All Forum Posts by: Paul Novak

I feel it depends on your investing horizon but I don't mind the stock market as long as you don't plan on using the money right away.  I personally like index fund investing in funds like VOO.  I do like real estate but I am not sure $20K is enough to get started. 

For me I wouldn't use all that $300K to pay off your current property or for a down payment on your next property.  I do plan to pay off all of my rentals to increase cash flow but not until doing so would generate enough cash flow to hit my FI goal.  I personally would use some of that $300K for your next property but not all of it.  My goal is to generate a minimum of $500 per month cashflow to keep the business going through maintenance requests and vacancy without having to tap into my personal income.  Again that's just my advice, there isn't a right or a wrong answer, it depends on your future goals.  Also while there is no guarantee rents will continue to increase in the future I believe there is a good chance they will.  With that in mind your property that's not cash flow today has a chance to in the future without paying it off. 

Marcus I think this was a great post.  I have not subscribed to the stance of trying to get into a property with as little down as possible just to generate cashflow.  I have actually taking the unpopular stance of the exact opposite.  I have tried to focus on properties that are in good locations where I can attract good tenants and then adjusted what I put down to hit my cashflow goals.  Not adjusting for vacancy and maintenance my cashflow goal on a property is $500 per month at a minimum.  We have put down 20 - 40% on some properties to achieve this goal.  Like you said we have been saving upwards of 60% of our W2 income and business cashflow in order to do this.  

Welcome to BP Nish. The forums are a great way to connect and get answers to questions. I am an investor just about an hour north in Sheboygan. My wife and I get started in real estate 4 years ago. We are still relatively small with only 5 properties, 7 doors. Honestly I have loved it and we are working to continue to growing. While still small we have learned ALOT and would be willing to share all our information and answer any questions you may have. My wife and I come from a manufacturing leadership and project management background. We have worked hard to build up our systems to manage our business. We have created work instructions for every step of the process so we can maintain consistency in how we evaluate properties, communicate with tenants, market our properties, handle rent increases, manage property turnover, etc..... I would be happy to share with you as you look to get started. Obviously they are customized to what works for us but some our templates maybe helpful for you to modify for you. If you would like to connect just let me know. Good luck on getting started!

I agree with what some others have said, it depends on your goals.  My feedback based on what I would do is hold the house.  I am going to assuming it's a nice house if it was your primary residence and it's in a nice location.  If you can afford to buy another house and hold on to this one I would try and do it.  I am not a big fan of selling assets once I have worked to acquire them.  I don't know how long you have owned it but I am willing to bet if you have owned it for at least a few years you probably have a rate on that property that will be hard to get again.  You probably also purchased the house for much less then someone else would be able to buy it for now.  Those two factors work in you advantage allowing you to charge rents that let you cashflow when others trying to get in the market couldn't purchase a similar house and make the numbers work.  While no one can predict what the market will do in the future since I have started purchasing long term rentals rents have only gone up which has allowed my cashflow to continue to grow.  I am in Sheboygan.  I say if you can keep it, keep it.  3 bedroom 2 bathrooms houses are my favorite rentals.  They also normally attract really good tenants.  I use rentometer.com to do my analysis for setting rent prices.  There are many tools out there.  Below is the quick data I pulled.  

We use Nicholas Reach and he is based in Mequon. He is a bit old school but has always done a great job for us. He is really responsive and always willing to answer my questions throughout the year and I feel he is really affordable. We have been with him for 4 years and we are about the same size as you. We have 5 properties 7 doors. I received a recommendation to use him from two other investors that I know in Sheboygan so I know he knows real estate. You can google him and find his information. My tax preparation costs last year was $560 in total. That was for my personal return and the K1 preparation for my LLC. Even if you don't go with him I would recommend reaching out and seeing what you think.

Welcome to BP Chelsea.  The forums are a great way to connect  and get answers to questions.  I am an investor just about an hour north in Sheboygan.  My wife and I get started in real estate 4 years ago.  We are still relatively small with only 5 properties, 7 doors.  Honestly I have loved it and we are working to continue to growing.  While still small we have learned ALOT and would be willing to share all our information and answer any questions you may have.  My wife and I come from a manufacturing leadership and project management background.  We have worked hard to build up our systems to manage our business.  We have created work instructions for every step of the process so we can maintain consistency in how we evaluate properties, communicate with tenants, market our properties, handle rent increases, manage property turnover, etc.....  I would be happy to share with you as you look to get started.  Obviously they are customized to what works for us but some our templates maybe helpful for you to modify for you.  If you would like to connect just let me know.  Good luck on getting started!

Hey Zoe good to meet you.  I have been investing in real estate for a few years now and am focused in Sheboygan, about an hour north.  We aren't that big as we only have 5 properties/7 doors but it has been a great experience for us and we aren't looking back.  Since getting started we have learned a lot and have built quite a few systems and processes to increase efficiency and maintain consistency within our business.  While we aren't very big we still want to keep a professional feel with all of tenants.  Both my wife and my background is in manufacturing, specifically operations, customer service, and project/account management.  We have tried to take all the skills we have learned in our W2 carrier and apply them to our personal business.  I really love talking personal finance and real estate.  I have no issues sharing what we have learned up to this point and the work instructions / processes we have built.  If you ever have any specific questions about getting started or need to bounce some ideas off of a local investor let me know.  Good luck on getting started and welcome to BP!

Well I may not be the most seasoned in the world but my wife and I have established processes that work for us.  I am about an hour north in Sheboygan.  We have been at this for about 4 years have 5 properties and 7 doors and are also looking to keep growing.  Our focus has been on documenting our strategy, creating work instructions for all of our processes, holding true to our buy box, and not overleveraging ourselves.  I would be happy to setup sometime and talk strategy if you would like.  I am also more than happy to share any of the content/processes we have built. 

I'm going to exclude my personal residence from this because I don't view this as an investment, I need a place to live.

Excluding my primary residence my current breakdown is 47% real estate 53% stocks/cash.  Having said that my allocation is flipping quickly.  July of 2021 I was 100% stocks/cash and 0% real estate.  As times goes on I see my real estate growing much quicker than stocks as most of my current investing goes to real estate.