All Forum Posts by: Patrick Buttermark

@Eric FrischMost people who sell “educational materials” be it real estate, stock investing, FX trading or whatever all to often make their money from selling these materials as opposed to doing what they teach.

More often than not they’re repackaging information you could easily find for free on the internet and selling it.

For investing: Stocks/bonds (retirement)  Also for the last few years I've done pretty well with P2P lending

For short term trading: futures and forex. Trading is NOT investing though and the tax man is well aware of the difference.

First thing you need to do is buy my seminar for $9,999- JUST KIDDING. Keep in mind most people that sell these seminars and “education” make their money from selling this stuff and not from investing in real estate or anything else for that matter. Usually they just consolidate and package information you could find on the internet for free. Keep working/ saving money, I like what people are saying on here about starting out by house hacking. That will make you a landlord the quickest. If you’re considering investing in a REIT, I would say don’t -unless your interested in researching REIT’s. They’re Real Estate but they trade and behave like a stock. You’ll be tempted by an unusually high dividend but an unusually high dividend is usually a sign of trouble. Also,the federal reserve is set for a few rate hikes this year, interest rates effect stock and real estate markets negatively. I have far more experience with stock/commodities/ FX and REITs than I do with individual investment property, trust me, there would be much to educate yourself about before even starting to research any potential REITs to invest in. As for the wholesaling thing, are you in an area that’s favorable for wholesaling? For example I live in one of the outer boroughs NYC and I can’t imagine wholesaling working here for various reasons. Be honest with yourself, what you’re goals are and what you’re doing/need to do to accomplish them. Remember success in any type of investing takes time. You’re not going to get rich overnight. Best of luck in your endeavors

I would say approach this no differently than you would in hiring  any other contractor. If he's done work for others and they're happy with his work-why not hire him?  When I was 17 -18 years old I used to work in a parking garage, my boss had one leg and he was able to drive a stick shift - NO I'm not kidding . When people have a disability they usually find ways to compensate for it, I'm sure people here have heard about blind folks who have a more developed sense of hearing etc. 

$12 an hour? I'm pretty sure that's less than one would make flipping hamburgers where I live. I strongly believe that you get what you pay for and would be more concerned about him being willing to work for $12 an hour , especially  the quality of work done for such  low compensation. As a tradesman myself with 20+ years of experience I wouldn't get out of bed for twice that amount.

Best of luck in your endeavors.

My thoughts  are that debt is the foundation of the financial system and B.S. (bull$#!t) is the bedrock upon which that foundation sits. I do question the sustainability of the current system over the long term but realize theres only so much I can do. 

Ive read for many years, different people predicting the next great depression, economic collapse etc. is coming and how people need to buy gold - then conveniently at the bottom of the page would be an ad for a place that I could use my soon to be worthless dollars to buy gold from them ( usually at about 30% above the spot price) Don't get me wrong, I like metals and certain hard assets provided I can buy them at what I see as a value ( which is  usually when the market views them as out of favor) As for real estate, I question the desire to own rental property of any type if you think something "at least as bad as the great depression" is coming. High unemployment would accompany a depression, people who are unemployed can't pay rent leaving you on the hook for mortgage, taxes,insurance etc. on your rental. The problem is exacerbated  if you're also unemployed.

As for cryptocurrencies,  I'm sure you heard this before -how do you measure their intrinsic value? Do they even really have any? I know that to mine a bitcoin a computer has to do so many calculations, yada, yada,yada and a bitcoin is created-oh and there can only be 21 million  of them. My question is how does that give it value? If I go and buy a discontinued type of paper and print a currency with a picture of my head on it and theres only enough of this paper to print fifteen million notes, does that give my currency any value? I know the blockchain technology has much potential (until someone figures a way to hack it) but the cryptocurrencies, in my own humble opinion, only have value because of the herd mentality. That doesn't mean  cryptocurrencies  won't gain legitimacy over time. Think about it-what gives the dollar or even gold any value? The same thing- its perceived as valuable by the human mind.

cheers

Hi Mary,

I haven't owned any investment property for quite some time now, so I'm far from an expert but what the agent is telling you as opposed to your own findings should have your internal BS detector on high.

In my opinion- If she can't provide any inspection paperwork,then it wasn't inspected.Even if it was, how long ago? If  not recently,  problems could have arisen since then and honestly how good was the inspector? You don't know, for all you know the inspector could've been the owner's cousin. 

Financials-If she can't prove it makes money then in my opinion it probably doesn't. Is it vacant or partially vacant? If its been on the market for over a year I think it's fair to say its definitely not a "no brainer" . If she's basically lying to you and telling you the owner's have had it for 10 years and you see they only had it for 3, well in your own words that's a red flag. I don't know you or your financial situation but (only if you can sustain the loss) you could always make them a low ball offer and see what they say, their probably desperate to get out. 

But please,please, don't get caught up in buying something just because it's cheap- if it's cheap, it's cheap for a reason.If the area is cheap,same thing. How are the schools? What kind of people live in this area? (i.e. professionals,skilled labor,unskilled workers etc.) Are there places nearby for your prospective tenants to work? Hows the crime rate?How's the transportation? Entertainment? Shopping? Look at the place you want to buy and compare it to other places in the same area for rent (your competition) and ask yourself  "would I live here? 

Also, how much does it rent for as opposed to buying a house in this area? A person with half a brain,good credit,employment etc. basically the kind of person you'd want for a tenant, I can't see why  that person would pay $1200 a month  rent for a house that they could buy $80,000.( I'm just using those numbers as an example of an area that in my opinion wouldn't  make sense to rent)

just my 2 cents-

This is actually my first post on BP. I've been following this thread as I myself have been interested in turnkey properties,mainly because  when I look at investment property where I live (NYC area) my real estate fever gets cured pretty fast. Here, if I were to buy a 2 family for $500,000 putting down 20% is $100,000 out of my pocket to maybe (IF and that's a big IF they paid me and nothing broke,clogged etc.) make a couple of hundred bucks a month ,whereas that same $100,000 in another market could get me into a few of houses,potentially making a few of hundred bucks on each one.

Now, I'm in no position to be giving advice seeing as the only property I own is what I live in and I haven't owned an investment property in over 10 years but I would say if you live in or near the area where you're considering buying turnkey and are relatively familiar with it thats a good start.  You're probably less likely to get stuck with a dud. There's an excellent list of questions someone posted above that I would ask any prospective turnkey provider. My own questions include ( as dumb as they may sound)

• If these companies are going to manage the property anyway,why do they sell it? Why not build a portfolio of properties for themselves instead of managing it for less money?

• Why do the people in these markets rent? When I look at the numbers in some of these markets, looking at things like median income,cost of the house and the amount of money these companies claim they can rent the house for- I can't for the life of me understand why someone with good credit would rent when it would be cheaper to pay a mortgage. ( not to mention the tax write-off) 

• Is it in an area where most of the residents work for the same company? You don't want to be in a situation where everyone works at the XYZ company factory and one day XYZ company decides to move their operations overseas leaving 60% of the town's population unemployed.

Read reviews. It's nice when someone writes a review about a company they're buying a house from and they mention how nice so and so was,how professional they were and how quick the deal went through. But what does that really tell you? If I was selling a junk property of course I'd be nice and want to get the deal done as soon as possible. As for reviews, I'd seek out people who have a few properties with a company and have had them a number of years and would buy more. Keep an open mind when reading reviews too. Is a overly negative review written by someone who didn't do their due diligence or bought property on a shoestring budget thinking they were going to get rich overnight?

Anyway, I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors