All Forum Posts by: Clark Kirkpatrick

@Dan Perlman I'd suggest How to Invest in Real Estate by Josh Dorkin and Brandon Turner!

Or Rich Dad Poor Dad. This is more of a "why" book, and the first one is more of a "how" book. I've read them both and they're both great.

@Alyssa Nagasako To factor in the capital gain, never sell the house, refinance it every 5-10 years to pull cash out, and pass it on to your kids when you die so they get a stepped-up basis and can sell immediately with no capital gain... or do the same thing themselves!

Or do a 1031 exchange, or invest in an opportunity zone. There's a bunch of ways to avoid that.

Go to your local real estate meetups and talk with people! You might find an opportunity that you can work with there.

Also, check out Brandon Turner's book How to Invest in Real Estate with Low and No Money Down. That'll get you pointed in the right direction for using creative finance strategies.

Your situation reminds me of Ben Leybovich, and he's killing it right now.

The list price probably does matter. Of course you can negotiate, and that might go well or it might go badly.

To find out how much the place will rent for, check out rentometer.com and you can get a pretty good idea! Also, definitely use the BP calculators under the "tools" tab at the top of this page. That should get you oriented properly.

Good for you, for improving your situation!!

IMO, you should listen to BP podcasts, read BP's books and go to your local real estate meetup each month, or find a couple to go to.

From those things, you'll gather a lot of information and you can decide on an investing strategy that you think will work for you, and then have a go and get your first deal done!

Once you've done one, the next ones become way easier.

Good luck!

You should figure out how much you can spend. That'll help you determine your upper price limit.

Once you know that, the price itself isn't that important - what IS important is the price to income ratio. So you could have a $50k house that rents for $1k/month, and that would be a good deal. You could have a $500k house that rents for $1k/month, and that would be a terrible deal.

A lot of investors use the 1% or the 2% rule, which are really just general rules of thumb. They can be very helpful though, and they work like this:

If the monthly rent is 1% of the purchase price, then it might be a good deal.

So for the simplest example, if you can find a $100k house that will rent for $1k/month, that could work.

In some markets, like mine, it's even possible to find 2% deals. And that's a pretty safe bet.

I'd go for the higher rate and no points now, because rates might go up!

you could use that cash for a higher ROI investment than 1% over 30 years!!

You can hook a meter up to each water heater to get a good idea of how much each tenant uses. It's not perfect, but it's inexpensive and might be good enough.

I'd look at your local laws as well, since the water is actually free from a well - it's just the upkeep that you have to pay for, so of course you want to incentivize being nice to it if possible. But it's not just passing utility costs on to the tenant like it would be with electricity.

What do you mean by budget, exactly?

If you want to find out what your income, expenses, cashflow and other things like that specifically for your property will be, then use the BiggerPockets calculators! Click on "tools" at the top of this we page and explore those.

The reason for the umbrella policy is the business - it increases my net worth (so I'm a better lawsuit target) and it increases my liability (tenants, contractors, the neighbor who walked by and slipped on the ice). 

Is it a business expense, or partly a business expense? Can I pay for it from my business account, write it off and call it a day?

Thanks in advance!