All Forum Posts by: Scott A Smith

I am likely relocating to Martin/St Lucie County soon - MIL is in Palm City and we need to get closer to her as she's starting to need more help as she ages.  Will likely be getting license and dabbling in local investments as well (I prefer buy and hold) - probably in the next few months. Happy to connect.

Bingo. I basically came here to say the same thing and you said it already and better than I would have.  I've been in the banking industry for 17 years and people looked at me weird when I looked at them weird for suggesting that this was some fancy new way to game the system.  It's really not.  Opportunity cost is huge and the ability to use equity and maintain leverage for reduced litigation risk is worth more than paying the mortgage down quicker.  

Wife and I are interested in creating a multifamily property, either through creation of an in-law suite, or maybe just building a nicer MFR property from the ground up for a house hack opportunity.

Location agnostic at this point, just seeking info on people who have successfully did a new build of a small MFR property? Most existing MFR I've seen in the markets I'm looking in are in C+ to C- communities. We're looking to be in a B community at worst.

Thoughts?

@Sassan M. What are the larger firms you recommend from your experience? I was assuming I'd look at places like Blackstone, but I'm not super excited about relocating to NYC.

As I've mentioned in a prior post, I've become unemployed in my industry of 17 years (banking - mostly in marketing analytics, market strategy and operations strategy - analyzing where to place new and close offices, etc based on market potential), and am considering a career change to maximize my future. My most recent role paid around $140k between salary and bonus in Kentucky, which has a pretty low COL. I've struggled to obtain similar titles in my industry because I hadn't led people since I began working in the industry despite getting into the executive level. So, since it would appear that I am going to have to take a pay cut regardless of what I do, I figured it's time to look into a career change.

I want to get into RE as I think it ties well with my analytical nature and I have an interest in building wealth above and beyond stock market returns.  However, even though I have $50k to invest right now, I would prefer to go the traditional lending route for the first few which would require another FT job.  I don't want to become a FT realtor for a few reasons (a) I'm not a 60-70+ hour work week type and (b) it becomes tougher from the traditional lending perspective when my wife already has her own business - I need to be the cheaper insurance provider on top of it.

I'm curious about asset management jobs or other types of similar roles at REI firms where I can learn more in-depth about the industry - and I'd appreciate if anyone had advice about what firms would be worth connecting with and what jobs would make the most sense given my background. I'm open to relocation, but since I'm expecting a decrease in income, I probably would rather not relocate to a super high COL city. Did that in SF a few years ago and it wasn't for us.

@Fredie Robinson I don't believe I'll be looking into Portland.  If I stay in the Louisville area, I will probably look at New Albany or Jeff for opportunities.  

Interesting thread. I'm a Louisville native and noticed some well-known investors in town scraping up properties in Portland and wondered why, despite the rock bottom prices.  I still wonder why.  I think it might be because the city is somewhat tapped out due to the high property demand of the last few years that there really isn't much left but to go into areas that are presumably gentrifying, but actually aren't, or if they are, not at the pace that other cities would.  

Louisville is growing a bit, but still has a pretty strong reputation as the opposite of a transient town.  Most people here are natives and have been here most, if not their entire lives - or if you're like me, a boomerang who spent 17 years here, then 20 years away before moving back.  

Not to dissuade any out-of-state investors completely, but I'll attempt to provide a clearer picture of the opportunity: 

As a East End resident for the time I've been in Louisville, the city has had a reputation that anything west of 9th street downtown was to be avoided. This would include Portland.  Natives also have an unwavering opinion about New Albany and Jeffersonville, Indiana as well due to older, once valid reasons that have long been dispelled about southern Indiana.

Curious what some on this thread would rate the Portland area as? I can't see it as anything above a C- (on the A-D scale), but would love to hear opinions.  With as strong as the Louisville market has been over the last 3 years, and the gentrification of all of the cityburb areas East of downtown (Smoketown, Germantown, Butchertown, etc), you'd think that Portland would have been gentrifying already given its proximity to downtown and a reputation that wasn't as bad as neighboring Russell and Parkland neighborhoods.  The Falkner Gallery is helping Portland, but the incident there last year really set the neighborhood back, in my opinion, reinforcing those old native opinions that Portland really wasn't that much better than their West End neighbors.

Add in the responses above of how tough the S8 inspectors are now here and it really makes it tough to consider investing anywhere in the West End, even if the numbers presumably "work".

Hi BP folks,

A bit of a long lead-in here, so please hang in with me - I lost my job at the end of 2017 as my company downsized my entire department.  My wife and I were making HH income of $160-190k in an average COL market (variable based on my bonus and her self-employment income which has increased from 45k to 60k over her first two years and is on track for at least 60k again in 2018.  From my severance, we have a nice cash windfall, and now have more liquidity than we've ever had. We have $25k for emergencies, and another $65k either in brokerage accounts or high interest savings/checking accounts, though we're pretty far behind in retirement savings due to some debt I had from the only other time I've been a landlord (a long story about getting screwed by a RE attorney/property manager from a home from my previous marriage), which has been paid off since 2013.

I've known about my unemployment since Thanksgiving and am trying to move up the corporate ladder, but am finding it difficult to progress to in-person interviews for job titles that are above anything I've had yet, but I am getting initial interviews for VP/EVP/SVP roles with recruiters. They are all roles that would require our relocation due to a shortage of roles in my field in our current town.  I mention this because I am trying to be realistic about my income needs for future RE goals.  If I go another few months without progressing, I am considering going for my RE license.  The problem is I live in an area that we'd like to relocate from, even though I grew up here and know the area quite well.  Neither of us are truly happy here, however.

If you were in our shoes, would you begin investing in a small MFH (if I could find one) in our current locale since I know what areas are worth investing in, or wait until I get a new job, or something else?  It seems easier to be a RE agent in an area you're already familiar with, but with such incredibly low inventory I'd imagine it's tough to make a living with all of the agent competition out there.

My gut tells me to just find wherever my new job is going to be and then look into the investment side of things.  I also think with an economic downturn on the horizon, it might make sense to get into property management or flipping once we're near the bottom of that downturn in a year or two.  I've always had interest in RE from a distance and with the uncertainty in my primary field, the interest is increasing.

I'd appreciate any thoughts from the BP community.  I've been incredibly pleased at how valuable the content and commenters have been since I started looking at this site.

This is kinda where I'm at, but it's interesting to see responses all over the map.  I had a former landlady who was 84 years old at the time and had many properties across Orlando, and she and her family took care of our yard, including gardening, mowing and whatnot.  I would rather pay an extra $100/mo in the rent than do it myself when it's usually blazing hot during the growing season in the mid-south/south.  

I appreciate the replies.

Apologies if this is in the wrong place -

If you have a SFH property with a grass yard - who does the maintenance? Do you ask the tenant to maintain the grass, shrubs, mulching, etc, or do you contract that out to a landscaping company and include that cost in your rent, or do you do it yourself?

The reason I ask is that when my wife and I decide to do our first property, if it isn't a MFH, I'd like to know - we're current renters since we've moved around a bunch since we met for jobs and whatnot and buying never made sense for our budget yet. Our current SFH rental is the only rental property for our landlady and she has us doing the yard maintenance and bugs us about it (primarily bc her brother owns a landscaping company - so she's insanely particular when it's not usually an issue compared to our neighbors and NEVER gets out of control -other than weeds in the backyard mulched area, which is an annual headache - and the willow tree branch droppings which happen every winter and spring - also a major headache). For as cheap as the rent is I don't really complain, but I think it'd be a heck of a lot easier to just include it in the rent and outsource that to a reputable landscaping company.