All Forum Posts by: Ryan Tuleja

I grew up poor. Like... Parents used my social security and ran up huge electric, gas and phone bills that I got to adopt as an adult poor. Didn't finish high school, went to trade school instead at 16.
Wife and I bought our first home in 06 at the top of the pre-crash market in one of Denver's suburbs. Held it and saved for eight years until we could sell and make some money. Bought another primary residence and held it for two years and sold it.
At this point we purchased another primary home in Minnesota and had some money left over. We just closed a couple weeks ago on a small rental here in MN and have our first tennent scheduled to move in next week.

Probably not super inspirational, but for us it has taken a decade of hard work and planning.

Wow..... 

As a general rule, my experience on bigger pockets has been one of polite, informative people looking to help one another. Thank you, @Account Closed for demonstrating that there are exceptions.

Have a good day and I wish you the best.

@Account ClosedHow exactly would a modern thermostat tell you about the efficiency of your unit? Unless it is equipped with amp clamps at an absolute minimum, the best it can do is tell you that the unit is running more or less than normal.

There are different types of filters with different MERV ratings that require changing at different intervals. If you have AC in the house, I would absolutely err on the side of caution and change it more frequently. As a former HVAC tech for several years, I cannot count the number of service calls I took that could have been avoided with this one simple step.

Most of the town around Prior lake have zoning maps you can pull down. We looked at turning our primary into a duplex for a minute, but one call to the county zoning office let us know very clearly that that wouldn't be legit.

I have struggled to find cashflowing properties as well. It seems everytime I find something where the numbers look almost good, the inspection turns up some major problem 

I've noticed that St Paul rentals vary pretty widely. Are you using the number the sellers are providing or have you checked on rentometer or some other tool?

Hey guys,

I'm under contract for a little duplex in owatonna. Do any of you have an inspector that you can recommend in the area?

I suppose the same question goes for PM's, contractors, handymen and landscapers.

I am looking to do this and have a question. When I run the numbers on any given property, I am obviously accounting for the monthly payment back to the 401k, but would you count it as an expense or cash flow, since it is technically going into one of your own accounts?

My wife sees it as a debt, I see it as something like cash flow... this difference takes many deals in or out of the "good deal" category.

Hey folks,

So I know pretty much everyone in this sight is hunting for deals, and the MLS certainly looks tough right now, but I haven't seen it asked here:

Do any of you local folks have properties you are looking to sell? I am in the market for properties in the sub $150k range. I'm not afraid of a little fixer, but am not looking for a flip.

If not, have any of you found a deal that maybe you just don't have enough cash to handle? I would be interested in teaming up and helping fund the right deal as well as working together on any of the additional responsibilities.

Also- Are any of you whole sellers?

I've been in construction for over 20 years, so I feel comfortable agreeing with a couple points, and I'd like to add...

"2. Supply - The average backlog for builders in MN are 3-5 years and with the tighter immigration policy, the backlog may get longer. As construction industry is seeing shortage of qualified labor and higher turnover. We had predicted last year the supply would not catch up with demand for 4 years, but we are pushing out that time line out to 5-7 years." 

Immigration policy will absolutely impact the ability to build. Hiring in general over the last several years has been very difficult, especially in the skilled trades. This will be just one more challenge that will "trickle up". Additionally, one of the major issues with building here in Minnesota is the Tax and regulatory environment. I read an article about a builder who was putting up identical homes here and in North Dakota who said just code compliance issues here elevated his cost of building by anywhere from $15-25,000!

As a recent transplant from Denver, I can personally attest to the elevated cost of building and working here. Managing commercial projects here I anticipate a minimum of 10% increase in labor costs and pretty close to the same in tax burden over the same type of projects in Denver...

Definitely interesting times we live in...