All Forum Posts by: Konstantin Ginzburg

I think this forum is a great place to meet like minded individuals online that can eventually lead to a mastermind. With that being said, I think there are far more benefits to networking in person instead of online. If you go to in-person meetups in your local region, you not only meet like minded investors to bounce ideas off of but also meet local realtors, lenders, insurers, and contractors that you can use to grow your real estate team that will be able to take you much further if your goal is to continue to expand your real estate portfolio within your region. 

I think if you are fully committed to using the BRRRR strategy to recoup all your capital out of the deal, you will likely need to be patient and continue to look for the right deal. Not every deal is well positioned for a BRRRR to work. In fact, those deals are increasingly hard to find due to fierce competition in the market. You may need to continue to look and sort through 100s of deals before finding the one that will meet your BRRRR requirements.

I think it will depend on what your immediate needs are. If you need immediate liquid cash, then selling might be the best way to go. But if you are still financially secure and don't need the cash right away then I would hold onto those properties for the long haul. As far as time commitment: one way you can free up your time while still retaining the property is to find a quality property manager that can take over the day to day operations of the property which can allow you to continue to collect rental payments while still freeing up the majority of your time to give to your family needs. There are property management teams that do both long and short term management. Look around your area and see if you find one you feel comfortable turning your property over to. 

Hard to answer that. If the total net worth is more than I would ever actually need and the dividend payments from that are enough to meet all my needs and wants, then I might lean towards that since its more passive. If I am trying to grow my net worth or still trying to scale my cash flow to achieve financial independence, then I'll go with real estate. 

Quote from @Nat Love:

Quote from @Joshua Filkill:

@Nat Love You could and avoid paying PMI, but at the cost of a way larger down payment. The idea is that you can use that extra money as reserves or find another property to invest in. You could even put it in an index fund and let it grow overtime instead of having it tied up in the property.

Thing is, 1. That 20% down is about 1/3 of the total equity I have in my primary. 2. There area I'm looking to buy is too competitive for FHA offers, sellers will only take at least 20% down. Any thoughts?

2. There area I’m looking to buy is too competitive for FHA offers, sellers will only take at least 20% down. Any thoughts?

I think it may be important to understand why FHA offers tend to be turned down. If someone sells their home, they are getting the price that was agreed on the purchase. It doesn't generally affect them if 3.5% of that revenue is coming from the buyer or 20% of the revenue is coming from the buyer since the remaining percentage is going to be made up by the lender anyway. The largest reason that FHA offers are turned down is because of the process that comes along with getting an FHA loan approved. The house will require inspections and will need to meet certain FHA guidelines in order for the lending to get approved. If these inspection requirements are not met, the funding will not be approved or the seller will need to spend additional capital in order to get the building up to FHA code. From personal experience, I have had FHA lending fall through because one requirement is for the building to have central AC but the property I was trying to purchase had window units. This represents the risk of lost revenue and time for the seller if they enter into an FHA loan agreement with the buyer. A cash buyer is able to bypass this since they can accept properties in "as is" condition and are not tied to lender requirements. This represents a lower risk of the funding falling through and a quicker time to close for the seller which are both seen as positives from their point of view. If a seller is given the option between an FHA offer and an all-cash offer; the all-cash offer represents the same revenue upside but with lower risk of the deal falling through so one option you can try is offering a higher price for the property with the FHA loan in order to counter the increased risk to the seller with increased revenue potential. 

I work a full time W-2 job while building a rental portfolio that can eventually replace my W-2 salary. I've also sold collectible on ebay, did photography tours for tourists in my city, booked travel for clients as a travel agent, published a real estate book on amazon KDP, sold landscape photographs at galleries, and a few other odd-jobs here and there. I would like to get into the mortgage broker business in the next few years as well to further transition full time into real estate. 

I have to agree with what the previous posters have said. A condo can work as an investment but there are quite a few drawbacks to that strategy. HOA fees will likely continue to increase so that will limit your future net income. HOAs can also implement any rules they want which may limit your options in the future if they decide they decide to ban short term rentals or rentals all together. I am not saying there is a definite chance of this happening but you are leaving a portion of your revenue generating options in the hands of an HOA with a condo. A house may cost a bit more upfront but I think it has more future upside. Perhaps try to look into small multi-family houses in that area instead?

I don't think that STRs or MTRs are going by the way side. I think that those markets simply became very saturated so the revenue coming in for newer investors trying to replicate that model has decreased since they have not yet established themselves in that market. There is still a market need for both of those real estate strategies but there will now be competition for those tenants and guests. Some investors will continue to earn a healthy return on their investments while other will not be able to survive. It's unfortunate but that is part of the territory with every business market. Some businesses make it, others don't. The same problems will also occur in the long term rental market if an over supply of rentals saturates that market in the future. I think the best strategy is to keep an eye on the market and shift strategies as needed rather on being fixated on just one strategy within real estate. 

Quote from @Christopher Mooney:

I am, sort of. But it fits my longer term goals. I want to use real estate to achieve financial freedom, and then use that freedom to travel a ton and pursue other wealth generating ventures, which I’d probably use to buy more real estate lol. 

A lot of people are big into efficient use of equity and portfolio optimization. But I just want to have cash flow forever to travel the world forever while I build some sort of travel business for people who love real estate (no idea what that really means, just want to hang with people who love travel and real estate). 

Fun post here!

 That sounds exactly like my plan. As much as I'd like to grow my real estate portfolio infinitely, in reality, I would be completely happy just growing the portfolio large enough so that the cash flow will allow me to meet my monthly bills and travel as often as I would like. I've been traveling within the US for the last 15 years and am finally going international starting this year. My favorite type of travel is adventure based travel that involves hiking in incredible scenery so I am hoping to achieve my goal before I'm 40 so I still have the youth and energy needed to go on extended hiking trips. One thing I have done to try to put me closer to that goal is starting a travel agency. In full disclosure, the travel agency is part of a multi-level marketing establishment so I am making some money in it but it's simply supplemental income that I use as play money as opposed to anything that I think will be replacing my W2 income anytime in the immediate future but it has let me connect with travelers and agents that I could use for my own travel. I am also using it as a tool to practice and improve my salesmanship. Good luck to both of us, hopefully we each attain our goals of traveling sooner rather than later. Feel free to connect, travel and real estate are absolutely two of my passions. 

There isn't really a right or wrong answer in this scenario. It will really come down to the property you find and what your goals are as an investor. If you want something that will lead to immediate cash flow on day 1, then buying a property with tenants will mean that you will getting an immediate return on your investment the day of purchase. In this case, more of your equity will be tied into the property but your cashflow will be more predictable and immediate since there is a lease you are inheriting with the building. Using BRRRR would allow you pull equity out of the property that you could in theory use to put into another property once you complete the refinance portion of the process. Just keep in mind, not every real estate deal with be conducive to the BRRRR so this strategy relies a lot more on due diligence and running the numbers correctly to ensure that once you do refinance, you not only pull equity out but can still retain a cash flowing property.