All Forum Posts by: Christy Browning

Congratulations on your success!! Thank you for this post, and all of your detail and information! I have done my first SFR and have a goal of acquiring 50 doors - reading your post is inspiring, and particularly helpful that you organized it on a timeline. Thanks again!

Welcome, Niki! I am a newbie as well in real estate buy and hold investing. I have learned so much from BP. In case you haven't heard their podcasts yet, they are fantastic. The Bigger Pockets Podcast and Bigger Pockets Money are great to listen to - and always on while I am commuting. Congrats on your investing start!

For my recent SFR, we put the restricted breed list in the lease, and discussed with the tenants. The list was based on the restricted breed list from our insurance. It included pit bull, Doberman, Newfoundland, Mastiff, Akita, Chow Chow, Rotweiller. These restrictions did not apply for service dogs. Best of luck in your next steps!

Hi Andrew, welcome! It is so exciting to get involved and plan your next steps. I am a newbie as well, with one SFH rental so far in Thornton. There is great advice on your post already to your questions. Here are a few thoughts you and your wife could also consider, take or leave!

1. You mention you want to house hack with your current home - could this include Air BnB? Not sure if that is something you would feel comfortable with, but if so, could yield you more cash flow than renting space to a tenant.

2. For your next home purchase, if you are progressing on that path soon, and planning a house hack of some sort with that property, I have really enjoyed Scott Trench's articles, pod casts about his small multifamily purchases using this method with FHA loan for the first one. That would ease up the amount needed to put down. Cons are in this market FHA offers are often passed over. Still could be worth trying.

3. If you are open to this idea: if you have retirement accounts from previous jobs or from your own management, you could consider converting those to a self directed IRA or Solo 401k to utilize funds to invest in real estate deals instead of stocks. After getting expert advice from your CPA, attorney, etc. before proceeding with this.

Also, in case you have not heard of some good Denver networking events to widen your circle of connections, I really like the Denver Apartment Network, The Creative Real Estate Investors Lunch Series, ICOR, John Fisher Breakfast, Bad *** Real Estate gatherings. Most of these can be found through the BP meet up area, or by searching on meetup.com directly.

Welcome again, and best wishes to you and your wife on this exciting journey!

These replies all have great advice. A couple of things to consider in addition: building on Marc's advice to face the fear and deal with these issues head on, his partial joke of bringing Bubba along with you holds merit. If you are concerned about these folks being manipulators I would always have a witness along with you for any visits to the property.

When you go and assess the issues, have a handyman review, I would be civil and upfront with them. If everything is looking good, as you remember it, I would politely address your concerns that you have. With someone else along with me I would likely say something along the following: "Well Bob and Sally, I have taken your repair list requests seriously and assessed each item. The request surprised me since we had just completed our move in walk through, which you may recall included my photographing the condition of everything. I have not found the issues you raised in your email to match the condition and working order of things. I want your time living in this home to be a great experience, and I also want our communication to be truthful. I am concerned about your email and its tone. Can you tell me more about what prompted you to send it?"

In my small experience as a landlord, and broader experience in life, I have found that an approach like this one is often helpful. It's not confrontational yet gets the point across. It also tends to throw some folks off that have manipulative tendencies. Your simple question may get you the true answers you suspect - i.e. They could be having money problems, etc.

I do ask my real estate investing experienced lawyer questions as well about cases like this to ensure I am taking proper steps and preventive measures.

Congratulations, this is amazing! Awesome book @Scott Trench!

@Anthony Manning you have gotten awesome advice here! I particularly like the area around Tower and Hampden. I have not yet found a deal that meets the criteria I am looking for - so I continue to learn and prepare, along with saving, for when I do find a good one.

Hi @Anthony Manning, I am also a newbie investor. I had a few thoughts on your questions, take or leave! I am in the Denver area market and it took a little over 6 months to find a SFH rental that cash flows positively. I am in the process of expanding my business to include a multifamily property. Granted, I am analyzing deals off the MLS for now, the immediate Denver area has not yielded anything I would be willing to buy as an investor. I know that isn't new news for listed properties! I have expanded my search out around metro Denver as a result. As the front range continues to grow at a fast pace there are opportunities to invest elsewhere, perhaps a little easier than downtown at this point. One example I am looking at is certain areas of Aurora.

There are close to 20,000 jobs in healthcare just between University of Colorado Hospital and Children's Hospital Colorado. Buckley Airforce base is in Aurora. And it looks like there will be future large developments just south of DIA - industry and housing project called Aerotropolis. There is much more there, and there of course are parts of that city I would not buy in. But there are exciting developments like this in nearly every city center around Denver, of different design of course.

When you arrive, I would recommend you consider taking a look at some of these other areas that may be a bit more affordable than downtown, and may have great equity potential in the longer run. Best of luck on your move and future multifamily purchase!

Loved this podcast: it was incredibly helpful and clear! Thank you to @Amanda Han and @Brandon Hall for sharing your expertise and advice. Thank you also to Brandon and Scott for your pertinent questions that helped delve into specific details that us investors were hoping to hear more about!

Thanks, @Ben Dunn! I'm looking forward to connecting and learning about your business! It's a small wonderful world, isn't it? :)