All Forum Posts by: Buddy LaRue

Hi Blake,

The rental market here in Florida is strong, and it appears it will remain that way for some time to come. It is not difficult to find decent cash-on-cash returns, depending on what price range you're looking in; and as in any market you can get some decent returns on capital gain as well if you're willing to search for them and do the work or have it done. You just have to watch the numbers.

I agree with you and believe that Florida has some great long term potential. Florida is the fastest growing state in the nation and this was one of the reasons my partner and I moved here.

As for the REIAs and networking groups, Wayne is right. Most are geared toward the wholesaling and that's about all you hear about at them. I've gone to a number of meetings at BREIA (Broward Real Estate Investors Association), DREIA (Dade), and have gone to PalmBeachia as well, and have yet to hear any presentation on buy and hold strategies; only wholesalers trying to wholesale to other wholesalers. A couple of weeks ago I went to a different DREIA (Distressed Real Estate Investors Association) meeting and it was a joke. Was nothing more than the guy who started the group trying to sell his book and sell his wholesale deals.

I tried starting a thread last week asking BP members if they wanted to start a South Florida networking group and thus far have gotten rather limited response. If we actually get this off the ground, you'd be more than welcome to come.

What part of South Florida are you moving to?

If you can create a JPG of what you want your "little bitty ugly yellow postcards" to look like, at a resolution of at least 350dpi, you can order 1,000 of them from GotPrint.com for only $48.60, (4"x6" (Standard) postcard, 14 pt Gloss Coated Cover with UV, Color front, B&W Back, instant online proof). that's less than 5 cents a postcard. If you order 5,000 of the same postcard, it drops to about 3 cents a postcard. Obviously this doesn't include the cost of postage.

I do not work for or own any part of GotPrint.com, but I use them a lot in my business.

GotPrint's minimum order is 100 of them, but the cost per postcard then jumps to 27 cents a piece!

To access tax records online, google your county's name with "Tax assessor" or "Tax appraiser".

@ Couldn't a 1031 be done on the property if he's been using for a rental for three years? That way he could defer the tax and still use the money for another property.

In Houston they call it "opening title",

I can't say for certain what's going on but being an agent in South Florida who is on the MLS constantly, some of these are probably entry errors. I can't tell you how many times I see an agent enter a house for lease into the houses for sale portion of the MLS. To know for sure about the listing, call the listing agent.

Sounds exactly like what I'm trying to get started here. So far, I've had a couple of responses and I'm hoping for more.

We have a large number of REIAs and small groups in the area, but all they every talk about is wholesaling and buying their books, their programs, their lists....I don't want to charge anyone anything or try to sell them anything unless they ask me to help them find a property. I do want to help answer any questions that I can, gather additional vendor information to be shared with everyone (everything from GCs to dog-sitters), maybe have a cocktail or two and definitely have a good time.

I have a question for you about the planning of the meetup. Did you offer anything to entice people to come? I don't mean a "buy my book" or "buy my program", but did you offer a subject to discuss on BP, etc?

I ask because I'm trying to get a buy and hold meetup for the South Florida BP members going and thus far have had little response.

I'm not sure why either....perhaps because I haven't suggested a topic of discussion or a speaker.

Anyway, I thought it might be nice for buy and hold investors to get together, network and mastermind a bit...see if we can help each other in some way and have some fun doing it.

@George P. Care to meet for a coffee while you're down? I'm always game to meet to new people.

When it comes to the Forum posts, I prefer to keep it cordial (of course), share information, learn a little (no, scratch that....learn A LOT!), congratulate those who are sharing their recent successes (always best to learn from other people's successes, instead of others failures) and if you can do that while adding just a touch of non-offensive humor (ie, when talking about "the 2% rule" or other "rule", Rule number 1 is always "Do NOT talk about fight club.") people will respect you and look forward to your posts.

Don't forget....Rule number 1 is we do not talk about fight club!