All Forum Posts by: Corby Goade

Not a tax pro, so obviously get advice from yours. 

If you are a full time realtor, you should have REPS- if so, you should be able to use those losses against your income as an agent and investor. 

Do you have an agent representing you? They should have some suggestions for how to build leverage in your situation, though it sounds like that might be limited. 

In these situations, I typically like to require a buyer to put some skin in the game- release SOME of the EMD to me during or immediately following their due diligence. That scares away the tire kickers and forces any actual buyers to get right to work and not waste my time.

Depending on financing, there are plenty of other options for gaining some leverage- requiring faster appraisals, some form of appraisal waiver, higher EMD deposits, faster due dilligence periods, just to name a few.

The most straightforward response is that you need to hire a property manager. New investors worry so much about their first deal and the property, then completely blow it on screening and management, which is honestly cheap compared to all of the expense and time put in to acquisition, and that's where your property actually performs. 

If you have a good product and it's priced appropriately, renters will come- my advice, if you choose to self manage, is focusing on your tenant criteria, screening and application process. Self management can be done, but it's rare that it's done well, especially in the beginning. Just scroll through these forums for a bit- it's almost all people either trying to figure out how to do their first deal OR people who have completely lost control of their investment through poor screening and management processes. 

Lots of good resources out there, best of luck!

Happy to connect- I work in a market in the west and I have a full team of people who help us work through all of our deals. Feel free to DM me, always happy to share connections and processes. 

Depending on your volume, a HELOC is always my go to. Cheap, flexible and payments are low. No points and I can just free it up as soon as I cash out.

I find so many flippers don't keep any properties and that's almost always a mistake. You can be so much more efficient with HELOCS and when you couple that with cost segs, your cash flow from the properties you keep becomes totally irrelevant. A property that's $200 per month negative cash flow that you cost seg in to a $75K tax savings is a better investment than almost anything else you could possibly do. 

Maybe a bit off topic, but that's my two cents!

People don't need to be so afraid of real estate agents. Sure, there are LOTS of bad ones out there, but a good agent can truly be a great resource and business partner for you. 

That being said, every seller thinks their property is worth more- it has X upgrades or the location is better, etc. 

The truth is that sellers don't dictate the value of the property, the buyer does. The only thing a seller can control is how many eyes are on the property, that's it. The more eyes on your property, the more leverage you have. The #1 lever you have to gain leverage is asking price. Once you have more than one offer, you can start pulling the strings, and you can do that by NOT overpricing your property. 

If you overprice and no one looks at it, if and when you finally get an offer, you have little to no control over the narrative. 

Remember, you can choose not to accept any offer, but you need to put yourself in a position where you are at least getting offers. 

As for using a realtor- yeah, you are here asking for advice because you need help, and you should work with a realtor- but not just any realtor. Meet with at least five- the more the better. Worry less about their commissions- those are totally negotiable and you should negotiate, but find someone you has lots of experience, high production numbers and that you trust. I'd say anyone doing fewer than 15 deals per year is not worth talking with, real estate is recreational for them- you want a full time pro. 

Best of luck!

Our insurance has basically doubled across the board over the last four years or so. Taxes have been fairly stable. 

Started shopping around for insurance more than I usually would and have found some HUGE differences in premiums that I didn't realize were possible. Slowly moving polices over to new providers now. 

Of course, screening tenants thoroughly and maintaining properties proactively helps keep our costs low too, so we are doing more preventative maintenance than we used to. 

This is why investing in HOAs or condos is usually not a great idea. Special assessments and archtectural controls mean you have very little control over the performance of the property. 

I'd sell/1031 in to a property where I could force equity and had control over the performance. 

That's enough for an FHA house hack in almost any market in the country. Buy a fixer, live in it for a year and build sweat equity, keep it as a rental. Even better if you can do a Duplex or triplex. Do that every year for a decade and you'll be financially free by the end.

Just connect with local people already doing it- there should be some local meetups and I guarantee the people who are successful will be happy to share resources with you. The ones who are struggling will be happy to sell mentorships...

Everything you need to know is available for free, network, add value and be humble and you'll get way more back than you'd ever get from a paid program.