All Forum Posts by: Grand Wally

You know you're a real estate investor when your friends stop inviting you to social functions because all you EVER talk about is REI......

I have a renter who (I have a feeling) is about to skip town. The guy I bought the house from put the appliances in there and I'd like to keep them.

I just have a odd feeling about theft....this might be a dumb question...but how can I keep the appliances in the house and assure the renters don't steal them?

I have a tenant who is posing a situation to me that makes it kind of easy to accept the idea of breaking a lease. Long story short...her son is a gang member and he is occupying the house sometimes...he is NOT on the lease and she said that if I want to I can call the cops on him. He has already put 2 holes in the wall....

I'm a logical person...and so here are the alternatives as I see them...

a) call the cops on the kid. He will get out and in all probability demolish my home.

b) evict her for letting her son tear the place up. This is not cost effective as I'll have to hire an attorney.

c) let her break the lease, pay me a little $ to get her walk away, change the locks and get a new renter in there.

d) let things continue as is not really knowing if this punk is tearing my place up.

The choice is lease resistance (i.e., the least financially) seems to be choice B.

Any thoughts?

THanks

Huh? ....tell you what.....send all of the $29,999 and under deals that aren't worth your time to me. I'll be happy to work them all day long.

Good job so far. You are on your way.

I would suggest doing the following....

a) Get the OK with the soon to be wifey. You need to make sure she is ok with moving every 2 years or so. Ask military families....that can take a big toll on a relationship.

b) Stay debt free (except for debt that is being serviced by appreciating assets).

Gotta ask you...why don't you want to get rich via real estate?

I agree. My RE attorney said that in 30 years of RE law, he has never personally had a client who had the due on sale slapped on them. As long as the bank is getting their money, who cares...............

:beer:

Mike: In regards to the above statement.......huh? What? Tell you what....go spend some time with the futures & options traders...who make $40,000 one month and then $800 the next month...see if that's a valid business model.

I can answer the "why REI" question very easily...

...because REI is the one and only form of investing in the world whereby you can make money using OPM (Other People's Money) and leverage.

Think about it this way....

10% on a mutual fund with $30,000 is $3,000. But you had to have that initial $30,000 in order to get the $3,000. With REI, you can be creative and find that same kind of return using the money of other people!!

Brian: You are absolutely correct. Any type of investing is speculative in nature. I guess my only point to calling flipping speculation rather than investing is....where does one draw the line?

Putting your money into a secured and guaranteed bond is investing, but then again some would say so is trading oil futures. Some would even say mastering counting cards in blackjack is investing because they can point to a track record of winning more than they lose.

Point being....there are some things that are 99% speculative and some that are 1% speculative....I just happen to place flipping at about the 70% speculative range and not so much "investing". Just an opinion.

Rman24:

The answer to your question depends solely on your strategy and what you want from REI.

As a first step, however, please understand that buying property in the hopes of turning it around and making quick money (i.e., flipping) is NOT INVESTING. It is called SPECULATION. I'm not discouraging you from doing it this way as many have made a lot of money from it.

With that being said, if you do flip, make sure you do your homework big time. If you want to be a landlord, do your homework also but a different kind of homework. I would do these things in this sequence....

a) find a person who owns and rents out many properties.
b) buy them lunch and absorb everything they will tell you on how to play the game.
c) find a property that will give you equity at closing and positive cash flow from day 1.
d) screen tenants aggressively
e) be a good landlord by doing what you say you will do when you say you will do it.

It's always funny to me how some landlords blame the tenant for leaving, blame the tenant for this or that......but they don't realize that sometimes the landlord is the reason that the tenant does what they do!!

Good luck....