All Forum Posts by: Aaron Hunt

My theory is cash on cash return is the true barometer for a successful investment and if there’s is an opportunity to buy low, someone with a paid off property should use that equity to capitalize on the down market. Thus increasing their cash on cash return.  

I don’t see why I need to pay off a car to say that. I leased a car. What am I to do. I only owe 150/month x 24 months. I think that’s okay. I don’t think that’s so bad Steve. Why have cash sitting in a depreciating asset? 

I'm not sure there's a right or wrong answer. I personally have 85 + SFR's and 25 or so multi doors. Maybe 6 mortgages, mostly inherited. The cash flow is awesome and I can acquire 8- 10 more SFR's a year out of that cash flow if I so desire. I'm at the point now however (in my 60's) where it might be time to accumulate more liquid assets.

A lot of folks tout leverage but ignore the fact that borrowing is expensive. Interest, points, application fees, surveys, etc.  Costs I don't pay for cash deals.

IMHO if I were starting over and with 20/20  hindsight, i would do both.  I would leverage my butt off on good cash flowing properties BUT I would have a minimum ratio of all cash deals to help weather any downturns or vacancies.

What would that ratio be? Again, in my opinion, 1 paid for door for every 4 mortgaged.

@Aaron Hunt

1.41 now

2. 55 max. Can’t use my pension or 401k till then.

3. Grandparents where in the their 90’s

So what do you think?

@Aaron Hunt I thought I was being fairly specific. I have written over 1200 posts where I have shared the details of my experience before. What information would you specifically like?

There are many different programs out there. There are people that are successful at some and people that are not. The specific program that I did was called Success Path which was part of a program called Advanced Real Estate Education. The program was 40k, the additional coaching was 25k, increasing my credit availability from 200k to 800k was 5k, and another 5k for travel and miscellaneous.  Since doing the program in 2016, my net worth has trippled. I’m sure others in the program have not done as well as I have and there are probably negative things said online about this program like most other programs.

What other specifics would you like?

Here is a post I made a while back on another thread on gurus and mentorship:

In my experience, many people on BiggerPockets are anti-guru programs or ant-paid mentorship programs. It was through one of those programs that I paid for and attended that I found this awesome website.

For me, I paid 75k for a year long education program including 4 3-5 day trainings in California, Arizona, and Las Vegas, and a year-long weekly coaching program over the phone. Many people say that I was stupid or insane to spend that money and that I could have used that money to invest in a deal or two and I could have learned that way.

Let me share what my program did for me. It just propelled me forward quicker.

In 2015 before the program I flipped 3 houses for a total gain of 17k among all of them.

In 2016 while in the program I flipped 6 houses and did 1 seller finance deal for a total gain of 95k. We also purchased 3 duplexes and I single family residence out of state.

My goals went from doing 4 flips a year to now doing 20 flips and getting 10 buy and hold deals a year.

In 2017 my partner and I went to another 3-day training, ($197).  The information that we learned there has made each of us over a half-a-million dollars.  We purchased 17 buy and hold properties that we are selling on lease options.  We got a bank contact from one of the instructors of the original program that ended up lending up 2 million dollars and gave us loans where we were able to refi out of most of our properties 100% of what we had into them without a seasoning period.

In 2018 we continued purchasing properties (12) to sell on lease options and we purchased a mobile home park.  

Things I gained through my education program:

1. Connections with other students in the program which opened us up to new markets out of state

2. Spending time and eating lunch with very successful real estate investors

3. Focused direction on how to begin investing

4. How to open up money sources (we went from 200k to 750k available personal and business credit)

5. Contacts to banks that are investor friendly

6. Hand holding through deal negotiations

7. Weekly accountability

Here are some of the things that I gained out of my education program. Could I have learned and gained all of this experience through the BiggerPockets forums? Yeah, probably. Would I have been able to do it as quickly? Definitely not! Could I have invested the 75k and done some flips or bought some buy and hold deals, probably. With the education that I had at that time, what would my profits have been on the 75k I invested? Maybe 15k - 30k if I had earned 20-40% on my money. Would I be where I am now with the systems I have in place now? Absolutely not!

If you are someone who wants to have a more hands on experience learning and you value education to the point that you are willing to spend money on it, and you have the means to do so, I would encourage you not to listen to other people who don't share that same values who think paying for an education is stupid and who would rather be self-thaught - like being self-taught is some sort of badge of honor. I am glad that when my wife or kids or even myself go to the doctor for an operation that we see people who have done hands on training rather than being self-taught. The biggest difference is less mistakes.

With all this being said, there are successful investors in the areas that you may be interested in investing in. These people may be able to be great mentors to you. So if you don't want to spend money on a guru type program, you could go to them and ask if they will teach you how to do what they are doing and you will help fund their deals just for the opportunity to learn.

Good luck to you.