All Forum Posts by: Alvin Sylvain

It's not a matter of being "free". It's a matter of who do you pay for a service? You can pay a PM, or you can pay yourself.

Of course it burns up some of your time. But that's not necessarily an onerous burden, depending on what all needs to be done. I managed my SFR using little more time than cashing checks for a good while. I could have hired a PM, and I'd still spend that same amount of time cashing checks -- except the checks would be smaller.

If you are able to do everything a PM would do for you, and your quantity of work and time is reasonable, why wouldn't you invest that time in saving that money? If you can fix your own car, have all the skills, all the tools, and enjoy the work, why would you hire a mechanic? I probably wouldn't do it for a fleet of cars, but I certainly can change the oil on my car by myself.

 There is a book entitled, "Landlording: a Handymanual for Scrupulous Landlords and Landladies Who Do It Themselves" by Leigh Robinson.

It was my Landlording Bible when I first started renting.

That's a very good point. It's not a one-size-fits-all situation, and it doesn't have to be 100% of one thing vs. 100% of the other. For example, if you're living in one unit of a multi, it would make sense to do your own management if you're half-way comfortable around tools. But clearly an out-of-state investment will require a good team, including a good PM, where the property is. If you have both; do both!

 ...... so ...... should we tell Mom, or what?

I think I can one-up you -- I remember when there was no issue forbidding the use of electronic calculators -- they weren't invented yet!

 I think it's rather presumptuous to psychoanalyze people just because their tastes happen to differ from yours.

My Dad (may he rest in peace) loved fixing things. He had a garage full of various tools for that very purpose, which he called his "toys". Whether the water heater went out or the car stopped running, he was all over it. He'd be perfect for property management, plus, when he retired, he had plenty of time for it. You think perhaps he had "control issues"?

I'm a software developer by trade, and fortunately I love doing it. If I could write software to rehab houses, I'd be a real estate billionaire by now, loving every minute of it.

And to be honest, if you've got 50 doors and you're self-managing, I'd agree -- you're crazy. But not all of us are that far along. I self-managed my SFR, and really, it was a walk in the park. The house is in good repair, only had a couple of disasters to handle over 15 years, and the rest of the time it managed itself. I didn't even need to bug the tenants for rent. They paid on time, and when they didn't, they automatically included the late fee. Why am I going to pay somebody 10% of the rent just to pretty much sit on their butts all day?

"Control"? No. For small-timers like myself, self-managing isn't that big a deal and can easily be the more economical option. For others? Maybe not.

Search the web for "Tenant Friendly States", take the results, and reverse sort them.

Also consider "Business Friendly States". I'm not promising 100% correlation, but it's a good bet that a tenant-friendly state is likely also business-hostile. For example, take California -- please! 

 You are absolutely correct that the strategy cannot work with turnkey. One reason why I've abandoned that strategy. Apologies if the OP mentioned that in a subsequent post that I skipped over. Turnkey wasn't mentioned in the original post, otherwise I'd have framed my post differently.

As nice as it may be to have an investment requiring little attention, that's generally not the way to build wealth from almost nothing. You not only have to find the "diamond in the rough", you have to polish it.

Saving more money for a while is certainly one option, but if I learned anything from attending just about all of @Brandon Turner's Webinars, it's that if you have a good enough deal, you won't have any trouble getting financing. For example, you find a place that's a dump, but the seller doesn't want or is unable to spend the money to fix it up. A place like that might sell for 50 cents on the dollar. It's the classic "desperate seller". Of course then you have to spend the money to fix it up. If the numbers are right (e.g., rehab doesn't end up costing the other 50 cents on the dollar), you'll end up with a beautiful place with little cash outlay and plenty of equity.

With a deal like that, you ought to be able to easily find a private lender willing to finance a sizeable portion. The interest rates are high, but that's where the private lender makes money. H/She doesn't need to dirty their hands in the rehab. That's the work you bring.

I might suggest that if you have friends or relatives in a particular area, you might want to hit them up to bird-dog for you in that area.

They don't have to do any particular amount of work for you, and most people won't anyway (unless you arrange some sort of a partnership), but if you decide to invest there, they can at least peek in from time to time to make sure the place hasn't burned to the ground without anybody telling you. On top of that, if you ever decide to pay them a visit, you can make it part of a tax-deductible* business trip to inspect your investments.

*Please note, I am not a professional tax advisor, which is a person you definitely should see before attempting any suggestions with the words "tax-deductible" buried inside.