All Forum Posts by: Christopher B.

@js

My plumbers took me out to lunch a couple weeks ago. We got into the topic of bad contractors and customers  (from their perspective). One of them said this, paraphrasing, "if the guys says to me 'I've got a bunch of work and want to build a long-term relationship with you' I get back in the van." This is used often towards them and isn't seen as a positive by many. 

The reality is they're interviewing you as much as you are them. Us investors have a reputation as being cheap, hard to work with, unrealistic, and sometimes difficult to get payment from. They view us as negatively as we do them. So when you're interviewing them remember they're interviewing you too and think about how you can gain their confidence and trust.

Finding good ones is a tough part of this business.

welcome, spend lots of time reading through the site. I find sustainable housing very intriguing as well. I'm no expert in it by any means but the challenge I see is it currentlly is not cost-effective. There's not a person on earth that wouldn't choose environmentally friendly, sustainable housing if the price is right. Figure out the economics and you'll make a LOT of money. 

I wanted to add, the SP500 is closer to 7% if you factor in inflation but that can be pushed up by reinvesting your dividends. Just food for thought.

 "Diversification is protection against ignorance. It makes little sense if you know what you are doing." - Warren Buffett

Another one of my favorites from the Oracle of Omaha, "Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing."

Most people practice modern portfolio theory, it's what I was taught when I studied Finance in college. There's some data to support it but the benefits are for those who have large portfolios and if you look at how most have created real wealth it's not through diversification, imo. The market is tough for most people, there are rocket scientists that work on the "street" everyday and try to beat the market but don't. If you want the markets historical return take 10% of your annual earnings and buy index funds that track the s&p 500. If the past is any indication you'll get about 10-11% annualized returns over time. It's easy and diversifies your portfolio for you.

Personally, I take the Oracles advice and specialize in real estate. The coc returns from my rentals beat the market before I even consider tax benefits, appreciation, or loan ammortization. There's people around here much smarter than I but that's my experience and makes it an easy decision for me. 

Your stock portfolio, unless you're actively managing it shouldn't be beating your rental portfolio. Tracking the SP500 since it's inception in 1926 the avg returns of the stock market is around 11% +/- . Your rental portfolio should be seeing FAR greater returns than that. My personal portfolio sees higher returns just on COC alone, not taking into account loan ammortization, appreciation, or tax benefits.

Also, most people can't beat the market. Warren Buffet gets around 30% but he's the GOAT. I can get similar returns via my real estate portfolio with half the intelligence he has. There are literally rocket scientists that work 80hrs per week in an attempt to beat the market and can't do it. This is why I love real estate and no longer put my money into the market.

Sorry for the rant, just a big believer REI is a better route than the market for the average investor.

You've got an important piece figured out then. You know where you want to be, start there and work backwards, step by step.

Definitely. Of course a $300k house around here is considered upper middle class and would require it. 

art is right, you can't know everything so plan for the worst, within reason. It's a balancing act, you want to do things right but you also don't need to do more than necessary but at the same time it's often easier, faster, and actually cheaper to just rip things out and start from scratch. 

Ask yourself, whats the most I'd spend to fix this if all my unknowns are worst case scenario? Then what's the lowest price I "know" I could sell this house for? Can you live with that number? 

go check-out the marketing section, plenty of info there and in the blogs. Outside of direct marketing I've found networking to be the key. I have a friend locally that does a lot of investing just off his network, he does zero marketing.