All Forum Posts by: Anthony Gayden

 If it produces tenants and $10 a week is too much for you to stomach then you ought to get out of the business now.

I remember a thing called "the classifieds" in a thing called newspapers- where you would pay for a short little blurb. You had to leave your phone number and begin a mind-numbing screening process that ate into your day. And the tenant had no real idea of what your rental looked like besides the short little "pay per word" blurb.

No thank you very much! Full color spread which pinpoints my units and allows me weed through potential inquiries without picking up the phone.

$10 is cheap in my market, where the majority of my tenants come from Zillow. Facebook has been a dead-end for me, and besides that the community group of my market already links to my units when I put them up.

I can't believe people get into this game with such a small profit margin.

@Anthony Gayden - Are you only able to access the funds in your TSP account after a certain age/retirement? Are you just banking that up as an additional income stream when the time comes, or simply looking to get a decent return rather than have cash piled up, waiting, not really generating anything?

Are you still putting your money away in a retirement account?

Are you maxing it out?

Are you getting the bare minimum employer match?

Or are you parking all your money in a liquid account to be ready for the next opportunity?

Curious about everyone else's mindset

I've been hearing it for about 4 years. "This year is the big correction" "Any day now, we'll be buying houses for 40 cents on the dollar" "longest bull run in decades has to end soon" Let me elaborate and I'll finish with my point.

The economy is fairly strong. The fundamentals are there, though there are some weaknesses, people are interpreting history incorrectly. The 2008 crash was an anomaly in it's extreme nature. The 4 downturns/recessions before that were far less severe and weren't directly caused by real estate. I guess because it's so recent and fresh, and because REI has become a trending career so the majority have joined in since 2008, everyone is interpreting 2008 as a typical cycle.

I'll wager the bold statement that we have at least 5 years of reasonable appreciation. I'll even say that it could be a couple decades before another brutal, global 2008-like crisis. Now, that being said:

• I do think we'll have a small dip in the next 5 years, but not a "liquidation sale" type of dip. More of a stagnation. This has been common in the last few cycles.
• This is of course market-dependent, but I think overall most Metropolitan areas will weather fine. Hot hot markets are already correcting, but again, it's gradual, not this big crash everyone keeps talking about.
• Builders are behind, and as long as housing supply is low, houses will retain value inherently until we catch up. I suspect this supply problem is not going anywhere for a while, mostly due to government regulation making it harder and harder to get an affordable house up. 2008 had a glut of over-construction in most markets, and I'm not seeing that today. 

Why does this matter at all? Well, I know a lot of people (including myself) are being extra conservative in evaluating deals and waiting for the "clearance sale" in the meantime. Folks, you are missing out on free net worth growth by not getting in the above-average appreciation game. I always buy on fundamentals, but I'm okay with skinnier deals now because so far my portfolio's appreciation has kept sneaking up on me conveniently. 

Would you rather have 5% appreciation on a $200k house or an extra $200/mo on cash flow? $10k or $2400? Maintain cash reserves to weather you through the storm of increased vacancy, but I'm believing that the next downturn will be gentle compared to 2008. 

A few months ago I tried listing a rental on Zillow for the first time, and I must say I was amazed at the response.  It had been a while (years) since I previously had a vacancy, and the last time I had one I only used Craigslist and yard signs.  This time, I thought I'd give Zillow a try since Craigslist is so overrun with fake ads, spam from apartment complexes, and is just so user-unfriendly in general.

If you don't know, Zillow rental ads also post to their other platforms, including Trulia and HotPads.  Between all these sites, my ad had over 800 views, well over a hundred calls from interested applicants, dozens of people show up to view the home during just two showings, and resulted in six qualified applications for me to choose from.  Ultimately, it took me a total of just FOUR DAYS from the listing of the ad to the signing of the lease with a highly qualified tenant. 

I'd say that's worth $9.99 and would happily pay it if I had to (though they're still not charging in my market).  Not sure how else you'd get it rented that quick, or with that many applicants to choose from, using any other method. 

(As a side note, I track all of my responses and I had the same ad posted on Craigslist during the same period of time and I had a total of ONE response from that ad, and it was from an unqualified applicant.  Oh, and a scammer ended up hijacking one of my ads and re-posting it with their own phone number and a much lower rent amount.  Guess which site that happened on?  Hint: Craigslist.) 

Hi everyone, I am beginning to start investing in real estate. I've been doing my research, watching youtube video and looking on forum. Couple thing I've been trying to do is to find property to flip and possible look at houses to rent out. However, I am trying to figure out what is the benefit of renting a property out. I know that you can get cash flow, but in the end it seem to me that it can take upward of 10+ years until you are in the green to pay off your property. I will just like to get a general understanding and see what are the pros and cons. Thanks! I also live in philadelphia, what are some good places to look for?