All Forum Posts by: Nancy Roth

Hi, Luis and Callum, thanks for your replies.

Luis, you are right, I should have told you more about myself. I am a newly licensed realtor (~8 months). I am not active in the retail real estate market, but the realtor license has delivered some helpful tools and education, and for some reason it adds to my credibility! I probably won't keep the license indefinitely, though.

I just bought my first investment property at end-October via my new self-directed IRA. That property, which is under the care of a savvy manager, is just about ready to rent (needs a lead inspection), and when I start getting cash flow (I expect roughly $700/month into the IRA) I'll start looking for another opportunity. I made some mistakes in buying that property--not serious, life-altering mistakes, but they did help me learn some "what not to do the next time" lessons. I think of it as paying tuition!

I have access to a lender who will finance an acquisition using the property as collateral. I could also partner with other IRA investors, though I'm still learning about the ins-and-outs of these arrangements. I don't know how to talk about risk tolerance. If an opportunity makes sense I'll pursue it.

My plan has been to buy a two-to-four unit building that is already tenanted, following the 50% rule, and hiring a reliable property manager. At this time I do not want to manage major rehabs. That may come later, this year or next, as I educate myself and extend my network.

Callum, those sound like great situations, and I can only hope I'll stumble across something like them in the next deal. I know the network is key in identifying them. I'm new enough to this so that I'm not yet comfortable buying in areas outside a 100-mile radius of my license area (Washington, DC). My circle of colleagues at this point is heavily focused on this area.

That $20-30K, believe it or not, goes pretty far in some markets in the DC-MD-Virginia region. I bought my SFR in Baltimore for $23K, for example, and have invested another $3-4K in repairs. I expect it to bring in $850 in monthly rent, of which $150 will go to manager and taxes/expenses. It will pay itself back in 3-4 years.

So I've reached out to more-experienced investors in the BP community because I've been so single-mindedly studying buy-and-hold, I'm a little concerned that I might miss other kinds of opportunities.

If you had $20-30K to invest in a real-estate related venture in 2013, where would you put it if your goal is to create reliable, ongoing cash flow in the near term?

In answer to the question about whether an "investor boom" is occurring, my understanding is that a deluge of "unhappy cash" has entered the real estate market from people frustrated at the low interest rates of more traditional investment vehicles, like long-term CDs. Some also see the stock market as uncertain. So that cash (often from self-directed IRAs) has flowed either into direct property purchases, or into hard-money loans to investors. I recall reading that an unprecedented volume of real estate purchases were made with cash in 2012. A cash buy of real estate was virtually unheard of a couple of decades ago. When interest rates return to normal levels I'd bet you'll see less cash in the market.

Bandit signs are all over the place in Baltimore, often on the boards covering the doors and windows of the city's vast inventory of vacant houses. In Baltimore there are whole blocks of boarded-up rowhouses. An agent I worked with in buying an investment property there said the signs are legal if posted on private property. I imagine the sign posters rent the space from the property owners.

In Washington DC, which has much tighter restrictions on signage, one strategy is to post a sign late Friday afternoon, when the ticket-writers go off duty, and take it down after dark on Sunday.

I just logged in to ask the very same question about the coming "cataclysm" that will change real estate investing as we know it {paraphrase of Preston Ely's ad for it].

I am signed up to watch the webinar this evening (Sunday) but, having read Preston's mean-toned, bragging book, I'll be taking his claims with a rather large salt mine.

It surprises me not at all that he is selling, not telling, something.

I'll also check those posts that Joshua kindly posted.

To update the group, I wanted to mention that I have recently identified someone with whom I'm hoping to form a mentoring relationship.

I think he meets many of the criteria laid out in the discussion we have had. He rarely mentors and he's clearly not pushing a program. He has been very successful as a real estate wholesaler/rehabber/investor and heads an REI group, which is how I met him. After hearing him deliver a presentation about negotiation skills I asked him to recommend someone who would help me improve my own skills (and unlearn some self-defeating mental habits that made negotiating difficult for me)--and to my surprise he said he would consider working with me himself.

I do have to pay him something, on the order of $1500 for a year of guidance, which is modest compared to the fees of many other so-called RE mentors. He does not need it as a key revenue source. I think he just wants his students to have some skin in the game. He also has no interest in taking a cut of any deals I bring in.

So we have discussed this in detail, and now have to work out the expectations on both sides of the relationship, and I hope we can come to an agreement. Will let everyone know if it works out; I'm not taking anything for granted.

Again, I'd like to express my appreciation for the comments from this forum, which gave me a measuring stick by which to judge the merits of the mentoring opportunities I'd encountered. I've come a long way since my opening post, when I was considering signing up for a very expensive mentoring program, which, in addition to the upfront fee ($4-14K), would have cost me 50% of the first $100K I earned during my work with him. I feel like I dodged a bullet in large part because of the cautions this forum delivered. My humble thanks to all.

Hi, Robert, I've only stumbled on your post today. Last month I set up a self-directed IRA at MidAtlantic that I have used to fund my first direct real estate investment. I became aware of them by way of Scott Blair as well. I have been impressed at the prompt, direct and knowledgeable team members. Scott and the team CPA, whose last name is Kiley, I believe, both spent a lot of time with me on the phone answering all my questions. The CPA was also willing to do a three way conversation with my tax adviser, who, like many others, is not familiar with direct real estate investment and with SD-IRAs.

I chose MidAtlantic over Equity, which I believe is the biggest SD IRA custodian, because the person I talked to did not seem to understand the questions I was asking, let alone answer them satisfactorily. My sense was that MidAtlantic was particularly focused on real estate investment, whereas Equity pitches to a much broader band.

Bear in mind that my relationship with MidAtlantic has been relatively brief, but so far I have been very pleased.

Just so you know, I'm taking your advice very seriously, and looking around for alternative--and not such ridiculously expensive--sources of education and skill-building--and I think I might have found one. I'll let you know what happens.

Thanks again to everyone for contributing to this interesting conversation.

Thanks for your additional comments, and the conversation among you has been priceless.

James, to keep my last contribution short I didn't describe my networking in the DC-Baltimore REI community. I started attending REI meetings about a year ago, and I've met and followed up with many people. I'm building a growing network of contacts, and I'm often surprised at how generously and promptly people generally respond to my questions.

I am no shrinking violet! I've been a quick study and a self starter my whole life and I like meeting people and learning new things. Before I came into this trade I was a science writer and journalist, and communication comes easily to me. But journalism proved to be a shrinking career, and I needed to keep growing.

As a realtor I'm still a rookie, having gained my license last spring. Few in the mainstream realtor world have a clue about what I want to do, so with some rare exceptions I shun that community. It depresses me. I've also been reading a lot of books in hopes of finding one that isn't full of baloney and braggadocio. Haven't seen any so far.

I also just settled on my first investment house, like, last week. Yes, I am learning a lot from that experience and look forward to turning it into an income producer that will feed my IRA.

Here is my (respectfully submitted) challenge to all the participants in this thread. If you have ever heard of a mentoring or coaching program that you have had reason to believe was worthwhile, would you be willing to name it on this forum? I would love to know of an alternative to what I'm contemplating. If you like, reach out to me privately at my Cloud email address: [Removed for Member Security]

Thank you, thank you, thank you for all your time and thought in this discussion.

Actually, I think the anti-mentoring sentiment is characteristic of this particular forum. The forum on "gurus" has quite a more positive tone.

J Scott, do you have a mentoring program, as Michael Quarles suggests? If you do have one, can you tell us more about what you do with it? Who are your students? What do you teach? Etc.