All Forum Posts by: Craig Curelop

@Lane Kawaoka - I have come to the realization that if your goals are to retire early, putting money into a 401k plan is essentially throwing it away. I'm relatively young. 24 years old to be exact. The thought of putting away even $100 a month and not being able to touch it until I'm 60 without penalty is baffling to me. I can't believe people do this.... that's 35 years....2052!!!  

The ONLY exception here is if your company matches what you put into the 401k. I will never tell you to forego free money. 

The 401k seems just like the "thing to do" because it's safe, it's easy, and everyone knows about it. If we teach those younger than us to not contribute to the 401k, but invest wisely (in real estate), they will be considerably better off.

@Vania Castillo - If you want to find GOOD General Contractors, my advice would be to contact fix & flippers and ask them for recommendations. 

You can do this by going to biggerpockets.com/meet, search for fix & flippers, and ask them to take them out for lunch or a coffee? People are more than happy to give references.

@Christian Castillo - There are good and bad deals in every market. My advice would be to start in your own backyard. If you can't afford Chicago, maybe you go to the suburbs or maybe even as far as Milwaukee? That way you are a quick drive from anywhere. You can be present and learn. 

To answer your question above, here is a list of sites that I think may be useful:

www.bestplaces.net

www.census.gov

www.geometrix.com

www.city-data.com

www.socialexplorer.com

www.costar.com

www.colliers.com

For crime & safety:

www.spotcrime.com

www.familywatchdog.com

www.neighborhoodscout.com

www.crimereports.com

www.walkscore.com

@Anton Taylor - It is great that you are getting excited and want to do EVERYTHING! It is even better than you are realizing that this isn't great and focusing on ONE THING is necessary. 

It sounds like you want to get started in more of the active investment styles (i.e. wholesaling or flipping). I would suggest reading up and listening to podcasts on both of these subjects to see what truly interests you. Do you want to find deals for other investors? Or do you want to find deals, manage a rehab, and then sell? 

My advice would be to invest locally as you just start out. That way you can be present and learn. Start building a network of people who invest in real estate in your area. 

Go to www.biggerpockets.com/meet, message them, ask them to grab coffee with you. You'll meet wholesalers, fix & flippers, landlords, contractors, accountants, attorneys, the works! You will learn a tremendous amount from them.

Let's see some action! I challenge you to message 10 people in your area asking them to grab coffee. Respond back once you have a response and a time set up. 

I look forward to seeing what you end up doing :) 

@Robin Boyer - I can give you my answer based on my goals and current situation. Note that yours might be very different. 

My goal is to retire in my early 30s or in 6-9 years. Now, I love my job and have no intentions of leaving in the short term. In fact, I'd love for this to be my last JOB. So with $500k, here is what I would do. 

1. Assuming my comfortable freedom number is $10,000 per month, I would need to acquire ~100 units that cash flow $100 each per month. Now my goals are higher, but conservatively that is what I will budget for.

2. With $500k, I would keep about $20k-$25k in reserves. The rest, I would try to find great, cash flowing deals with high CoC returns.

3. The best way to get CoC returns is to house hack. You can only do one of these at a time, so my first property would be a 3.5% FHA or if you're a first time home buyer check out the deals they have.

4. Then I would use 20% down conventional to purchase 3-4 other properties that also cash flow. 

5. I'd reinvest all of my savings, acquire a few more properties until I have the ability to 1031 exchange them into a larger, commercial building (i.e. apartment complex). Then you can use that scale to by a few more. 

I wouldn't doubt that there may be some implications with this plan and thinking 6-9 years ahead is truthfully a waste of time. Where were you 6 years ago? I was nowhere near where I am now and not anywhere near where I thought I'd be. Just work on the NEXT THING and everything else will fall into the place. There's too many variables to work off a super long term plan. 

If you have $500k available, my advice would be to be pretend like you have $50k and make your next investment. 

Also - if you're looking to partner up on any deals, let me know. I'm currently seeking some partners to get the next deal done :). 

@Bill S. - Thanks for the sound advice! I'll definitely keep that in mind.

@Robin Boyer - I'm excited to see what you have in store. Be sure to keep us all posted!

@James Carlson - Thanks man! Exactly, amazing what a little bit of action does. 

@Ryan Murdock - Thank you! I don't care what anyone says, a year is a LONG time. I'm looking forward to hearing your story on the podcast soon! 

@Thomas S. the "~" means an approximation. So I cash flow about $500 a month. If it were negative, It would just be the straight line that looks like theI "-"

Today is June 23rd, 2017. Rewind one year. It is now June 23, 3016. I have just finished reading Tim Ferriss' Four-Hour Work Week and I feel as though I have found the secret to a happy life. Creating a passive stream of recurring income that exceeds my monthly expenses. Living in San Francisco, a startup idea was definitely my ticket out. After dozens of lousy startup ideas, the thought of investing in real estate dawned on me. 

I went online and typed in, "real estate investing." I stumbled upon BiggerPockets, but admittedly was quite skeptical. Instead, I typed in "Real Estate Investing" into Amazon and bought the first book that came up. Brandon Turner's, "Book on Rental Property Investing." At the time, I had NO IDEA that BiggerPockets published the book. So after getting through the first few chapters and saw all of the "unbiased" praise, I decided to check BiggerPockets out. 

Over the next few months, I educated myself. I listened to every podcast, watched almost every webinar, and found my self frequently analyzing deals and perusing the forums. In one of the August 2016 webinars, Brandon told us to write down a specific goal. On my white board, I wrote down, "to purchase a multifamily property for $300k to $600k that cash flows at least $100 per door by June 30, 2017." 

Guess what? It's June 23rd, 2017 and I closed on a duplex for $385k that will cash flow me ~$500 per month. Weird how that works huh? 

It gets weirder. After listening and learning from these guys everyday for the past 8 months, I somehow got the opportunity to move to Denver and work with them at BiggerPockets. That's right, I went from knowing absolutely NOTHING about real estate to being a BiggerPockets employee in less than a year. 

It's crazy how life always seems to work when you put your mind to it. I give a HUGE thank you to the entire BiggerPockets team for providing great, easy to understand content that seemingly reduces the entry barriers to real estate investing. On to the next one :). 

Jeffery Waicak - The Success Principles is a great book that outlines the principals the most successful people in the world live by. I highly suggest you give it a read.

Thomas Branson - it depends on what interest rate you financed the car at? Typically, car loans have pretty favorable rates. For the sake of this discussion, let's say the interest rate on your car loan is 4%. By paying down your car loan, you are getting a guaranteed return of 4%. If you are highly confident that you can earn a higher than 4% return elsewhere. It would be wise to keep making the minimum payments on your car and invest somewhere else.