Personal Podcast Notes (74) - Newbie Podcast with Jordan Thibodeau

BP Podcast 074: Buying My First Investment Property- A Newbie Podcast with Jordan Thibodeau

My personal takeaways.

I want to buy one duplex a year I’m not trying to build a whole empire. I’m more conservative. I do 25% down. I’m looking for duplexes with curb appeal and I want them to cash flow at least $200 per door within three years. And then my business plan goes into risk factors such as having adequate cash reserves, about not taking too much risk because I don’t want to hit a home run. I just want to get consistent singles so that I can stay in the game long enough so that when people are taking swings for the fence and missing, I have enough cash to go gobble up those properties a better price.

I want to add value to my properties to make sure they look good, have good curb appeal, are well taken care of so that I’m not just trying to maximize my cash on cash by minimizing my cap ex and maximizing the rent.

I want to learn how to be a good property manager so that I know what to look for in the best professional property managers.

Before you pull the trigger on buying a house, look at as many houses as possible. Don’t fall in love with the first one because it’s so easy to think, “oh this is the best deal of all time.” But the odds are if there’s so many deals out there, they really aren’t deals.

It’s better to set up your contractors network before you need it.

A great resource for investing outside of your own neighborhood is nextdoor.com. You enter your ZIP Code and address and it allows you Gain access to the social network for that area. This allows you to gain unfiltered access to what is going on in the neighborhood where are you are investing. If you go to Zillow, Trulia, or your real estate agent, they might try to put lipstick on a pig. With next-door.com, you have direct access to what’s really going on. You can see the nitty-gritty of what’s happening or if this community is on the up and up and has a strong neighborhood watch. You can use a property that you own to gain access or you can contact customer support and let them know that you own a rental property in that area and they will give you access.

I also use asana.com property management software and I taught my contractor how to use it. I tell him that for anything under $300, go into the asana and take a picture of what you are going to repair and another picture afterwards. Then attach an invoice to the asana task and assign it to me. You can create multiple file folders for each property. The best sellers are ones who are transparent so if someone is going to come to buy my property, I’m going to share with them asana and show them all the work that’s transpired on this property.