All Forum Posts by: Patrick Buttermark

Congratulations on your deal, may it be the first of many profitable ones. I love the story too,very inspiring. I just want to put my 2 cents in about the "hoarder filled basement" you mentioned. If it's reasonable for you to do so, take some time and look through the junk, you never know what might be in there that might be worth something. An old baseball card, painting or other collectible can bring some money. Tools and equipment are usually easy sells,quantities of brass or copper can be sold for scrap by the pound. Years ago I bought a house that had  some "junk" in it, long story short, some of the "junk" I sold for $2600. I know that isn't exactly a fortune, but it's better in my pocket than in the garbage.

@Aaron Montague I threw like $1000 bucks in there a few years ago just to test the water so to speak. I always forget about it until I get an email or tax form from them. I know there’s over $1300 now. I gotta down load my tax forms from them and go over it. Just my 2cents

@Robert Fornwalt they have a Facebook group you can join too, people ask questions there all the time.

@James Carollo A topic close to my heart as a tradesman myself, not in the building trades though but as a Diesel mechanic for the last 15 years and an automotive technician for 8 before that.

I don’t necessarily believe it’s about younger people thinking these jobs are “below” them. The amount of people that apply for NYC garbage man tells me young people will take a not so prestigious job if it has something to offer in the long run.

It’s about quality of life.

If one aspires to live an impoverished lifestyle they need not learn a skill to do so.

From what I’ve seen the majority of employers in these trades, with the exception of civil service and some unionized jobs, do not have anything to offer except low pay,unsteady work,lack of benefits,advancement or vacation etc. In addition to that many places have a lack of basic respect for

their employees. One really can’t blame a young person for opting for a different career path.

You’re not alone, I’ve talked to many people that share your concerns- Investors, contractors, business people etc.

Thats just my 2cents

I wish you all the best in your endeavors

@Anthony Madia I’m from Staten Island but my exposure to real estate is through REITs. All the NY investors are probably too busy fighting to evict deadbeat tenants who have more rights than the landlord😜 or perhaps they’re busy fighting the city over something that wouldn’t even be an issue in most other places. If/when I buy another physical property (other than the one I live in) it would NOT be in NY.

I like to nose around on BiggerPockets because its one of the few forums I’ve seen where people actually know what they’re talking about- there’s always something to learn on here.

@Ralph Stowe if that was in NYC you’d be fighting people to get that for that price 🤣

 You need to:

 A) Know thyself 

B) Develop an understanding of what REIT's are and factors that effect their pricing

 C) Develop an understanding of where you're going to invest if you buy physical property

For this comment Ill be talking about publicly traded REIT's as they're available to everyone through a brokerage account. Private REIT's are another topic. 

Investing in REIT's is more like stock investing, you analyze them like a stock because they are stocks. Like any investment you have red flags to stay away from, one problem with stocks is the red flags seem very attractive to the uninformed- like a low share price and a high dividend (stay far away from that) Do you have an interest in stock analysis or following the markets? Will you loose sleep if the market overreacts to a .25 basis point move by the federal reserve? The market loves to overreact to things ( especially nonsense ) that will not effect the fundamental value of your investment but cause the share price to drop-how will your personality handle that? Will you buy more seeing share prices on "sale"? Will you panic,sell and loose money ?

 As for physical property, if you live in or near an area that's reasonably affordable,has a good economy (for example if 80% of the town works for one employer you might want to stay away from there) and has fair laws pertaining to landlord/tenant issues I would look into actual property. You need to know yourself though. How will you handle evicting someone? Can you handle any repairs? If you have to pay someone to fix even the smallest things that'll add up and cut into your profits. How will you handle a 3 am call that the toilet is overflowing ?(and of course it will have been used before it overflows) 

 My exposure to investment property is through REIT's only because I live in one of the outer boroughs of NYC and I see no point in spending a ridiculously high amount of money for a building that's going  to produce a ridiculously low cash flow (that's IF everyone paid and IF nothing broke- big IF's)  add to that gross over regulation along with moronic laws that give all the power to the tenant  and I can't see a reason for me, if I want to be able to sleep at night and have peace of mind, to own physical property. If I lived somewhere else I would own physical property without a doubt. 

My exposure to investment real estate is through REIT's (both public and private) because I live in the NYC area and don't want to spend a gazillion dollars on a building that's going to at best, produce paltry cash flow nor do I want to deal with laws that are far too in favor of the tenant. If I lived somewhere else I would own physical property. I've been an active in the stock and futures (commodities) for many years and what I learned there helped a lot in analyzing /picking REIT's.

Public REIT's trade on the stock exchange, they're basically the stock of a company that is a landlord or holds mortgages. You buy/sell them through your stockbrokerage account. While private REIT's have income requirements to get in and will have liquidity issues if you need to get out quick, you'll have none of those issues with publicly traded REIT's. Anyone can buy and you get out just like selling a stock-with the click of a mouse. Please realize that these things have to be analyzed like a stock. If you just go and buy the cheapest one ( on a dollars per share basis) with the highest dividend I promise you YOU WILL LOOSE MONEY. If you don't want to learn stock analysis you could buy a REIT ETF that owns a basket of them. As with any investment, good investing is boring and produces the best results over time.

Robinhood doesn't offer automatic dividend reinvestment so for the long term I wouldn't use them,I believe firsttrade is a free broker like robinhood but they offer automatic dividend reinvestment. REITs offer higher dividends than stocks (usually) but if a dividend is high (say 10%) that's usually a red flag. REIT's are basically stocks so if you're going to buy them you'd want to buy one when it's undervalued. It's like analyzing a stock but they use different metrics like funds from operation (FFO) and adjusted funds from operation (AFFO)

Different REIT's invest in different areas of real estate, some do mortgages, some do retail shopping centers,malls,warehouses,offices,residential,storage-many different areas. One needs to understand the outlook for the sector they're investing in for example as of this writing malls aren't doing so hot (they're getting killed by online sellers- think Amazon) There's quite a bit to know, more than I can write here . Hope this little bit of info helps.

My exposure to real estate is through REIT's because I live in the NYC area and I don't like the idea of spending a gazillion dollars for a building with paltry cash flow and laws that are waaay too in favor of the tenant.

@Jeremy Willis Most likely they’re repackaging information you can get for free on the internet, from books or here on BP. These people usually make their money selling “education” or whatever they want to call it and not from real estate.