All Forum Posts by: Trevor Martin

Welcome to BiggerPockets, arguably the best knowledge source out there! One of the best places to start is the Beginner's guide, which you can find here.

Look forward to your first success story post! :)

I'd love to help out!

The sooner you get started, the better! A big factor in REI, and investing in general, is time. The earlier you can get started, the bigger you can grow your investment. Time is definitely on our side (I'm 21 as well, bought my first SFR when I was 20 and recently added two more to my portfolio). My best advice is to learn, learn, learn! Do your research! The idea of investing in property is a daunting task to tackle alone; but there are plenty of ways to gain experience/knowledge: - BiggerPockets is a great source- it has thousands of threads, blog posts, and podcasts available to you for free. - There are tons of great books out there on REI - Look for a mentor! Reach out to family, friends, and others in your network to link up with someone who does the same thing you want to do. Take them to lunch, offer to do their grunt work, etc. A mentor can be an invaluable resource. Do your research, crunch your numbers, and when an opportunity comes your way, don't be afraid to act on it! Good luck!

I'm renting a single family home. I've had quite a bit of interest at $1150/mo and think it would be relatively easy to fill.

I just showed it to a prospective tenant that pulled up in a $75,000 Mercedes and said he was working on his PHD at the local University. He would be willing to sign a two-year lease at $1000/mo.

Obviously this is (hopefully) an ideal tenant. Being said, how much should I sacrifice for a good tenant and longer lease? While it will save me money in turnover/vacancy costs, $150/mo seems a little much.

Any advice?

Jared Adamson Tony Cavalli John Winston Thank you all!

Bryan H. You can refinance after three months (according to my bank).

How are you getting a 1.5% ROI? I have:
SFR #1: 950x0.5x12/73000 = 7.8%
SFR #2: 950x0.5x12/62000 = 9.2%
SFR #3: 1100x0.5x12/79000 = 8.4%

This isn't counting the $5,000-$10,000 in equity I gained in each of these at purchase.

Mark Turner Thanks for the kind words! I'm not too familiar with HELOCs. Which is more advantageous - that or just refinancing?

Because I have all of the properties in an LLC, I think I would have to refi as a commercial lone, 5-year bubbles starting at 4.5%

Bryan H. I'm evaluating them using the 50% rule as if I was going to refinance them (which I probably will soon) to get my cash back out.

I paid cash for the properties because the money was there, it would allow me to close quickly and get a slightly better deal with the sellers, and I can always refinance and get the money back out at any time.

I didn't immediately go after an apartment because as I said, I'm 20 years old with no experience. I think jumping head first into an apartment complex would be a little too steep of a learning curve.

Marco Santarelli Paying cash was just a strategy to close quickly and gain a bit of equity at closing. I've probably gained ~5-10,000 in equity on each house due to the ability to pay cash.

My thought was to earn that money up front then refinance when I need to (situation I'm about to find myself in).

Bryan H. The 50% rule as discussed commonly on these forums. 50% of rent allocated to maint/prop management/cash reserves. 50% allocated to P&I (here Im using a 15yr mortgage at 2.8%).

Common BiggerPockets practice is to have +$100 cash flow per door after utilizing the 50% rule.