mail.

I'm curious as to others that have a simple website. Can you share what information you feel is relevant, or even a link to your site? Would love to see what others are doing in similar situations.

About a year and a half ago I jokingly listed my house on there and thought "if it sells it sells" and within 30 days we had a solid offer. The house was priced above $400k, and I was very surprised they had customers that wanted to buy in this price range.

I've used Menards cabinets for at least 10 different properties and have always been pretty happy. I usually special order if I have time, otherwise the stock ones are good. The countertops are also the best price, but never seem to fit right. As long as you're fairly handy, you can make them work and save a lot of money though.

I would never be offering on a property without seeing financials first. That is what non-disclosures are for.