All Forum Posts by: Ryan Billingsley

We just got back from a 3 week trip to Europe and one of the cities we visited was Dubrovnik Croatia.  Beautiful city full of history, great food, and wonderful people.  We rented an apartment on the hillside overlooking the old town.  The owner was one of the highlights of staying at this particular apartment.  He is a retired engineer who now lives off his vaca rental plus retirement savings.  He owns his unit outright and rents it for 80 Euros per night.  It is almost completely booked through winter so it is a steady income for him.

He treated us like family during our stay and also with a dental emergency by getting us an appointment with the best dentist in Dubrovnik on their day off!  

In his apartment he provided his home made family brandy which was delicious!  

His life consist of catering to his guest, walking to the old town daily to visit friends and family, and enjoying the simple pleasures of life.  This man lives in a magical place and loves what he does.

View of old town from our balcony at night time.

Walking on the ancient walls of Dubrovnik  

@Marci H.

Welcome to BP from a fellow St Louisan.  This site is great!  Definitely listen to the podcasts.  They give real life examples of success in real estate investing.  

The first step is taking action to learn and network!

@John Upperman Awesome job!  The rehab looks great!  I love the changes you made to the exterrior!

@Brandi Carballo I would assume it was not an easy item to steal.  How much did the tree weigh with the ball?  People are strange!   

@Tracy Sharpe Thank you for sharing your story.  Patience and persistence pays off!  It is a roller coaster ride but it will pay off in the long run.

@Mana Silva Is your 700 cash flow net after accounting for taxes, insurance, vacancy, maintenance/capex, and property maintenance?  This would clarify your situation to better assist you with advice.

Financial Intelligence is gained from learning.  Could be learned from your environment (family, friends, etc) or from taking the initiative to improve yourself.  Unfortunately most people go through life with the work for money mindset and think that is the only way and some of these people might thrive as investors.  

I know many people, like me, who spent the first 20+ years with no idea what I wanted to do with my life because I was only looking at the people around me as examples to help figure out what I wanted to be or do.  These people all worked for money.  I was not happy with that path.

Once I realized that its not about your savings but about your net worth my mind was blown. 

 Investing in assets is a learned technique that anyone can do.  Working for money can make you rich, investing in assets can make you wealthy.

@Account Closed

The best person to ask is to call the 401k customer service line.  They were able to answer all our concerns and questions.

@Account Closed 

I am not a expert and I dont play one on the internet.

 But you are able to borrow up to 50% of your 401k to use as you wish.  If 50% of the 401k account in question would cover all four properties downpayment then I think it would work fine.  We borrowed from ours and used it to purchase a property cash.  We then used delayed financing to take the cash back out and pay off the loan.  Now we own the property will hardly any cash in the deal.

We were able to borrow up to 50% of our 401k for up to 5 years.  The repayment was setup to be automatically taken out of our paycheck.  

@Justin Donaldson Welcome to Bigger Pockets!

It really comes down to finding your WHY.  This will help guide you to the best strategy to reach your goals.  

What motivates you to get involved in REI? Finding your why will propel you to take action and move forward.