All Forum Posts by: Tatum Littleton

Hey Prince, thank you for the honesty and being open, I think it's good you're seeking some advice here. Of course there are plenty of different opinions so do what will be best for you. I personally would not recommend leaving so quickly... I actually contemplated leaving as well as my start seems similar to yours.

I'm an agent of eXp as well and finding a good mentor was so worth it. I got paired automatically with one (as you know they do at eXp) then they left the brokerage and got I paired with another. Long story short, never talked to either of them other than the introduction and they never reached out to help. So, what I did was contact the mentor team and asked for a list of mentors in my area and I personally interviewed them and met with them to gauge the level of their interest and how much help they would be. I may recommend doing that to help you get going. If you have a mentor already that's working great, I would lean into them more and utilize them as much as possible to get going. I can just speak from my personal experiences. 

Keep working hard and hustling!

Whatever is cheapest and most durable for your market! I get that what you have looked into may take a little longer to install but you do it once with a long time in between replacing (hopefully), in my opinion, that's worth it. If it is that much more expensive, maybe not but if its reasonably a little more, again in my opinion I think it's worth it. 

I also would stay away from carpet, too many opportunities for it to get ruined, try to not let the cheap and easy appeal distract you from the headaches it could cause. 

 Of course, happy to offer different perspectives. I always here good things about Columbus as well as Akron as already mentioned.

Funny enough, I was just in Greensboro a couple of different times this summer and got to talk to some locals and it seems like a promising market. From what I saw from North Carolina, I can see why people like it so much! What Jayme said would lead me to tell you to possibly stay there if you wanted to? Just depends on what you want to do, you have flexibility so that helps you a lot.

Hey Brian, good on you for doing some looking and planning early on and asking questions here. There are so many different opinions and mine is just another one of them, so take it or leave it, the beauty of it all is you can do what you are comfortable with and what will work for you!

So, what would I do? If those numbers are correct for MTR, I would do that as long as you can until it doesn't make sense or you get tired of running it (if you are doing it on your own) and save up as much as you can as you said you plan to do. I understand wanting only cash flow now but I would encourage you to see if doing a house hack and having most of the mortgage paid works for you. We as investors need to be creative in the market right now and maybe doing something we necessarily don't want to do will still set us up for success in the future. 

Also, shiny object syndrome I understand and have a hard time with that as well LOL, but find what is reasonable and actually attainable, those things will come with time, real estate investing is a marathon, not a sprint. For myself, I would find a nice house hack maybe in Ohio, that seems to be all the rage right now, and have most of my expenses covered (your not paying it totally by yourself and can still save money that way). 

But that's my two cents, work hard and have fun doing it. Good luck!

 I 100% agree with this! As well as what Madri Koppe mentioned. Just about everyone only talks about and highlights cash flow and if it doesn't cash flow then it's not good... I would not necessarily agree with that because of what is said above. With house hacking you still may pay for some of the payment but not all which is still great and you can save that money. House hacking is a great way to learn to be a homeowner and a property manager all in one. Of course cash flow is great but not paying for all of the housing expense every month is also great. A good way to look at it, Jana!

Welcome to BiggerPockets, glad to have you learning and growing alongside us! Set your goals to be clear and measurable and work hard to reach them. The forums are a great place to learn how to or how not to do something, ask questions and engage, it helps you and others learn. Work hard and have fun!

 Sure, I mean it may lay it out nicely and compare both but I believe it is all relative in different markets at different times. Who's to say what "working hard" is exactly? Just hours worked I don't believe is the only indicator. Being able to explain things to their client? Being creative in finding properties they may be interested in? Being creative in marketing the property? Being able to work with different personalities. I think the list goes on to define and show "hard work".

Yup, I agree with Michael there! There is a lot of value in doing things yourself and learning as you go. My wife and I have been doing that the last couple of years. 
I think you’re in a great position to do that and get your feet wet and utilizing this opportunity to set yourself up well as a young age. I would recommend doing the research on landlord laws in OR and documents needed and how to get that process going for future tenants and doing it the right way, it seems you may have started that. If you haven’t had the conversation with your relative about getting those “unofficial” tenants out, I believe you should do that soon and present your plan how it will be beneficial for both of you and you can begin the process of getting new tenants in. 
So much value in what you’re doing now, keep working hard, reading and learning and reading these forums (it’s totally okay to not take someone’s opinion and use what would be helpful to you, there’s a lot of opinions on here lol!). Good luck!

Thats a fair question, James! To answer, I don’t think there is a definitive answer that one side has to work harder.

As a buyers agent, you need to know what the buyer is interested in and what their needs are. The real work does come in with driving around like you mentioned, maybe being creative and showing properties they may not have thought of, and articulating different ways to offer on a property, just to name a few items.

As a sellers agent, you do have significant work to do by putting up the property and doing open houses and talking with buyers agents giving them information. A lot of other work comes in when presenting offers and again articulating and helping the seller negotiate, again, only a few things that have to be done.

I think both need a great deal of people skills being able to deal with multiple different people with multiple different desires in the transaction and being able to balance all of that is hard work in of itself. Those are just a few points and I know many others have more thoughts as well! So, again, in my opinion, I don’t think there’s one right answer but am interested in hearing from others on what they have worked through as a buyer/seller agent.

Hey Anastasia! Good on you for starting and thinking about this now rather than later... honestly I wish I did that, BUT all of our journeys are different and unique! As already mentioned, house hack would probably be the smartest and easiest way to start, you get to learn to be a landlord and homeowner all at the same time. 

My biggest piece of advice would be to take it slow and learn to evaluate different options and strategies and hear different opinions (you don't have to take them all and use them, see what works for you... there are a lot of them on these forums LOL) as soon as you can. Real estate is a marathon and things change, be able to adapt. While you're working to your 2025 goal, if you can, work and put your head down and save as much money as you can into a high-yield savings account and just build that up, be frugal, you can sacrifice for a little while. Also, find a loan officer who understands your age and life stage and who will truly put your interests first and help you get a financial strategy that will set you up for success. 

I hope that wasn't too much but was helpful! We're all still learning, keep working hard!