All Forum Posts by: Caroline C.

@Rachel Chavez we have some investments in Jax and have loved it, but the prices have gone up over the years and it isn't as easy to make it work unless you go lower end. Multi-families are challenging because either they are expensive or in not so great areas.

I recommend you find time to visit to see firsthand, and arrange around one of the in-person Jax REIA meetings as a way to meet people - you can attend 2 meetings as a guest for free, I believe. Also JAX REIM is on meetup and a good way to connect with local wholesalers and contractors. The guys that run that one (http://locklearpartners.com/) are also a great resource.

@Jorge Gordon you don't mention what geography your rentals are in, but in my experience with lower end rentals (say under $800 per month) is that you end up with tenants that have a hard time paying and when they move out or are evicted, you have a big turnover cost - it has happened to us a couple of times with our lower end rentals. The cash-flow is great on the lower end stuff, but sometimes it gets offset by missed rent and repair/turnover costs. 

My portfolio is diversified as follows - about 50% real estate and 50% in the financial markets, and as far as the real estate goes, it is split between 4 different locales, one outside the US.

@Jason C. Diversification is a good thing. You can work towards FIRE in many ways, investing in real estate being one, investing in the stock market another, going frugal and saving your W2 earnings hard another, among many other things. These can all be combined. My portfolio is split about 50/50 between real estate and paper assets. The strategy is essentially save money and periodically use some of that money to invest in real estate.

@Syed Lateef  The value in a summit like that is in the people they get to attend because it is mostly about learning from and connecting with other like-minded investors, so hard to say if this will be worth it. Since it is limited to people with 25 units or $1m in revenue, it should attract only experienced people. I'd guess there will be selling from vendors too. I'm not familiar with Eric's work, but I think very highly of the summit co-host, Jasper Ribbers, and regularly listen to his podcast, Get Paid For Your Pad.

@Matt Ayoub In our portfolio we have 3 vacation rentals in Costa Rica and like to think of that as our FIRE plan B - move to CR where the cost of living is much less, stay in one and live off the rental income of the others. We choose to currently work at building our own side businesses so that we can maintain the lifestyle we have, but it is nice to know we can go that frugal route and simply survive on the rental income in a great location.

@Antoinette Munroe We've done both with success. HELOC is great if you intend to pay it down sooner than later - keep in mind that with a HELOC the interest will fluctuate over time (and jump a lot after the introductory period), and it can be called by the bank (ie: closed) at any time - it happened to us in 2009 after the last market bust and we had to scramble to get approved for another one by another bank.

@Amar P. they release your payment 1 day after the check-in, then the bank transfer takes a couple of days. They are apparently piloting a program that will allow you to receive half payment earlier for a 1% fee.

@Conor Meehan we bought a property that had a few existing reservations and since the seller was already managing a couple of other properties and was concerned about reviews on their profile, we decided to let the seller be the manager until the old reservations ran out, and we as the buyer created a new listing. The expected income was deducted from the seller and kept in escrow - released over time as the reservations occurred. We had the seller close the old listing to new bookings and we created a new listing that we managed.

@Joseph Liz You've got the right idea in terms of using real estate to fund an early retirement, and you'll certainly learn a ton as you start to implement your plan! But it will probably take more than 3 houses... Keep in mind you'll need a decent budget for ongoing repairs and maintenance - they always come up. Also you'll periodically have vacancies which can result in both multiple months of lost rent and several thousand dollars in repairs. Not always, but it happens. Also a finders fee to the PM when they find you a new tenant.

@Elenis Camargo Love the blog post and all the detail you shared - congrats on your 3 purchases! We live in New York City as well (moved from Manhattan to the Bronx a few years ago), and we have a few rentals in Jax. We love it there and plan to relocate to Jax to one of our rentals once our younger child goes off to college this year! Split time between that and travelling. Just today we were wishing we were in Jax right now given the persistent snow and cold weather in NYC!