All Forum Posts by: Ceril S.

I'm a newbie trying to make this decision also and at least here there are the usual things to look at, rental rates, etc. But in talking to our loan officer I found out that if we are going with traditional financing I can put 20% on a SFR while 2-4 multifamily I would have to put 25% down. This changed the numbers a lot for me. However, since he is an investor also, he recommended going with the multifamily to minimize the effect of a vacancy. At least if you had a duplex you could have renters in one unit while one is vacant. If you have a vacancy in a SFR then you're in the hole.

Lots to consider. 

@Michele Fischer that is exactly our plan! (Except no tornadoes, please!)

@Jacob Wade welcome! Following this thread to learn more!

@Account Closed we are looking to do just that on our first rental - use the HELOC to buy the rental - would love to hear your story.

@Eric Schneider I'm a newbie here too so, while I don't have any real advice to give - I'm excited for you!  Keep us posted on how it's going. Get enough sleep to work with a clear head on. (Advice to myself as well)

@Brandon Turner Hi! (feeling like what my kids call "fan girl".) I have been listening to you talk like nonstop for a week - is that weird to think about - all of us BP addicts go on total listening binges and get to hear your voice in our heads when we are thinking about deals, etc.?  Thanks for the entertaining, inspiring and informative pod cast!  I actually take notes while I'm listening, I never start out meaning to, but eventually you guys will say something that makes me say - Oh, I need to write that down!  :)

@Elizabeth Colegrove I will definitely take a look at your blog.  We are planning on the buy and hold strategy.  And I'm hoping to eventually branch out to property management as well. We have made a great connection with a loan officer who also holds small properties, so he's been feeding me info at a rapid pace.  I have feelers out to a couple CPAs and attorneys to build our team.  Right now we are totally in info gathering mode and are planning to hit the road running as soon as 2015 rolls on us.  Although we are scoping out properties in the area we want to go into and running numbers on every property that looks promising to know what we are looking at.

@Chris K.  @James Wise  @Dawn Brenengen @Elizabeth Colegrove 

Thanks for the info. I hadn't realized about the license, that would make sense.  And, yeah, experience definitely will be key.  Trying not to over analyze everything, but also wanting to look at the bigger picture and begin with the end in mind.  I figure that since I will want to have practices and procedures in place for my own property, why not grow that further?  And also, it motivates me to make sure that my procedures are solid and pretty clean, if it's something that I'll eventually want to offer to other people as a product.

I'm a newbie so.., forgive me if this is a silly question. 

I feel like there is a lot of talk about being your own property manager and a lot of talk about property managers as seperate entities, but are there investors who also handle property management for other investors?

The reason I'm asking is because we are planning on taking the slow route of buy and holding properties and we wondered how it would be to offer our services as property managers for other owners along the way. Is it done? Or do people recommend against this. 

@Louis Leone nice article link. 

We are also weighing the pros and cons of getting into the college rental niche.  The places in New Brunswick (near rutgers) are typically 12 month leases. Looking into lease language on how to make all the expectations extremely clear. 

Hello BP'ers!

I've been listening to the podcast while I'm at work for the last week or so and I'm addicted!  After a week of listening to the podcasts, I finally broke down and signed up for the forum.  Pretty darn excited to learn as much as possible.

I'm finding that the more I learn, the more that I don't know and can now be excited to find out about.

My wife and I had just started having a discussion about wanting to start building a real estate portfolio for retirement a couple weeks ago when I just did a search on podcasts and this one came up and I haven't stopped listening since. I also haven't stopped talking about it since as well, so my family thanks you in advance for listening to my future questions and rantings so that they can have their sanity back.

We have 4 kids with the oldest heading off to college next year (so we have cheap manpower!) My wife and I are also pretty handy with maintaining a house - we've done plenty of work on our own houses through the years, repairing sheet rock, installing microwaves and ceiling fans, etc, etc. and we are not afraid to look up how to on youtube. And we're pretty confident that we will be able to handle the property management aspect.

I am the family research addict so I will be here on a regular basis trying to find answers on to LLC or not, how to calculate a good deal, how to structure the deal, etc. etc. etc.

Thanks for this great resource!  I look forward to chatting with you all!

- Ceril