All Forum Posts by: Grant Shipman

@Michael S. it sounds like y'all are doing quite wonderful things!  Yes, I end up being in the category of educators/mentors who charge for my services.  I'm working on getting my beta program for the course together- I hit a snag that has bummed me out a bit on it in regard to production logistics, so I'm jumping back on my feet from that. I love the challenge and it also drives me crazy sometime :)  Do you relate to that?

It very much impresses me that you looked into insurance in that detail.  Unfortunately, BP flags me anytime I put contact information here.  If you want, please DM me, and I can connect you with the Livingsmith Risk Management Adviser Bobby Talbot.  The guy is high-quality and only goes by referrals (usually only to high net-worth individuals, but I asked him to put together a policy for people exactly in your shoes).  He's big on education, so you'll learn quite a bit (like I have) through chatting w/him. I hope you are having a great 2020!

@Michele Z. I so appreciate your kind straight-forwardness.  Let me say that again, b/c I truly mean it and want you to know it. I turbo appreciate your kind straight-forwardness.  With that skill down, you should do great avoiding what trips up a lot of us private investors in coliving- creating an environment of straight-forward communication with household members and between household members.  It's my personal belief that each person discovering and fleshing out their goals the best they can is what will upgrade the world, so I super support your and all of our good-hearted efforts.  Whether your decision is to go with guidance through organized knowledge (books, courses, coaching, etc) or piece it together through great forums like this, the important thing is to take calculated steps, reflect on the results, and then take more calculated results.  It's an encouragement to me b/c it sounds like you are doing just that, and I need more people around me that do that!

Sounds like you've also had a look at my product- Thank you for taking the time to check it out!  Unfortunately, it is still not available to purchase, as I'm in the process of replacing my product development firm b/c I couldn't figure out how to manage them well enough to meet benchmarks.  So that is eating up some time and I'm doing it all myself in the interim.  All that to say, the price point will be a discounted $1k for those who partake in a free intro webinar.  I've put in over $100k into training courses, coaching, and meeting w/legal and finance experts to start and sharpen my skills, and I've learned that people (including myself) often don't pay attention if we don't pay money.  Also- I will be launching a beta-program shortly which will get to do the course for effectively free in exchange for course feedback.  Again, I'm just sharing here. I hope y'all, @Davido Davido, myself, and others like us w/hearts for household, regardless of or temporary strategies, are synergistic through supporting one another. 

The best thing I can offer from my experience and learning from others is twofold:

1. 1) Use syndication to do multiple house hacks throughout the year (1-48 houses per year) b/c coliving + househacking enables this.  Plus it means you could use no money of your own and benefit your passive investors (like I have).  This is called HouseHacking 2.0
2. 2. Use A Complete Household System: this is a mixture of rules, culture, communication methods, conflict management method, etc that form a living environment that you and the average person would want to live in for  decades.  It also means transferring much of the property management and household management on to the household members themselves b/c responsibility breeds pride, ownership, and deep joy. 

By the way, I'm heading to ColivingHub's world conference this April in LA to learn from them.  If either of y'alll happen to go, I'd love to meet face-to-face :) 

David- I'd  love to hear how your current projects are going if you don't mind sharing.  For me- we just closed on an 8 bedroom ranch detached that is maybe my most favorite property so far, and I'm so looking forward to seeing the new household develop.  I also just the first house I bought to inspect it yesterday, and it had me laughing b/c I found 17 cases of toilet paper in different places in the home (bathroom, garage, storage, laundry room)...it's  like they were planning an epic TP'ing of another house....I wish, it ended up just showing a lapse of communication between the house members and the HPM (household-led property manager).  #alwayslearning  ...hahaha

@Michele Z. & @Davido Davido Great to catch-up on your thread- and my hearty apologies for going dark :) I've been putting in hundred plus hour weeks for the last few months to produce a quality product to help investors do what I am doing, reinventing the household. Creating a quality product that actually gets people success has been a challenge- up until now I taught other investors personally.

My posts may come off cryptic b/c what I do can be replicated and be amazing for renters and investors, but not if it is understood incorrectly to mean rent-by-the room (or other common threads). Rent by the room has been tried for quite a long time by private investors, and any increase in profits is usually lost in the wash due to high turn-over, property damage, and tenant conflict. What I've done since 2000 is create high-quality households that renters want to be a part of. They may join for the lower price, flexible leases, and quality housing, but our residents stay for an average of 5+ years b/c they can't find what we offer any other place.

I very much support, love, and am a student of all types of cohousing: boarders, college housing, senior housing, rent-by-the room long term or short term, etc. To my knowledge none of these reliably produce 5X the returns of a standard successful rental house nor offer society (and renters) a re-invented household that people want to be a part of for years and years. This is what offer investors like us and renters like I use to be.

Did I cryptic the **** out of that? hahaha I hope not :)

I hope y'all are having a truly wonderful start to your new year!

I hear you- that's how I started.  You may want to consider Beyond House Hacking. It includes House Hacking 2.0 (which is a great version of using partners in house hacking), and each property for me has produced the cash flow of 5 properties.  

Beyond HouseHacking works really well in strong and struggling economies.  It is not commercial like you said, but you may want to consider it for Detroit. 

Investment Info:

Single-family residence buy & hold investment in Loveland.

Purchase price: $316,000
Cash invested: $14,000

We're getting $1.5k cash flow with Cash Returns of 128% using the Livingsmith Coliving strategy of combining beyond-househacking with household-planting to create both a beautiful household and beautiful returns. This was accomplished with one passive investor.

Blog: https://www.biggerpockets.com/member-blogs/12319/86526-beyond-househacking-5x-your-cashflow-and-expedite-your-rental-strategy

What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

I love creating tremendous value for renters and investors using a coliving strategy.

How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

MLS purchased with my realtor.

How did you finance this deal?

Conventional Financing (beyond-househacking)

How did you add value to the deal?

Coliving strategy

What was the outcome?

Raving fan renters and investors.

Did you work with any real estate professionals (agents, lenders, etc.) that you'd recommend to others?

Andrew Lewis of Keller Williams

How well do you know the market? What is your best guess of the most popular household size of those renting? 

---Comment your guess before reading the post for the surprising answer. No cheating :)

(Household size means the number of people in the rental unit. In example. If a husband and wife with two kids were renting, that would be a 4 person household size).

https://www.biggerpockets.com/...

I couldn't afford a 20% downpayment and the idea of $200 monthly cashflow was too low (and too risky for me). So we got smarter and only needed $14k for all cash needed to get over $1k monthly cashflow and over 50% cash returns annually!  We reminded ourselves that the higher the profits the more we were protected if a recession or unexpected repair hit.

Over the past 18 years, I've innovated a strategy that makes a big money b/c it adds big value.I'm starting to share our strategy with a blog. We need others out there who want to make a lot of money by making a big difference!

I'd love to hear what you think! (please comment or message)

(please no contacts about wanting to invest with us. We love sharing our experience, but we are no longer accepting investors interests.)

Hi @Davido Davido,

I think your response/thoughts is about the most encouraging thing I've read in months.  Myself, my team, my investment partners, and the household residents are absolutely smitten by all of this.  However, I've not been able to successfully communicate it to those who are not here to see it, so I haven't gotten great responses yet.  However, I truly believe in sharing what we are experiencing, as renters are experiencing healthy households (and saving money) and investors are making more money with less money and less risk.  

Your advice and questions have been very educational and helpful also!  Great points about being more careful/accurate with my wording i.e. "1/4th the cost". 

Thanks also for understanding that I'm not able to fit everything in one post.  I've tried to keep the blogs relatively short, and I have more planned to specifically discuss Household-Planting, property criteria, marketing, screening potential residents, and case studies with specific examples, etc. I also love your idea about showing real financial numbers our houses are getting compared to what that same house would get rented out as a one-unit (traditional rental). What a great idea!  

I'm very intrigued by the cool plans you mentioned about the 20 bed 24 bath triplex!  My friend has a 14 bedroom triplex house in Austin that I've been very involved in and learned a lot from.   What has you wanting to provide both short & long term rental options?  How short term are you planning to offer?

I really like the list of links you posted!  I was aware of most of them, but not all of them.  I'm looking forward to checking out the ones new to me.  It is incredible the amount of institutional money being poured into co-living.  I'm working with a marketing and educational crew in order to put together what we're doing, so individual investors too can take advantage of the co-living trend.  And if I'm honest, I'm a very value-add/mission-driven investor, so I'd really like to see co-living houses as an option to renters in any city of 50k or more.  

I'm going to print out your response and spend a lot of time on it because it's that good.  As I write an address how we do co-living, I'll tag you to give full answers to your questions.  Thanks again!