Most people on here would crap on my places based on the comments I read. They don't meet the 1.0% rule, they are around 0.67% before repairs. I put 25% down and 15K in repairs. They only cash flow like $300/each after paying a 15 year loan. The cash flow has been just enough to cover a new roof and a/c. But little turnover, and always a new renter lined up behind them. I get to pick the best tenants from a pile of applicants. I could definitely make more in a class C neighborhood but repairs and non-payment worry me. I don't think I would want to be rehabbing by myself at 2am if the neighborhood was bad, or see my hard work destroyed. But in about 12 years my tenants will have paid off my class A properties.

Originally posted by @Jason Smith :

Most people on here would crap on my places based on the comments I read. They don't meet the 1.0% rule, they are around 0.67% before repairs. I put 25% down and 15K in repairs. They only cash flow like $300/each after paying a 15 year loan. The cash flow has been just enough to cover a new roof and a/c. But little turnover, and always a new renter lined up behind them. I get to pick the best tenants from a pile of applicants. I could definitely make more in a class C neighborhood but repairs and non-payment worry me. I don't think I would want to be rehabbing by myself at 2am if the neighborhood was bad, or see my hard work destroyed. But in about 12 years my tenants will have paid off my class A properties.

I think majority would agree with YOU.  Dont sell yourselves short people..  BEELIVE!

A and B class the numbers are close to whats pro forma-ed.

C numbers are more standard deviated. Made the term up- variance may be better.  Kind of like poker Variance.

D Class . forget  numbers.  If you expect 30%.  minus30% is not unheard of.......lol.

I just do not think there’s anything wrong with that. Our opinions are mostly based on our own past experiences. There’s nothing wrong to tell our own experiences. You just cannot let a frog that is staying in a deep well all his life to talk about what the mountain or ocean look like because he only knows the piece of sky above his head. But he has the right to talk about that piece of sky. It’s pretty normal.

Any one that says they went from 0 to 100 doors in a short time, is suspect.  It took many years of making mistakes, correcting and building a better business plan to become a better investor.   Sometimes when the market is hot, you get lucky and have great returns.  But usually being a landlord is a long term investment plan.  And buying rapidly shows inexperience.

I also have been highly critical of turn-key investments, especially lower income neighborhoods / rust belt cities.  

Last, any real estate guru that is selling "education" must be suspect.  Running a successful real estate investment platform is a full time gig.  Who has the time to promote their guru advice?  And why?  I'd want to be where the action is - buying more properties.

I am certainly known to have strong opinions but many of them are based on my experience which of course is limited. The one big "self righteous" pet peeve I do have is against wholesalers. I think that whole business model is shady and exploitative in so many ways that I just can't get behind it. Maybe its because I attended a "We Buy Houses" presentation at some Real Estate conference and felt I needed to shower when I got home. And also the posts from so many here on BP who have no skill, experience or money but want to be investors and wholesaling is the only way they see in. And the fact that they call and text me incessantly to want to "buy" my houses when I know they would struggle to buy me Big Mac and fries!

You can spell a lot of words with Shiloh Lundall:

Sundial

Danish

Honda

Hounds

Sandhill

Audio

So many more...

I'm not sure if it's really 'self-righteous', overly simplified, or just misguided, but it irks me when people say that certain markets (e.g., California, Washington, NYC, Austin, etc.) are "appreciation" markets and other markets (e.g., Detroit, Cleveland, Indianapolis, etc.) are "cash flow" markets. 

If you ask someone who bought a house in most parts of Solano County (wedged between San Francisco/Oakland and wine country) back in 2006 how they're enjoying the appreciation, they'll probably give you a snide answer, since their home is just now barely back to what it was worth 15 years ago. And if you ask someone who bought a house in the Tremont neighborhood of Cleveland a couple decades ago if they regret buying there rather than in an "appreciation market", they'll probably just laugh in your face since their house is worth like 3x what they paid for it.

I find most of the sweeping generalizations to be rather problematic, and the "appreciation market" vs. "cash flow market" thing in particular operates under the assumption that [recent] past performance must be the indicator of future results as well.

My opinion: They're self righteous. Haha. 

But seriously, when I hear people puffing their egos up like that I do try to listen past the self righteousness to see if there's some truth there. We are all biased toward over confidence. It's how we dare build skyscrapers. If we only believed we could do what we're ACTUALLY competent to do, skyscrapers would be 3 stories tall and we'd be crossing rivers in barges still to this day. 

Also, it's tricky but I believe it's crucial to separate the message from the messenger. That is to say, just because a blowhard self righteous pr*ck is telling you it's stupid to invest in San Diego, or that if it's on the MLS it's already too late to get a good deal, doesn't mean it's NOT true.

@Wendell Fong, I love that quote. It really is the truth. We were always told that "you have to do everything yourself or you won't make any cash flow." I simply refused to accept that. (Not refused to BELIEVE it but refused to accept it)

@Dylan Tanaka I think you just proved my point.

"Where imposture, ignorance, and brutal cupidity, are the stock in trade of a small body of men, and one is described by these characteristics, all his fellows will recognize something belonging to themselves, and each will have a misgiving that the portrait is his own."