All Forum Posts by: Ryan Sajdera

@Megan Day Right on! We were super fortunate to inherit awesome tenants on our first go! The ones after that have been an enormous headache haha.  Keep up the hustle!

Great post! Love to see when people post the real side of investing. Everyone wants to tote their rainbow cloud around and show other people how good they are. Just remember, you didn’t lose, you learned :) 

I did that once and got burned. I agreed to a 2 year lease for a lower rent and then 9 months later they were gone on orders which we found out they were expecting when they signed the lease. Just make the rent the rent. Maybe offer an intro special for the first month, but otherwise we wouldn’t bother doing that again. Lesson learned. 

Thanks @Patricia Steiner!  I called my attorney today and spoke with him about some of the information you sent me. He said our current plan does not constitute a security and we are good to go forward with the deal by using promissory notes. 

Good discipline man. You will be just fine if you never lose that! I must analyze 20 or 30 deals before i find one that makes sense... but lately i’ve been finding more than i can fund haha. The deals are out there, and if they aren’t near you, go somewhere that they are! We are currently on “vacation” touring rentals. Making another offer tomorrow! If it doesn’t work, on to the next. Some sucker will take the thin deal and then i’ll buy it from them in a few years!  

@Patricia Steiner thank you for that link, that was very informative! I feel like I now have even more questions! Lol. Who would be the appropriate person to call about deal structuring? An SEC attorney? And will they even talk to you over the phone without you needing to schedule a meeting? Thanks again!

@Matt Moore Right on man, now you’re thinking! We have to be careful (and i’m guilty of this a lot) not to make a deal sound good in our heads by “trimming the fat” so to speak. Sometimes we get hungry and just shave down numbers till they appear the way we want them to appear lol. And that is the reason people get burned and never return. After all, the most important rule of investing is never lose money!I just like to be prepared for the worst case scenarios which WILL happen at some point and have happened to us. Thin deals go south fast. I like some cushion! 

If you don’t mind sharing your calculator my email is in my profile! Thanks! 

I think your numbers look ok, but I would consider adding in a property management fee at 10% of the monthly rent. Give yourself some wiggle room for when things go wrong. What happens if you need to take a month vacation or you just decided you don’t want to self manage anymore? Will you still cash flow?

I also noticed that you aren’t giving yourself a very large spread for maintenance. With a 1985 house, you are going to start replacing things. The water heater is the same cost to install whether your rent is 950 or 1800/ month. Same with an oven, a washer and dryer, etc. You won’t have as high of costs for things like roofing and flooring with smaller square footage, but those things are usually forecasted to replace in advance. 

It's a fine balance between cost and risk with SFR's of this size and income. If you're only making 100 bucks per month, you are just one eviction away from losing a year or two worth of income. We are pretty conservative in our numbers because we ALWAYS get suprised when we buy something. I'd set some money aside also for when your escrow account is too short to cover your taxes/insurance the first year because they will be... never seems to fail. Lol.

I like your calculator though, very thorough! 

@Mike Cumbie As a farm boy, I will tell you that some people don’t mind the smell!   LOL! 

Hey everyone,

We are looking to do a bit larger deal bringing on other investors- mostly friends and family. Can anyone shed some light onto when you start dealing with the SEC when you are putting larger deals together? I understand that you aren’t lawyers. Thanks!