All Forum Posts by: Trenton Lukenbill

This is exactly how I got started myself! Turned my primary into a rental since I got it at a great price before the market jump a few years ago. Once my family grew, we bought a bigger home and made our old one our first investment. Nice job and best of luck on your future endeavors!

 It is legal to pull down the listing anytime you want for any reason. It's your home, and therefore, you do what is best for you!

If you do add pets to the lease, I HIGHLY recommend a non refundable pet deposit. I usually do this to help cover the carpet cleaning costs once the tenant moves out.

Yes, you can. It does not go against Fair Housing laws. Just be careful how you go about denying it as many words or actions can be considered 'discrimination'. 

I recommended using the safety hazard approach. Smoking is considered a fire hazard, and therefore you do not want to risk the safety of your other tenants or property.

Absolutely it is, 100%. 

If you're having this much trouble communicating virtually with your property manager, I suggest possibly heading to their direct office and request a copy. This way they cannot avoid you in a face to face interaction. Also, never be afraid to fire a property manager if you are not happy with how things are working out, they work for YOU! Not the other way around. At the end of the day, you want to feel safe and secure they manage your property first, and that your tenants are well taken care of too.

Hello! I'm a licensed Realtor in the state of Missouri. Although some specifics can vary state to state, in most cases, you can legally back out of a contract. However, you are going to forfeit any Earnest money you have deposited onto the home(more than likely anyways, it depends on the fine specifics of your contract on the offer letter). Also, any sort of inspections, appraisals, and paperwork fees are not going to be refunded to you.

My advice is to read thoroughly through your contract and take notes of the contingencies and see if there are any specifics in which you can leverage yourself out of the contract, legally of course. I also suggested you be honest with your agent. It may be a scary, and frustrating process for you both, but please don't be peer pressured into a major life decision if you are not comfortable.

Best regards.

Hello BP community. It's been a few months since I've been active as I've had many life events happen over the last 6 months, but overall they were for the best! I'm an aspiring investor in the Springfield,MO marketplace and it's surrounding subdivisions. I currently have 1 rental in my portfolio in Marshfield,MO which does me well, and I have another home which my family and I reside. I'm using the leverage technique as I work a full time job and can't buy anything outright. I've been saving for the past year as much as I can and I've got about $20K to help with a down payment on the next property. I am trying to go with the BRRRR strategy, or find something smaller to start expanding my portfolio. My problem is, I CANNOT find anything to even meet the 1% rule. I'm a licensed realtor so I have access to the local LMS, I check out public LMS sites, Facebook, Craigslist, and the few deals I find are gone far too quickly...

I work a full time job and do real estate on the side. So I cannot be up in the game 24/7 like I'd like to be, but I spend a healthy amount of time keeping up with listings and the market. I'm hoping there is an investor in the same area as I am that would maybe be willing to chat with me? Meet for coffee or lunch. Or maybe just instant message? I really want to make real estate work and I'm extremely passionate about it. I've dedicated to much time of my life to give up anyway soon and I love it, but it's to the point I think I'm at my own limits with the knowledge I can obtain for myself. I'm not asking for a mentor, but just some advice from local investors in my market to help the new guy out with getting started. I appreciate anyone who took the time to read this! Thank you, and well wishes to you all on your future endeavors!

 Absolutely love the first response here. @Keng Fong as said, make sure the numbers make sense. As a new investor myself, cash flow is number one and I too share the common question of, "When is the right time to invest?" However, I also truly believe hard work can be paid off and there are numerous ways of income as stated in the second part of this response. It may take longer to find a deal, but I truly believe that if you work for it, you can achieve it. Make the numbers make sense, and don't get struck by paralysis analysis. Good Luck!

Hello everyone in the BP community! My name is Trenton Lukenbill and I am an aspiring real estate investor like many others here as well. I actually discovered BiggerPockets when I picked up the one and only Brandon Turner's book on Rental Property Investing. Not only did I read this, but I fell in love with his writing style as it was clear and easy to follow. I followed this up with listening to the Podcast (which I started all the way at episode 1) and by reading other titles written by Brandon and BiggerPockets Publishing.

I am primarily interested in buy and hold properties as my long term goal is financial freedom through passive income so I can enjoy with my life with my wonderful wife, and our soon to be baby girl. I started my journey like many others with reading Rich Dad Poor Dad and was absolutely blown away to realize I was not alone in my thinking process on finances after reading this book. Robert Kiyosaki put the words on the page that I had been waiting to hear all along, as they were the same thoughts I have had in my mind for many years and realized to myself that "okay, what I feel does make sense and I'm not actually crazy". Coming from a poor financial background and education, I was always told my ideas and goals were unrealistic or 'to risky' which definitely set me back a few years on my investing career. However, I am proud to be here and excited to start connecting and learning with others who share the same passion as myself.

Hello Hector, congratulations on your first deal. As a new investor myself, my biggest concern with your plan is how much you would be cash flowing each month? Is the mortgage itself $1.9K? Or is your PITI payment $1.9K? Because you can very easily fall short on your cash flow by forgetting about insurance and taxes on this deal. Especially if we are already looking at only a possible $200/month AFTER we invest $20K.

I do like the plan of paying down the principle by a high number each month to bring the loan down and refinance, but its going to take a few years in order to see a real difference in your mortgage payments. Also, do you know your ARV? This can really make the difference in your plan to refinance this deal to see a good amount of cash flow coming in from this property.

Investment Info:

Single-family residence buy & hold investment.

Purchase price: $120,000
Cash invested: $20,000

This was my first home for myself and my soon to be wife. After living here for nearly 3 years, we found out we were expecting and decided we wanted more space to raise our growing family. So we turned this fairly new, 20 year old home, into an investment. It is a 3B/2B that produces great Cashflow to start our investing career in Real Estate.

(This is my first post on here...YIKES! Hopefully this is a great place to start :) )

What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

Seeing the opportunity to create cashflow for the bigger plan in my investment career. I saw no point in cashing in on equity in a growing market when I knew I could easily find a tenant and make more by possible appreciation, with the cashflow, and tax breaks the home would offer me.

How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

It was my first home, purchased on a USDA loan during a good time for the market in my area.

How did you finance this deal?

Lending

How did you add value to the deal?

Simple touch up work, paint, landscaping, re-using the old cabinets by sanding them and staining them for a more modern and neutral look.

What was the outcome?

Great cashflow and a great looking property.

Lessons learned? Challenges?

The urgency of getting a property ready for a tenant quickly, so you are not losing money by holding onto it.

Did you work with any real estate professionals (agents, lenders, etc.) that you'd recommend to others?

Being my first property for investing, and having a lot of things going on at the time, I decided to let a property manager take this one for me. I recommend interviewing more than one manager. This was the third manager I had let come to the property and who I felt ACTUALLY understood our market. The previous two I met with I personally felt were estimating the rental income to be way too low and tried to tell me what to do with MY property. The PM I let manage for me, just clicked with me.