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Erin Estes
  • Realtor
  • Goodyear, AZ
59
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151
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Formulating an Aggressive Game Plan Mastermind 🦄

Erin Estes
  • Realtor
  • Goodyear, AZ
Posted Apr 11 2021, 09:55

End Goal: Save the family farm

I've been studying Real Estate Investing since 2002 but have yet to actually get into it. I'd give reasons why, but they'd all sound like excuses. I've been devoted to raising my three children and most days (especially recently as we've made the decision to homeschool during this season with COVID) it's a struggle to get through the day unscathed just to get up early and do it all over again the next day. A recent visit home has relit a long held desire to prepare for the inevitable bail-out of my family's multi-generational farm. I'm estimating it'll take 2M, not including cost to rehabilitate and start fresh operations. It's located in Virginia, but my husband and I are currently raising our family in Phoenix because of his work. He's told me if I can replace his income, he'd quit and we can move back to Virginia. Having been a stay at home mom for over a decade, he knows I've got little hope of that happening. I guess my question for the most experienced investors out there would be, if you had to start from scratch to build either a 2M nest egg or a big enough nest egg to afford a 25% down payment and cash flow from investments enough to cover the debt service and do this rather quickly (2-5 years), how would you do it? I may miss the mark and the farm could be forced to sell before I can actually bail it out, but maybe I could purchase it back after-the-fact. I know you're not supposed to mix emotion with business, but emotion can be a great motivator. This year I've been getting started as a Realtor, thinking that since my youngest was supposed to be in 1st grade this year, I would have time to focus on that business, but Covid turned me into a full time homeschool mom instead. I get up at 5 or 6:30 most days (depending on if I'm too tired and sleep through the first alarm) and we work on school until sometimes 5 or 6 at night with an hour break for lunch. We're planning on homeschooling for the 2021-2022 year as well, but plan on sending them back to school after that which will free up my time substantially. I am serving buyers and sellers in the evenings and on weekends and keeping up with business aspects between working with the kids on their assignments. The housework is not getting done, though I do keep up with the laundry, and while our meals are lacking in the quality of time, preparation, and presentation than what we were used to before Covid, everyone is still getting fed, so I'm counting that as a win. While my husband's income is more than enough to cover all of our household expenses and budgeting needs, he's not comfortable using his 401k or our home equity to acquire real estate. Obviously, I don't have a track record and he doesn't want to risk our family's financial security, which is understandable. I am not sure if I would be able to convince him to sign with me on loans. I have no assets of my own other than $1,000 in my personal savings account, but plan to add more with every sale from my pursuits as a Realtor. I do have an LLC set up that I could use as needed. I don't know how inter-state businesses work (if I were to purchase RE in Virginia, do I need an LLC in VA? How are taxes paid? How do you manage a company with holdings in two different states? I'd like to focus on buy and hold in VA since I plan on moving back permanently at some point in the future, but I guess these days that doesn't really matter as I could have investments here in Phoenix and use them as a tax write off when I fly back to visit. The world seems smaller than it used to be. I need to set up appointments with a RE Lawyer, CPA, and who do I talk to about estate planning and the like?). I probably haven't got started because getting started just seems so overwhelming with trying to juggle everything else. Any solid advice on how to set up a game plan would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you so much!

Erin Estes

PS if you are ever Mountain Biking in the west Phoenix area, look me up! 🚵🏼‍♀️

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