All Forum Posts by: Troy Luster

I'm originally from Mississippi.  I'm an active duty reserve Soldier. I own a few SFRs and have been buy and hold so far. I've lived in Oakdale, Pennsylvania; Columbia, South Carolina; Belle Chasse, Louisiana; and now Fort Knox, Kentucky.

My goals in real estate are to replace my current income with passive income before I retire in 10 years or so. I'm open to just about any vehicle to achieve this. I'm approaching the point where additional properties will need money down, so I'm leaning towards flipping and/or wholesaling to shore up my foundation for more buy and hold.

I had seen bigger pockets here and there, but never read anything. I think an article lead me to the podcasts weeks ago, and now I'm hooked.

I look forward to interacting with all of you.

Welcome!  I'm pretty new myself, but what I've learned so far has been awesome.

How much earnest money did you put down?  What's the purchase price?

What's the purchase price?  And are you sure you can get $1700 per side?

Great question.  I've also read many of Grant Cardone's books.  I think some people have trouble thinking big.  But we all have different goals.  The important thing is to build a solid foundation by starting where we can, but with the intention to get as big as we can.  One of my problems is that it's easy for me to think 10 years down the road (10X, BOBA), but hard to take the necessary steps today.  One thing I love about bigger pockets, is that we can network with people that are on his level.  I think that's the first step to scaling your business.  Having people on BP that have done 500 deals and you are able to ask questions.

Not sure what you are asking?  I would assume agents would at least attempt to keep the deal in house unless they can not.  Some brokerages don't allow this.

Definitely a cutoff.  We have to approve repairs over a certain dollar amount.  I'll give you two examples of two different PMs we have.  PM 1 has a automated system for everything.  The tenant initiates a request, the PM gets quotes, and we are contacted.  PM 2 is old school.  Same process, but they eventually call or email.  Number 3 is good question.  They both provide invoices.  Being in KY with property in MS and SC, I can't really dispute a repair.  One property is pretty new, less than 5 years old.  But the other one was built in 1993.  I'd say if you have to worry about trusting your PM, that's another problem.  One PM is better than the other, just more efficient.  I guess you could talk to the vendor if the property is not close, but depending on how much work the PM is sending them, this may be a dead end.

Sounds like you may be better off going with your gut.  Are you working with a Realtor, or negotiating directly with the seller?  Here is a article on what you can do for a low appraisal:

https://www.realtor.com/advice/buy/4-ways-to-deal-if-your-appraisal-comes-in-low/

If you think the property will still be there in the next few weeks, I'd resubmit the exact same offer.

This link is for rental property, but the same logic has to apply. You can only deduct the part of the PMI paid that applies to that tax year.

https://www.irs.gov/faqs/sale-or-trade-of-business-depreciation-rentals/rental-expenses/rental-expenses-1

@Shaun Roark Do a web search in your area.  I'd recommend looking at some online schools.  I completed all my coursework on my iPhone in 2 weeks while working full time.  I paid for a face to face class many years ago, and probably learned half of what I did online.  The school I chose had a free trial period that allowed me to complete over half of the class before I paid.  They also would have paid for my state exam if I did not pass.  The advantages of my online course were: awesome test prep at the end of each lesson, audio of the entire course in lessons, videos with stories for lessons learned, and many tools that I use today for marketing and such.  The major difference between the agent and broker license is that the broker has to know more to for agent oversight.  All agents work on behalf of a broker.  Everything the agent does is in the brokers name.  In some states you must have 2 years of agent experience to even take the broker exam.  Hope this helps.