All Forum Posts by: Conner Olsen

@Lane C. It's been performing great! We listed in November so we don't have a ton of data but it has been going great. I used Jose Santiago with the Short Term Shop. I highly recommend them, they only work with STR investors.

@Joe S. property was in my name and getting a quitclaim into joint LLC. We will hold for at least 10 years and then we can decide to buy a partner out, bring in different partners and sell your shares, or sell the property all together.

Congrats @Aaron Hyatt, that's awesome. Way to take action! If you are interested in maximizing your cashflow, you should consider Airbnb and renting nightly or for 30-day minimums.

I personally liked doing owner-occupied first with a house hack. It was a great learning experience!

@Brendon Kerrigan My strategy is appreciation early in my investing career and then getting cashflow later to reach FI.

I think percentage wise, a small brokerage that focuses on investors would have the highest investor-friendly agents. In terms of a national brokerage I think you'd have better change of finding specific teams that all the agents are investor-friendly.

@Amir Ainsworth I was contemplating the same thing a few months ago. The cashflow in the Midwest was extremely enticing and seemed nonexistent in my market, Austin, TX. I was in a mastermind zoom call and asked this question to Scott Trench (BP Money Podcast host and CEO of BP) and his advice was to house hack in the rapidly appreciating market. The appreciation you'll get in Southern California will vastly outweigh the cashflow you'd get in a lower cost market. He said that capital is difficult to come by when you are just starting on your journey so getting that appreciation upfront will allow you to sell your asset and move your money to a higher cashflow market when you are ready to hit FI.

In terms of finding cashflow, I had the same problem in Austin. The yearly lease amounts were not going to make anything a good investment. I changed my strategy to renting on Airbnb as a monthly rental. I was able to double my cashflow just by furnishing the property. I went from barely covering the PITI monthly expenses to cash flowing $1,500/month by going with Airbnb. It is a gamechanger!

Hi Kristi, congrats on wanting to get started in real estate! Like Melissa said I don't think you need to pay for a course. I think you can get a lot of information from podcasts and books. When I started getting interested in real estate I refused to spend money on books until I knew for sure that I was going to stick with it so I ended up going to the library and reading 4 books over a few months and I was hooked. I know it's difficult finding time to read books with children but 15 minutes a day of an audiobook or podcast will definitely help you on your path! Another free tip is to completely alter your social media feed. I started following tons of people in the real estate space and training the algorithm to show me more real estate content. It felt like I was taking a mini course on real estate.

Hey @John Intfen, it is difficult to stomach the mortgage insurance that comes with FHA loans. I personally went with a 15% owner-occupied loan on my duplex in Austin, TX and I wish I had used an FHA 3.5% down. At the time I wanted a low down payment but I didn't realize how nice it would have been to have that extra 11.5% sitting in my bank account. I would have had to pay more monthly for the property but I would have felt more stable with the extra cash to use when necessary.

Like Kayla said, I would analyze both strategies and seeing which works better for your situation. Hope this helps!

Congrats, Barbara that's a great goal! You should check out the Bigger Pockets Rookie Podcast. It's all about people new to real estate investing and I've found they give a lot of actionable advice that is easy to replicate.