All Forum Posts by: Dustin Beam

Nobody really knows. Of property values keep climbing, your a genius for buying. If not, a fool. This is often why some people say buy for cashflow. Then you make money regardless of building value.

Of course it's hotly debated as many buy for appreciation. It's your call to determine what kind of investment you want and your confidence in where values are going.

If you have needles on your property, I would start with notifying you PD that there is hard drug use happening out in public on your property. See if they are willing to do more patrols in the area?

I believe you can withdraw an offer. 

If you're under contract, that may be different. But from you wording, it sounds like you only made a formal offer. If that's it, I would just contact the seller and state why you can't purchase the property. They probably wouldnt' want the headach of the deal falling through any more than you would. At the offer stage of the game, there's no skin off anyone's teeth to cancel.

 It all depends on the investor. To me, it makes sense to compare it to other investments. If you think you can get 8% in the stock market, you might want more coc returns. Or, you might take less and count on the equity as a gain.

For me, I want my calculation to tell me around 15% coc return. However,I've passed on many deals because I wanted better returns? Would I be better of lowering my expectations? Even I ask myself that. But I want extra payment for the hustle. Mutual funds don't make tons of money for me, but they can't be much easier. Real estate,in my model, requires work. My work requires compensation. 

You have to consider those types of things and what makes sense to you.

I don't feel a landlord can be responsible for wildlife as long as the property is maintained. Animals will come and go and there not a lot anyone can do about it.

But, pick your battles. Might be worth doing something if you can.

Does it ever become easy to find good deals? Money and access to money is easily believable to me for the established investor.

I always assumed good deals require hustle no matter who you are.

Anyway I liked the podcast and am really thinking about buying the book. 

 No problem. And if you find something that maybe doesn't work for you due to distance, feel free to pass on the info! :) Thanks

 I use cozy and generally very happy with it, but late fees are a weakness...or else I simply don't know how to have it automatically applied. You can add a fee manually though without much trouble.

 You're right about doing it yourself and saving money. I just want to automate landlording as much as possible w/o me doing work.

And good points about colors/trim/etc. This particular apartment, and probably most of mine, does require minor cracks and whatnot to be filled prior to paint. But we're not talkign extensive repairs either. All one color for all walls. All white ceilings. Trim is stained, so no painting of trim (which should be a nice money saver). We're talking about a little prep work and spray for mine.

 Yea, I guess in my mind, I was expecting around $1000 all in. This one did have some other minor work that needed done, but not a ton and basically came in at least $1500 except for the first guy that had health problems.

Agreed on the flooring. If carpet still looks really good, I'll leave it, but I'm generally phasing it out of my units.