All Forum Posts by: Alex Smith

Hey BP nation!

So recently I took a new job for 2 main reasons. #1, the money is pretty good and will allow us to scale up our rental portfolio faster. #2, the work-life balance is great and I technically only work half the year and while at work I have a ton of down time. My initial plan was to use the down time to start creating my own business on the side. My wife and I hope to be free from a W-2 in the next 10 years and in addition to the rental portfolio, were looking to start up a property management company.

Early on in my research, I'm seeing that in the state of NJ you need to have your broker's license in order to legally be able to manage other people's properties. Is there any way at all around this? I'm seeing that you need to be a realtor for 3 years "full time" before being able to get your broker's license and I was just hoping to get the ball rolling on the PM end of things a lot sooner.

Any insight would be much appreciated.

Thanks!!

Thank you so much for the kind words!!! Yeah, I'm just gonna stay on it! All i can do :)

okay, I'll wait until early next week then :) Thanks for the feedback! I wish you all the best as well!

UPDATE- so far, i've emailed my resume and an introduction to 5 companies and applied to 2 companies. I chose to do it this way so that way when I call, I can reference my email and have something to "follow-up" on. I only received a response from 1 company so far telling me they would forward my resume to recruitment. My next question is, do you think that Friday is too early to call and follow-up if I just emailed on Tuesday?

@Corby Goade ah, I got ya now. That's awesome. Yes, get rich slow and plan for the future--thats what we want. Thank you for your words of encouragement :) I wish you all the best!

@Mike Carr great advice! I'll make a list and start calling. Congrats on your success :)

@Corby Goade That's awesome. It would be cool to start my own PM business some day, but for now I'm definitely just focused on gaining the experience. If it leads to that eventually, then that would be great. Honestly, I'm just tired of having a career that I'm not passionate about. I feel its so pointless and just a "filler." I only manage my 2 units right now, but I love it. I love RE and I love learning all about different aspects of it. 

We want 20 units by the time I'm 34. That's roughly 2 units/year over the next 9 or so years. So it isn't fast growth by any means and I figure a full or part time job that goes hand in hand with those goals will allow us to be more successful in that growth and continue to self-manage our properties as long as possible. Eventually, I would just want to manage my own properties, so I'm looking to get my hands on any and all experience and get that stated as soon as possible. 

I'm not so much worried about the pay. Experience is whats most important right now to minimize mistakes in the long run.  We don't touch the cashflow on our units we have, but I have my soccer business I can scale up to make up for the difference and we are pretty frugal/used to living below our means. 

Hi @Joseph Scorese ! 

Thank you so much for responding! I was thinking the same with PM vs. sales, however, as I begin my search, I'm really having trouble finding PM positions that I would qualify for. It appears I would have a better chance with sales, but I really didn't want to go that route. It's just not the type of experience I was seeking. 

Originally I was thinking of something more small scale, such as an in-house assistant property management gig for someone to gain experience rather than companies such as Capano, Pettinaro, Lange Development, etc. I don't think those people would look twice at my resume for property management. 

I'm a go-getter, people-person, multi-tasker, very organized and I do think PM would be a good fit for me, but obviously I'd need an assistant position to learn the ropes on a  larger scale rather than a lead position. 

I'm open to any and all suggestions and guidance. 

Thank you so much.

In the town where I live, there are a lot of houses in a flood zone. The flips that are in a flood zone do tend to take longer to sell than the ones that are not. Right now, people can kind of choose to be picky because there were a ton of foreclosed houses and now more and more people are flipping those houses so there are options. I would imagine that when there are less options, people will start buying the houses in flood zones more quickly because they won't have another option. 

In my opinion, it is even more important to buy a house in a flood zone that you intend to flip at the right price with a really good handle on the costs to flip it. That way you can make sure you're pricing it at market value or just below because with the flood zone it probably won't sell above market value to make-up for extra costs you encounter along the way. I'd also just make sure you are very conservative with holding costs in case it doesn't sell as quickly as you'd like.

@Vincent Garman thank you! I will look into those! Thanks for taking the time to respond :)