All Forum Posts by: Sawyer Smith

Getting really excited for BP Con and wanted to see if anyone who currently/is interested in investing using Historic Tax Credits wants to meet up at the event!

We are in the middle of a couple really interesting deals the involve HTC and I would love to hear other stories of this strategy.

@Della Beaver

I found a great General Contractor by calling the pro desk at Lowe’s and asking them who their favorite customer was who was an investor and GC. They put me in touch with a guy who was amazing at working for investors. He was a little pricy but I got great returns in the refinance.

I would strongly suggest not going cheap on a General contractor/ project manager if it’s long distance. In my experience, cheap is almost never cheap in the end.

@Benjamin Couch

I married into debt. My wife is a nurse and had some pretty heavy loans to pay off. I never saw that debt as “hers” I saw it as “ours”. That being said, I can now be as creative as I want with how we approach paying them off.

If you have the money for a down payment on a home I would invest in the asset of a rental. Then use the cash flow for monthly payments on the student loans. That way you are generating equity in a solid asset while it also covers most, if not all of the monthly payments for your student loans

I'm investing in a short-term vacation rental in NW Arkansas. Awesome area to both live and invest in. If you leveraged $600k you could buy both your own nice primary residence(or a house hack) and a few Vacation rentals that could easily do $70k in revenue a year each. Any property you buy down here will see its value appreciate.  And there is a great vacation rental management company that will make it incredibly easy for someone new to run a vacation rental. The cost of living is pretty cheap down here as well so whatever you make in rent goes much further than most other areas.

In the last year my business has grown to the point where I find myself managing multiples departments. I’m finding it to be a challenge keeping track of all the different things going on at one time so I’m going to start a system for tracking Key Performance Indicators for each department. Like Scott trench said in his book, “what is measured is managed.”

What are some suggestions for KPIs to track for the following departments?

Acquisitions

Rehab

Property management

Marketing

Thanks!

@William Costello no they are all residential. We own the house next door and didn't run into any issues in its renovation. Sounds like I need to start hounding local government. 

Thanks, @Eric W. This is really helpful! I had thought it was 4 or more as well, so when we bought it I didn't do the necessary research. Lesson learned.

Last year we bought a triplex in Joplin Mo and planned to do and extensive rehab and rent it out. Half way through the construction an inspector came by and gave us a stop work order because we were not doing it to commercial code and didn’t pull a commercial permit. Is a triplex really commercial? And if it does qualify as commercial according to building standards, can I refinance the building based on its commercial value?

It would be a good idea to make sure it's covered under your insurance policy.

@Alyssa Dyer Totally agree. I've had a lot of success in my goal of replacing my job income with rental cashflow. And I think a part of that is because I'm in a market where the amount of cash you need to get started is low. But if cash flow wasn't the goal then Joplin might not have been the right place. I'm curious, in your market are you able to achieve both? appreciation in the higher end neighborhoods, but cheaper and more cash flowing properties on the outskirts of OKC? They say the best market to invest in is the one you know, and if the market you know can accomplish a diverse range of strategies then you might have a good thing going for you!