Real Estate Broker · 3412 S. Harlem Avenue Riverside, IL 60546 · Member since 2015 · 6k+ posts · 5k+ votes
6y
@Deniqua Antoine I wish I had gone to networking events earlier in my career so that I could have met my team of realtors, lenders, contractors, etc. I wasted around five years learning and reading before I took action and in those five years I could have picked up some amazing deals. Obviously, you can't do meetups right now outside of virtual ones, but it makes sense to network like crazy so that you can find local folks who are in the trenches investing.
Rental Property Investor · Temecula, CA · Member since 2018 · 34 posts · 21 votes
6y
Hi @Deniqua Antoine. Good luck on your journey! I'm fairly new as well (about 15 months in) but I wish I had a better grasp of the finance side of it on my first deal. I own 3 SFRs I did conventional 20% down on all three. My first deal I have somewhat of a high interest rate which hurts my cash flow. I didn't shop around for financing. Also, the closing costs wound up being really high, affecting my COC return. I still ended up with an okay deal (I'm cash flow positive ~$250/month and the property is appreciating), but if I'd have done a better job on the front end it could have been a great deal. My next two deals both cash flow better, and better COC returns. Learning experience :)
Rental Property Investor · Lawrence, MA · Member since 2020 · 252 posts · 153 votes
6y
I wish I knew about Bigger Pockets 3 years ago. It has really helped me have more communication about landlording, investing and house hacking. Welcome to Bigger Pockets!
Investor · Rosharon, TX · Member since 2016 · 1 post · 0 votes
6y
I wish I have of read Set For Life first before wasting a decade renting and investing in stocks. When I did finally buy it was opposite of a safe bet - I bought into a renovation development project in a high risk area. It was dumb luck that I flipped it and made 75k but it did help to have two roommates paying me rent. Not knowing about the 1031 exchange option hurt me in my strategy because had I held the property long enough I could have done a 1031 exchange into a duplex and saved a lot in taxes. The very next mistake I made was to pay off the houses successively living like a pauper to do it (listened to Dave Ramsey a lot in those days). When 2008 came around and deals were EVERYWHERE, I was cash poor and getting debt free. The third mistake I made was to spend Thousands on real estate membership and courses to be a real estate agent and investor (after I had paid off two SF homes and rented them out). I look back and say it would have be wise to have had a mentor. Thank goodness I read a lot of books and am naturally frugal and married a frugal person because it saved me from making a lot more mistakes. Bigger Pockets has what you need. Educate yourself, know your market, build your network, save your cash, and have great credit. Use every opportunity to learn from others that you can. Get multiple quotes. Keep your costs down - don't let renters or new contractors see you all dressed up and driving a fancy new car. Unless of course, you want to pay top dollar and have slow payers. If you get a good deal as your first deal - you will be spoiled for life so just do one small deal to start to get the lay of the land or house hack. Then you can calibrate your strategy to fit your needs. After we bought our first real deal rental property we realized how much the hard money cost plus the wholesaling fee. The rehab could have been cheaper and flipping from hard money to conventional was another closing cost. So months later, we had learned about using my husband's IRA as a 60 day line of credit and bought our next house in cash at online auction and rushed getting a mortgage so we could put the money back in his IRA before the 60 days was up to avoid taxes. Saved us 20k over the other house we bought earlier using the membership contacts in the same neighborhood. When we went back to go for another deal, we were shocked to learn that we would not qualify because of the debt to income ratio (my husband had lost his job and the new houses had not offset the rehab expenses from the tax perspective). We went back to the membership group and asked why we were hearing about all these other people that had bought 4 houses in a year and they didn't have the stock investments and two paid off houses. Oh, they say, trick is to buy all the houses in the same taxing cycle. The lenders told my husband that unless his rentals were cashflowing 60k annually they could not finance another mortgage. My husband soon got another job and life got really busy. But even with all the mistakes we made, we have not regretting going in real estate even once. Best wishes on your new journey!