All Forum Posts by: Paul Hitchings

Hello BP family. Let's get right to it. I've always been an ambitious go getter since I was a kid. Never followed the pack always stood alone and wanted more than the average. I grew up in a low income area, but always ventures out to discover more. It expanded my mind at a young age and instilled the mentality of, "if they can get it, I can too". I had no one to share my goals and visions with because they were stuck in the "poor, only rich people can have these things or do this and that mindset". It never discouraged me. As I get older I want more and my goals grow. I started running a clothing brand and learned a lot from my venture. I learned marketing, customer service, social media marketing and a lot more. I recently put it on hold because it was growing and I needed more capital to continue to expand. I've always wanted to become a REI and always thought that I need a lot of money to do so until I started researching and it just went on from there. Reading books, listening to podcasts, going to events, etc. I'm a GO-GETTER, my mentality is, I come from nothing, so I have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

A few of my short and long term goals are(no particular order):
-invest full time
-have an expansive rental portfolio
-run a successful investing company, closing at least one deal per week
-speak to people about wealth(motivational speaker
-continue growing my clothing brand
-develop an island in Fiji
-write a book
-open a Rec center in my old neighborhood that teach the kids different things besides gangs, violence, and drugs
-own part of an NBA team

Most people will tell me that I want to do too much, but I have it planned out with a timeline of when I want to achieve these things. There will always be alterations to your goals, I don't expect it to go as planned. I am working hard on achieving one goal at a time and I WILL MAKE IT HAPPEN.

This is just me venting, sometimes you need the encouragement from others, whether that be someone telling you to go for it or the person that isn't as ambitious and say "you can't do it all". I am very appreciative of everyone's POV.

Thank you and sorry if the post is too long.

I absolutely understand where you are coming from. My husband has an excellent W-2 job and works long hours. I run an Ebay/Amazon business, homeschool our 3 kids and manage our 10 doors (multi-units). We are beginning our first BRRR property and I am on my own to make the decisions. My amazing husband fully trusts me to do this, but there is a definite cost to our children. It would be far easier if he handled the rentals, but his job provides vital income and he loves it. Our strategy is to flex our plans according to the needs of the kids. Right now I should be ripping out moldy walls in our BRRRR 4-plex, but my son made the Little League All Stars Team so it will have to wait. To make this work we are using cash for purchases and repairs. We are also fully renovating each property to minimalize repair needs over the next 15 years. Time is a most precious commodity and we are prepared to sacrifice some income/wealth building opportunities for the needs of our children. Best of luck to you striking a balance. I suggest reading Christy Wright's Book "Business Boutique." She also has an excellent podcast and is a champion of time management. As a mother and business owner she is a great source for good advice.

@Krista Dodson We charge $25 per applicant.  It is a way to weed out the dreamers.  If someone is qualified to rent the apartment and really wants to live there they will pay the $40.

Our rental unit (5/3 SFH) has typically been a group home with 4 unrelated adults. I have never run background checks or credit checks on tenants, and the only screening I've done in the past was verifying employment and calling previous landlords (unless it's their parents). This summer, our entire house is turning over, and we've decided to start running background and credit checks. We started using Cozy to manage leases and applications, and it has a built in credit check and background check that will charge the applicants $40 to run. I love the idea, and have used it on a sublease tenant before. But I'm getting lots of questions about it, because the potential tenants assume that it's $40 per group, not $40 per individual. Once they realize that it's $40 per individual, they're not completing the application process.

I love having the security of the process, but is it worth it? What do most people charge for application fees??

@Paul Hitchings Hey Paul, how does one go about finding addresses/contract details of the owners?