All Forum Posts by: John McConnell

Amazing info.  Wish all of you were in my life 20 years ago.  I am on my downhill slide in my military career and getting started with investing as well.  I am trying to beat the 4-5 year clock so that I can match my retirement income before I retire.  For long term investing i am totally up voting multifamily house hacking.  It seems like one of the best ideas ever.  Buy a multi, live in one unit and rent out the others and let someone else pay the note.  Then move and do it again...and again... and again!  Great advice from all the responses and if you listen and do some of the things listed above there is no way you will not be successful!  Good luck with your investing and your military career!

Originally posted by @Sarlah B.:

I am interested in coming tonight however I'm a total newbie and have not even started investing and even unsure what type of investments I would be interested in. Should I still come? 

 It is probably the best and most motivating way to not only learn about real estate but meet some of the players in your market.  Just from your interactions at meetups and REIAs you can piece together what you actually would like to do in real estate.  Justin's events are top notch!  At the end of the day real estate (and many other businesses) is all about connecting with people and building relationships.  From those relationships come organic opportunities for business development and growth.  "If you don't know where you want to end up, any path will get you there".  Hope to see you there!

Wow! Nobody in the Fort Knox area? Hmmm. Still keeping my ears to the grindstone. Will do some more research on my end.

Not 100% sure but I have heard from multiple sources that a VA property need only be occupied for 1 year minimum (maybe 2) and after that you can rent or sell that property and purchase another meaning you can have multiple VA loans. I think the underlying concept is for military people (me being one) to be able to purchase in the event they have to move within one year and have options when relocating for work. All that being said, podcast 189 @tarlyarber speaks a lot about wraps for FHA and VA loans as an option... And he has about 20 years experience in the business. Might want to reach out to him. The other resource I would recommend is simple going to the official VA loan site which is a government site. Most of the simple questions can be answered there. Talking to banks locally where I am in the north east a lot of them are not versed on VA loans and it is a possibility that you will know more than them. You just have to be prepared to educate your lender about what the rules are. Hope I haven't double tapped something already mentioned and if so I apologize up front. Best of luck!

@Tilmon Smith Thanks for the reply!  Sounds like you were sitting on the idea for a while before you got started.  Once you had it in your mind that you wanted to do it you got it all figured out and locked in within 12 months or so.  Nice!  I am in the sitting and waiting stage in my investing.  Trying to get funds in place as well..  but I find more and more it is just a matter of talking to a lot of banks and seeing what is out there because every bank is a special snowflake.  Putting together some offers now for buy and hold stuff.  Ive thought about flips and wholesales but its not the #1 priority on my radar.  I am hoping in the next 6-8 months I will have the main property I want under wraps and start going though the real life learning process.  I have a business idea attached on the back end of it for value add to the tenants since it is a very specific niche market that I am targeting.  Awesome!

Nice work on the very first flip. Sounds like it was a real success! How long did it take you to pull the trigger? How long have you been learning before hand? Did you partner with anyone at all and dos you do the work yourself or contract the rehab? Thanks in advance! All the best with the next one!

Anyone in or around the Vine Grove area of Kentucky (Radcliff, Fort Knox).  My friend was trying to sell her house and it seems that the price might be a bit high.  I recommended trying to rent as that is a high turnover area (military, HRC) and Vine Grove is one of the nicer places that is still within good proximity of the base.  I don't have the specifics of the house but it is 3 story, something like 4 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, 2 car garage, .25 acre lot etc..  If anyone knows a very good trustworthy Prop Manager around there I would really appreciate the referral.  

Thank you very much in advance for all you concern!!

John

Originally posted by @Eboni Allen:

@John McConnell Thanks! I will do that.

 No worries,

If you have any questions about it or even need some tips let me know.  Another great resource for tips and tricks is the GTD book (the latest edition).  Digitize everything!  :-)

Originally posted by @Eboni Allen:

@Albert Bui Your posts on this thread are so informational!! I wish I could bookmark them!

 You can bookmark them...  just dump the thread to evernote. :-)  I evernote everything.  They have a browser button you can install that will allow you to grab all or just a portion of any web page.  Clip all artcles, receipts, blog posts..  and then I can search in evernote and it will bring up anything related to my search criteria. Best app ever.  As a side note you can even take hand written notes and photos of documents which are then OCR'd (text is made searchable) automagically by evernote.

That's why I love this site. Great discussions. So the more I think about it the more I am sure the structure would have to include things that have been mentioned. As far as if the other person decides to bow out I think at that point I would be good with some type of equity trade off assuming they would already be in the deal for at least a year or two. Probably something to consider adding to the contract. That both partners be involved for x amount of years prior to pulling out. Also I think this strategy would be awesome in order to fully reap the tax benefits the owner occupy person would get and could potentially roll into a future deal with the partner (all stipulations contractually spelled out of course). I am really sure this could be another way for someone with less experience and/or less Capital to be able to get a great deal together and maximize its potential for a more experienced partner.