All Forum Posts by: Ryan F.

@Steven DeMarco 

If you haven’t already, listen to this BP podcast with some of the most well known and successful investors.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/biggerpockets-real-est...
BP episode 900 from Feb 22, 2024

TLDR: stay the course for long term wealth building and be patient because the hard truth is that rentals generally don’t cash flow when you have a mortgage. Time is your friend and it goes by faster than you expect.

Personally, in my 15 years of investing, my biggest mistake with rental property is that I sold. In hindsight I should have never sold anything. After enough time, equity gains and income gains are huge compared to when you purchased. Hang in there for the long haul. I wish someone would have told me that when I started. 

@Sebastian Hauer My pleasure. The Foundations program includes about 40 hours of online webinars plus about another 20 hours of updates which are worth watching as Brad always includes educational material in his bi-monthly webinars. You have access to his analyzer spreadsheet and data too. However in my view these materials are secondary to the main advantage of joining Brad's program which other gurus don't provide: opportunities to network with other investors in-person. Brad hosts about 4 to 5 bus tours each year in Dallas where you can meet 200 to 300 people who are either deal sponsors or passive investors. It's up to you to build relationships with these folks, but simply having the opportunity to meet so many other people who are on the same page about apartment investing is simply priceless. You can build substantive relationships with folks to invest in their deals and vice versa. Almost everyone who has done a deal in Brad's group has found their business partners from these networking opportunities. If you're serious about multifamily, my opinion is that no other mentoring program or meetup group offers nearly as much value.

@Sebastian Hauer I have not experienced Brad's online course so I'm not able to comment on how much content overlaps. The R2R event has a significant amount of valuable content, but as you'd expect, you can't learn everything there is to know about buying an apartment in just two days of training. The R2R is really meant to be more of an introduction and to get you thinking about what you'd like to accomplish with apartment investing. You can decide from there whether it makes sense to join his program as a student or to take another path. I hope you enjoy the seminar and I'd be interested to hear your thoughts afterwards.

@Brian Creed

To follow up on @Paul B. post, I also do not personally know of any Canadian investors in Brad's group. However, my securities attorney told me that syndication rules are somewhat different in Canada and that a Canadian attorney familiar with this matter should be consulted. Typically for a syndication under rules 506(b) or 506(c) some paperwork must be filed with each state where the passive investors hold their primary residence. The filing requirements differ by state (although not by much except New York and possibly a few other states). It's likely Canadian provinces have a similar requirement. There is also additional paperwork for US-based syndications accepting foreign investors. Before investing passively in a syndication in the US I would recommend you consult both a Canadian attorney as well as a US securities attorney to make sure all the rules and paperwork requirements are clear. If you need a referral to a Canadian attorney please PM me and I'll ask my attorney for a reference.

Hi Jessie. Yes I think so. I've gotten tremendous value from the community that Brad has built. Most everyone I've met are friendly and more than willing to share information and experiences and help each other out. I go to as many of the networking events as possible and that's where the real value lies. You need to network with people and establish relationships with the sponsors so that you have the opportunity to invest in their deals. 

@Steve Bretzke I'm totally with you that there's no point to re-invent the wheel if you can simply pay for it, resulting in a huge shortcut in time and effort and cost.

It's true that all the knowledge is out there and can theoretically be obtained for free. But are some of the lessons really free? How much do mistakes cost vs. having a mentor tell you not to make those mistakes? The $5000 spent for access to Brad's training videos and his network is arguably a lot cheaper than some of the hard lessons learned by doing it yourself and spending tremendous time reaching out to people to network.

@Bryan Hancock Your point about Brad being hard to access over email is appreciated. As a personal mentoring student, even I have initially found it difficult to get a response from Brad over email. My expectation was that he would be easier to reach, but his schedule seems to be very tight and/or he's just not that great over email. This is a point of feedback I will be giving to him soon and will follow up here in the future. He did say that it's likely best to set up a phone appointment to discuss things if needed. I will be trying this as well.

Hi Summer. I joined Brad's program in August. I've had a good experience so far in regards to passive opportunities. In this short time I've connected with various people and am now invested in two deals passively which total over 200 units. This program is the real deal and it gives you the opportunity to network with numerous deal sponsors (people who find the apartments to buy and put the syndication together) so you can get on their lists as a passive investor. You also get a fabulous education from Brad's online training archive as well as regular live webinar updates and free access to the bus tour and networking events which occur every couple of months in Dallas. Please PM me if you want more info. I would be happy to chat with you more. 

If interest rates stay low for a while, and it seems like they might, you could be better off just paying down your HELOC rather than paying it off. I'm assuming the return on your invested capital in the MF deal will be much higher than the interest you're paying on the HELOC. Since your HELOC payments are amortizing (going towards principal) you could just take your time to pay it off. Once you've accumulated enough cash you might pay off a bit of the principal here and there until it's fully paid off.

@Derrick Wilson has a great point. A good MF deal generally is one where you'll be forcing appreciation through improving the financials so a refinance just before you sell could be a great way to recover your capital.