All Forum Posts by: Sunny Shakhawala

@Ian Bautista Pay for an appraisal. Go from there.

@Shiloh Lundahl We max out my wifes 401k every year. Her company does it through fidelity. There are A LOT of high fee funds as options. However we put 100% into the LOWEST fee SP500 index fund. I think if youre a w-2 employee, its silly not to max out the 401k. Just gotta know where the moneys being invested. I also want to say we dont stop our traditional investing there. We also max out our roths, my sep, and our HSA. Think those tax deferred investments in the regular market are an important part of a balanced portfolio. As long as you arent paying ridic high fees.

@Karen Young Hey Karen. Just listened to a podcast that Might help you out. Check it out. https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/real-estate-investing-unscripted/id1411541971?mt=2&i=1000417028842 Brandon talks about it at some point deep into the interview. Prolly smack dab in the middle.

Josh,

We are in similar boats, but different waters.

My wife works W-2. I have my REI business.

To her, it seems I hardly work. 

However, my REI business nets more than her w-2 income.

Here's where our situations differ. 

1) My wife loves her w-2 job.

2) I make sure my wife sees and understands where ALL of our money goes. We use her paycheck to max out her 401 and pay off our monthly credit card statement. We use "my" money to pay rent and re-invest for our future (max out both roths, family hsa, and my sep ira). 

At the end of the day, essentially all of my wifes paycheck (after max 401k contribution) gets spent on a bi-weekly basis. Literally, all of it. And basically all of my money gets "saved". But... I think the way we've communicated with each other and the confidence she has in my ability to plan for our financial future, makes it work well for us. 

Honestly, I think you guys are doing it right. She makes 700 / week and you're able to live off that. That is amazing. All of "your" money is being plowed back into your business to just snowball into something your family will come to enjoy for a long time.. There might be a gap in communication? 

Paying yourself a salary and contributing to the expenses so she can save 350/week isn't going to make her feel any less sh!tty about having to go to work all day while you seemingly do not all that much. I think this is the major issue here.

You could just as easily tell your wife...Fine...I'll use 700/week from my business to pay all of our expenses, and we can use your 700/wk to invest in our future by socking away in retirement accounts. Does that really change anything? Eh...doubtful. 

Question: Does your wife love what she does? If not, encourage her to try to find something better...And tell her if it pays less, or if it's not in her field of study, that's OK. Money clearly isn't the issue. You just want her to be happy with how she spends her day.

Excellent write up @Justin Fraser!! Leaves us wanting more! 

So grateful Matt introduced us and I was able to come into the deal. 

I’m confident in your ability to hit it out of the park. 

Like Matt said, looking fwd to the next one!

@Kim Durst 

I rent, and I love it. I've been meaning to write an entire blog post about why I prefer to rent but here's the "short" of it. 

1) Maintenance Free. For something as little as a clogged toilet or backed up shower (wifey's hair), I can open an app, and a few taps later, it's taken care of within a few hours. 

2) Amenities - I rent a place that's nicer than I'd buy. It has a pool, multiple bbq grills, a gym, a lounge with pool table, shuffle board, and 4 TV's (great for hosting friends and family), and a top of the line coffee machine that saves us $6-7 per day. My building also has electric vehicle charging which will come in handy soon enough.

3) Mobility - We like to move around. It keeps us cognizant of acquiring too much stuff. Also, I can work from anywhere. My wife works in fashion and we currently live in NJ, but we aren't ruling out a move to California or even Spain in the next few years. 

4) Stress - My friends that own homes are CONSTANTLY bitching and moaning about "mowing the lawn", "shoveling the snow", "cleaning the gutters", "replacing the *insert expensive thing here*". This sounds like it should be grouped into point 1) Maintenance. But this deserves it's own category. While my friends are busy managing these little hassles, We're sitting pool-side or Netflix & Chilling. 

5) Return on Equity - For me personally, if I HAD to buy... I'd end up spending at least ~450K on a new build town home, or ~550K on an SFR. Anywhere from 4-5 Bedrooms and 3-4 bathrooms. That's just what I'd end up buying because that's what I think would be necessary to hold the family we plan on building (2 or 4 kids). That requires at LEAST 100K down. My parents live in a house similar to what I'd like to buy today (size and location). They bought in 2001 at X. Today, it's worth Y. The CAGR (compounded annual growth rate) as far as appreciation goes is 1.61%. F THAT!!!!

6) Size - If my wife and I decided to buy today, we'd buy way more than we need. We wouldn't buy a 2 bedroom 2 bath, like we rent now. We're 30 and it's a bit late to do the starter home thing. Buying a 4-5 Bed Home right now would be a massive waste of resources. Energy, Time, Money, etc.

When you get to a point (financially) where you can buy the home you want and still choose to rent, it's completely different than being an investor that's forced to rent because you don't have the capital or credit required to purchase. So filter the opinions you receive accordingly.  

I own ONE commercial property. It's on autopilot. I spend maybe 7 hours a week managing it. I leverage the equity in the property (loc) to do Private Money Lending. I use the monthly profits to invest in Multifamily Syndications. I don't have a desire to own 1,000 doors. Instead, I leverage the expertise of my partners to make me a solid (8-15%) cash on cash return on my money. The more money I have to deploy in Loans and Syndications, the more streams of income I can generate. At this (early) point of my career, I think it would be detrimental for me to lock up 100K+ in a house. That's worth 8-15,000 to me annually in passive income when I have it out in the street. 

I'll end with this: It also depends on where you live / are willing to live. If you live in a HCOL area, like I do - renting can make more sense than buying. If you are willing to buy a multi-unit home, owning would almost always take the cake. I tried the house hack avenue. My wife couldn't get on board. Happy Wife = Happy Life. So I changed my investment strategy to fit the lifestyle she wanted. (I now realize I'm happier this way too). 

I have. Joe is a great guy. The short answer would be: Go for it, if you can. 

If you have specific questions about him and his business, I'd be happy to field any questions via DM.

@Jason Kosowan

1. Invest in something with @Jay Hinrichs

@Jay Hinrichs

Hey Guys,

I do mostly syndications and private lending deals. 

Up until now, every transaction has run out of my personal checking account. 

I know this is less than ideal, and borderline idiotic.

I will continue to do the same type of business: Private Lending deals here and there. Syndications here and there. Buy and hold here and there.

I don't want to create a new bank account and new LLC every time a new deal pops up.

Any ideas?

Here's what I came up with.

Open a Capital 1 360 account (formerly known as ING) with my pool of money.

Create a subaccount for each deal I do. 

That way, all my real estate investments are in one account log in but segregated checking accounts.

I don't know yet if Cap1 360 does business checking, but do I need it to be business checking?

If you're someone that has multiple rentals, multiple private money deals, or whatever, how do you bank?

I see you recently read RDPD. Great book. I suggest you read Cash Flow Quadrant next.

Also - try to uplevel the 5 people you spend the most time with. This is a concept I like to bend the rules on a little. Here are the 5 people I spend the most physical time with.

1 - Wife

2 - Dad (we do business together) 

3 - CrossFit Class (3x per week for 1 hour)

4 - My best bud from highschool and his wife (we usually double date at least once a week)

5 - One of my college buddies.

The only person on that list that has a mind for business is my dad. Everyone else is a w2 earner (which there's nothing wrong with - i just feel like they have trouble grasping the concepts we strive to achieve). 

The next 5 people that I talk to the most are all w2 earners also. None of them understand my goals and aspirations. I am done trying to explain it. 

So how do I uplevel without ditching the people I love? 

Podcasts and Books. I spend an extraordinary amount of time listening to the beautiful voices of Josh and Brandon. I listen to a few other podcasts on self development and business. I also read. A LOT. At least an hour a day. So I spend time with the authors. 

Then I spend some time on BP as well. Reading about other peoples experiences. Reaching out directly for one-off advice. Etc.

Re; Naysayers - I've started a few businesses that people told me not to. And failed. At the end of the day, I never thought back and said "Damn, that person was right, I shouldn't have done that." It's always been - "OK - lesson learned. Accept and move forward with new information". At the end of the day, I like Jeff Bezos Regret Minimization model. Make decisions from the point of view of your 80 year old self. Are you going to regret not doing something? Or regret trying?