All Forum Posts by: Paul Moore

Hi @Juwan Parker! You made a comment above that you tend to be a jack-of-all-trades, master of none. My counsel to you after being an entrepreneur for 29 years is to become an absolute master of one thing. No matter how obscure it seems, if you become an expert your chances of succeeding go way up. 

That is if you are an active investor. Assuming you want to be active, I recommend being a specialist. Think about Michael Phelps--to win 28 gold medals, one would think he had to become an expert in shot put, long jump, high jump, hurdles, javelin, etc. But he didn't. He stayed in the pool and won 23 gold medals, 28 total medals in 5 Olympiads. I believe he would never have heard of Michael Phelps if he was a jack-of-all-trades. That is my first piece of advice. 

My second piece of advice is this. I recommend you consider getting into commercial real estate. I think commercial real estate over the long haul will provide better returns and a better lifestyle for most investors. I wish you the best of luck! 

Hi @Vivan Bhalla! If you have a life, and/or a family, and/or a career, I highly recommend you invest passively. After talking to thousands of investors, I can honestly say it is very hard to multitask and make a great profit. 

One great resource for investing is @Jim Pfeifer's Left Field Investors. This community has a lot of folks who are in the same boat. as well. Good luck and happy investing! 

Hi @Larry W mullen! Bias alert: I am in my third decade as full time investor and I am extremely biased towards real estate, so take that into account as I reply. 

I would highly recommend that you consider rolling over your 401k to a self-directed 401k. You can do that with @Dmitriy Fomichenko who is a world-class expert in this arena. Dmitriy will not only give you advice on rolling the 401k into a self-directed plan, but he will also provide advice on how he personally invests and connect you to other important resources. Of course, I would only recommend a self-directed IRA if you feel you have the discipline and knowledge to invest in real estate. Or, you could do what I do and invest passively in other operators' deals. Good luck and happy investing!

Hi @Katelyn Andrews! BiggerPockets published a book on self-storage investing late last year. Here is the link: Storing Up Profits. 

I would also recommend connecting with Scott Meyers at https://selfstorageinvesting.c..., I learned the business from him and my firm now passively invests in thousands of self-storage units. Good luck and happy investing!

My advice to anyone wanting to get in the syndication business is to start by listening to the BiggerPockets podcast and listening to @Whitney Sewell's Real Estate Syndication Show. I would also join @Jim Pfeifer's community Left Field Investors as well. And then I would read @Brian Burke's wonderful book The Hands-Off Investor. This would give an idea of what you need to think about and be prepared for. Good luck!

Hi @Brandon Craig! You got some wonderful input above. @Taylor L. was very helpful and possibly saved you from making a mistake. 

I completely agree that you need to put your focus on the sponsor...track record, team, technology, property management, acquisition management, debt structure, etc, and especially skin in the game. 

I would recommend that you get @Brian Burke's excellent book The Hands-Off Investor, before you look at any more deals. I would also recommend you join @Jim Pfeifer's excellent community Left Field Investors as well. They have a great community to help investors connect with investments. Good luck!

Hi @Wences Lopez You have gotten some great answers above. One way to become accredited would be to earn a Series 65 license. Here is a link that explains more: https://www.sec.gov/corpfin/amendments-accredited-investor-definition-secg. Earning a Series 65 license would allow you to work with firms that require accreditation, opening more options for you within syndications.

I highly recommend joining @Jim Pfeifer's Left Field Investors as well. This is a powerful community to help passive investors locate the right investments. Good luck! 

Hi @Victor Olvera! Welcome to the world of real estate investing. I think you are off to a great start by reading up on real estate and looking for a mentor. I would also suggest reading @Brian Burke's book The Hands-Off Investor. This is a great tool when starting out and can offer some really helpful advice. I would start thinking about types of investments you want to start with--active investing v. passive investing. Once you narrow that down, then I would look for a mentor who will understand what you want to do and then you can work together on how to get there. Good luck to you!

Hi @Trevor J Dammon! You got some great feedback above. This is a really great question and one I had not thought of before. I agree with most of the feedback you got above. You have had a month or two to think about this--what have you concluded? 

Hi @Greg Lyons! First of all congratulations on your move as well as your success so far! 

It has been a while since you made this post. Have you made a decision yet? 

I would keep this principle in mind: Professional investors demand a risk premium...a higher ROI...for taking more risk. In other words, they demand a significantly higher return for investing in a riskier deal. And they can live with a lower return for a lower risk deal.

Time is the basic unit of your life. Money is just tokenized time. If a lot of your time is involved in your investment, you should demand a much higher ROI. A risk premium so to speak for your time. Or a time premium. So if you can get 12% from a completely trustworthy syndicator, great. But to compare that to 12% for an actively managed investment seems wrong to me. And I have done both types for over 20 years! If I had to actively manage a property, I would want to get at least to 50-100% higher return--seriously! Because when my time is involved it's cutting into my life, my family, my day job if I had one, my health and my freedom. And with actively managed properties you are often dealing with other financial risks like vacancy, huge unexpected repair bills, etc. Of course, those items can happen in a passive investment, but at least they are handled by a professional and you don't have to worry about toilets, tenants and trash in the middle of the night. Feel free to reach out to me if you want to discuss this further! Good luck!