All Forum Posts by: Joe Cassandra

First thing is you're 20...and you're interested in investing...so you're miles ahead of most 20 year olds. 

#1. Have patience. You have plenty of time. 

#2. Best thing for you to do right now is to network your butt off with people in ATL. Look for the flippers/brokers/multi-family folks and just offer to help them...even if it's you will keep your eyes out for a deal for them. Or, maybe they need help project managing or something like that. 

Learn the business...and work hard...and you'll probably be very wealthy by age 30. 

No legit lender requires any money upfront until closing (except maybe a few hundred bucks for an appraisal). 

Any insurance (mortgage, title, lender) etc. is all taken care of at closing. 

The only wires should go to an attorney/title company. No wires should ever be sent to a lender/private lender/wholesaler. 

Get off email and ask to talk on the phone about the situation. 

If they refuse or dodge, it's a scam. Already this all sounds like a scam. There's no such thing as "wire insurance." 

 Well, I'd include private lending in that number as that's passive as well. I wouldn't call a handful of multi-family an 'empire'...but maybe some would. 

For HVAC and water heater age, it'll come down to the price point of the property. You can get away with older units in lower priced units...not as much in 500k houses. 

In a seller's market, it can be tough to ask for major repairs...it'll come down to the motivation of the sellers. 

My thought is to 'never fall in love with a house until you move in.' If you're serious about getting a good deal on a primary, stick to your guns and make the ask.

The worst they can say is 'no.' They won't ask for you to terminate the deal...as that's at your discretion.

How much money per month do you need to [retire...quit your job...etc.]. 

Then work backwards from there. 

If you think you could live on $10k/month for life...and you'd be happy with that...why go through the effort of trying to get to 50 houses in X years. That's a lot of cash out of pocket...a lot of headaches...basically full time dealfinding..etc. 

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On the other hand, if rents are say $1,500...with the 50% rule, you'd be cashflowing $750 on a free and clear. 

Why not just land 14 houses and get them all paid off...$750 x 14 = $10,500 per month. live off $10k per month forever? 

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There's no 'right or wrong.' 

It's "what is your goal with RE?"

For me? 

I'm not trying to build some RE empire and become RE famous. I like my work outside of RE. If I can cashflow 30k-40k per month passively and spend my days writing copy and screenplays and chill-axing with my wife and kids...that's my goal.

Geez, this thread went off the rails. 

I work in the financial publishing industry so I'm one of those writing these big 'hooks' like "lazy RE investing." I know the tricks us marketers use to sell millions in books and subscriptions. (and it works).

For this book, he's talking about buying distressed RE notes.

If you can find the right distressed notes, you can make massive returns without being a landlord.

That's always the language they used with me...but obviously I can't verify anything. Like you infer, they probably just know they'll have the money when it comes for a draw...but in this OP's case, that may have come back to bite them.

Hey Mike, already sent a PM :)

There's a lot of optimism that everything will just open up and go back to normal...

But it's like anything in nature. 

If a car...a person...an animal is running at full speed and then its a brick wall...

It'll eventually get back to running at full speed...but it'll take some time. 

Right now, because they see people out and about, they think "well, everything is back to normal." There's a huge difference when 10M+ don't get their jobs back and the unemployment gravy train runs out.

I know people in my own family who lost jobs, were enjoying unemployment (golfing 5x per week), now they're back at work with reduced hours. 

The savings will eventually run out. 

But eventually the train will get moving again....when? will probably take 12-24 months to get back to Jan-Feb economic pace.

If you're looking at $1,700/month in CF for $90k...and you can get more off for foundation, that's a pretty good deal. 

If it's $850 total per month, I'd need ALOT off for foundation. I'm guessing it's a smaller house at that price range so it's not going to be as expensive as other folks will think. I'd estimate $10k or less. (but get multiple bids, your first bid is usually the highest for some reason)