All Forum Posts by: Trent Stone

"Maxout" by Ed Mylett. Short, very actionable, very doable. FANTASTIC book. He came from nothing and is now worth $400 million, he knows a thing or two about self-improvement and performance. Go check out some of his Youtube videos.

Congratulations on losing the weight, I bet you feel awesome!!

I agree with @Lee Ripma. Anyone willing to do the legwork can find the money if they have the deal and I am firmly in line with her strategy.

ps Lee, I saw the short term rental you have in Mammoth, I used to go snowboarding at Mammoth Mountain all the time. Great place!! :)

There's really not a general rule. It is mostly going to depend on your demographic for the area. ie. If you are selling to young professionals who will live alone, they probably won't care as much. If you are selling to families, then it's going to be a big problem. It also depends on how many bathrooms and beds the house has. ie. if it's got 4 beds and that's the only bath, big problem. if it's got 4 beds and 3 baths, probably won't matter quite as much if it's got a master. Price point matters too. If the mean price for the area is $200k and your house is say $300k, then not having a master is going to hurt a lot more because you will be targeting a higher class of buyer who will be expecting more out of the house. If your house is closer to $100k in an area that averages $200k, then beggars can't be choosers and your buyers will be a lot less picky and it shouldn't impact the price as much.

Hope that helps. If you want to send me the details I'd be happy to look at it and give you my opinion. Also, if you ask 3 different Realtors, you'll get 3 different answers. So maybe explain the situation and ask a few other Realtors in the area too.

Unfortunately I don't think you get to have your cake and eat it too. I mean, you can tell the IRS whatever you want lol, but ethically I think you have to claim the expenses last year and the income this year. If you want to get more creative you should really just talk to a tax attorney, I wouldn't take anything anyone on here tells you unless they are a CPA or an attorney.

One thing that helps you might want to look into, is if you have an LLC that does nothing but flips houses. That way it's only counted as regular income when you flip a house and not short-term capital gains. That alone can save you a ton in taxes.

I just started mentoring a 17 year old who is in the same boat as you. You can start "bird dogging" for investors or agents, setting appointments, finding leads, etc. while you learn the business. Find a way to leverage your skills in exchange for learning. If you are good at talking to people, make a lot of calls to get leads and appointments. If you are good at rehab, then trade painting and manual labor. The key is to add value for someone who can help you learn and get your feet wet, don't expect any free hand outs. Hope that helps, let me know if you have anymore questions :)

Short answer, it depends. 

Run the numbers. Talk to a property management company and see what rents and vacancies are for the area. Be conservative with your capex and repairs. A "so-so" neighborhood sounds like C class maybe, so I would probably expect you should be expecting a cap rate of 8-10%. A "good location" you would expect maybe 5-6% cap rate. Just depends on what class of tenant you want to deal with. Sometimes you get lucky with C class, but usually your turnover, repairs, and headaches are going to be a lot higher, hence the higher cap rate. The 55+ community limits your tenant pool so you have to take that into consideration. 

You have to decide your own risk tolerance and what kind of returns you want on your money. Personally, I look for C+ to B- properties and neighborhoods, 8% cap rate, and $250 per door after taking out all expenses. If you need help running numbers let me know :) Good luck!!

Wholesaling is probably going to be your best bet. Network like a madman. Get on every wholesalers mailing list and build a huge cash buyers list. Get to know every area you are going to invest in and know exactly what your cash buyers are looking for. If you find a killer deal you could cherry pick it and flip it yourself if you wanted to, there are a lot of people out there looking for a place to use their money. Know your numbers inside and out, practice analyzing a ton of deals everyday and reach out to 10-15 investors or potential partners a day and you should be able to stay plenty busy. Let me know if I can help in anyway :)

That's awesome!! Personally I think I'd take the $100k and go get another loan for another property, get you closer to your goal. Congratulations, I bet you were pretty happy about that one lol.

My market was really rough so I did research on areas that have good appreciation, growth, price to rent ratios, etc. I landed on Indianapolis. Then I started analyzing a TON of deals and networking with local agents and wholesalers. Through them I pretty much made all the other contacts I needed to build my team. I quickly learned characteristics of neighborhoods that fit my criteria and things to be aware of. So far so good. Get David Greene's book on long distance real estate investing. Good luck!!

Cash buyers wanted for wholesale properties.