All Forum Posts by: Brant Richardson

@Joe Villeneuve  Maybe I could understand this if you walked us through your typical deal from purchase through selling and moving the money into two or more new properties.  You hint at not having money in it and that paying the bank interest subtracts from cash flow.  What is your strategy? 

I don't understand why "moving the money through the properties" by selling is any better or faster than refinancing and using the money from that for CAPEX and the down payment on a second property.

Brick house, metal roof, tile floor.  That ought to be worth keeping longer than a few years.

Hi Rigoberto

Glad you have decided to make a change for the better.  Your first step, listening to something educational instead of sports or music was a good call, make that a habit.

Laser focus on that credit card debt.  Your very first step is to apply for another credit card that will give you 0% interest on balance transfers for the first year.  Transfer that 24% to 0% and work your tail off to pay it down.

Cut any recurring monthly charge you can, they are deadly because you forget about them and they never stop.  Get rid of that monthly Netflix charge for instance, watch financial education videos on Youtube for free instead.

Get a journal and write down every dime you spend each day.  Believe me, it is eye opening the amount of money we spend on unnecessary stuff.  This is a really powerful habit, it makes you stop and think about whether you really want to buy the junk before you spend the money because you know you will have to shamefully write it down later.

As for full disclosure... cough it up, How much do you owe?  When you post your progress in a few months we want to see that number decreased.

Definitely speed up the saving part!  You can't go wrong with that, whether there is a recession or not.  It's never too soon to start getting to know your market either.  

W2, rental units, dividends.  Every time I research to find a new passive income stream I end up reading about starting a blog or youtube channel with advertisements, selling a course or a book and affiliate marketing websites, its like a broken record and I can't get excited about any of them.  I'd love to find something like real estate that would allow me to buy little units of passive income that could be added to over time.  

No, there is not a stock investing forum on bigger pockets.  It is for people interested in real estate investing, not a way to sell your newsletter.  I read this post yesterday when you had your link on it and saw that your post was immediately removed as well.  

Selling a house, then finding and buying two more good deals is a lot of time and work compared to refinancing a property then finding/buying one more good deal. If you are buying freshly rehabbed properties that are not going to need work for the next 10 years then presumably you are paying close to market value, so you are paying for the CAPEX up front. Yeah you get that CAPEX financed but the same is true if you refinance a property and use that money for CAPEX.

Unless the neighborhood is declining or you plan to change your strategy to multifamily I would not sell. You lose capital gains, you lose agent fees. If your SFH's still fit your parameters you can just refinance them and access the equity for CAPEX or further acquisitions. Fix and sell is more of a flippers mentality, which is okay too if you have access to more deals to put that money into.

That's a lot of good information to get the picture of where you stand.  I was confused and thought you were talking about 100k profit on the sale 2 years from now.

You are right, you would only pay taxes on a profit from the sale of your property. If you moved in June 1 2016, lived there continuously for 2 years 11 months, then you would need to sell by July 1 2022 for the tax break.  If you don't have a big profit then you don't need to worry about the tax implications.  Good call sticking it out and not selling it for a loss.  Doing your own taxes gets more difficult with paying state tax in multiple states but its doable.

Investing locally is a great plan in Florida.  Lots of opportunity for cash flow there. $360/mo is nice but you should be able to do better in Florida, especially if you are doing the management yourself.

Learning ADH, FFA, land lording law is not that difficult.  Don't discriminate against people's age, race, sex, disability.  

Working with contractors - I prefer to be good at doing my own work.  The same things go wrong with rental houses that go wrong with your personal residence.  Your last home was new and probably had no problems.  If you can handle taking care of an older home you live in then you can take care of a rental.  The difference is if you buy a distressed property with the plan to rehab it.  Then you will likely need to work with a contractor, get recommendations.  This is one of the benefits of networking with other investors, you can ask who they have used.  

Your emergency fund will need to be a little bigger to cover the mortgage during a vacancy or major problems like a new roof.  

Your long term strategy sounds good to me.  A duplex might be a good way to start, with you living on one side and renting the other, on up to a 4 plex.  I couldn't give you any advice on commercial but I would wait to move in that direction later unless you find an experienced partner.

Check out the podcasts on Bigger Pockets, they are excellent.