All Forum Posts by: Becky Watkins

Rusty Thompson It's against the rules to bird dog short sales? That's why I stay away, because there seems to be so many regulations around them. I have emailed people from REIA's a couple times when I come across one, offering the address, but no one ever responded. We haven't been to one in a while since I spend the bulk of my free time writing. We planned to not go again until we had a deal to offer, but we plan to start going again, just not with the same frequency (we were going at least once a week and it got redundant with no new faces). Anyway, our intention was to give the address to someone who wants it, with the purpose of building reputation and helping out the distressed owner. If we got a little something in the process, then it's a win-win-win.

Brian - well, I put in the 2400 based on our budget. Basically, he said he wants to replace our income. IE, he quits his day job and instead works full time for us, and I quit my day job and continue working part time (my day job is only mornings) for us, but also have time to take care of the baby. I realize now I wasn't using the correct terminology to convey my meaning to you guys.

I probably misspoke when I said we wanted $2400/mo in passive income. I guess it's that we want $2400/mo working for ourselves, having more flexibility and freedom of hours. It'd be nice to take calls from yellow letter leads, attend morning networking meetings, and go to the dentist without loss in pay because I could just put in those hours somewhere else, even in the waiting room. I miss calls from leads who call while I'm at work, and sometimes they don't answer when I call back. I view the week as 168 hours, and would like to work any of those that the business requires, but right now we're constrained by our 9-to-5's.

Having our own property management company is another long-term goal. I'm not really keen on going back to school, and I had heard that there are complications in investing when you are licensed, because then there are more restrictions due to regulations and such. Although, that didn't sound right as I met more investors that have a real estate license. Plus, there is the MLS access you mentioned. I will look into it.

I said that the average rent for 2 bedrooms is $1400. If it's 1 bedrooms, it'd be $1000. I don't have a specific fourplex in mind, so I can't give better answers than that. I know where the rents are higher and where they are lower and I could easily look up market rent if I found a fourplex.

We don't have a problem with having jobs, per se, but I want to be able to be home with the baby, and my husband wants to be able to go and look at a property whenever we get a potential deal. He can't do that right now since he is an hourly employee. Then he also wouldn't have to waste time with busy work to fill up the day when the apartments are full and there are no work orders.

We do want to move eventually. I don't know when, but I know what it will look like when it's time (our church and family needs us right now). That is something to consider though, because an older plan was to only wholesale here and hold out of state.

I'll bring these points to my husband, thanks.

No, we don't want to live in California forever, but we're not ready to move either.

We were actually considering your town once, because my husband's employer was expanding there, but the community manager position was snatched up quickly.

Oh. I didn't know what methods Ibrahim was referring to. I didn't know the origination of the term, but I definitely don't want to do anything illegal.

Well, it'd be $1400 per unit, since we'd have to live in one of the units to qualify for an FHA loan. Which also happens to be the average rent for two bedroom apartments in my area.

Although, what site did you use to find that mortgage amount? I used Wells Fargo, which gave me a higher number. I saw a payment closer to the one you are using for an ARM, but we would definitely not be opting for that.

My husband currently has a full time job as PM and maintenance man for 38 units so he would have no problem transitioning that to being his own employer.

Still, these numbers are much lower than what he thinks we could get. He says it doesn't scale up the same proportion as the property gets bigger. Are you referring to multiple fourplexes or a larger property? I know it's rare to find a distressed property where the owner is willing to finance, but we met someone who got a 20+ unit property 99% financed and is convinced & determined that we can do the same.

Thanks for those calculations, they really helped me.

We don't have a specific written plan, just general goals, which is why I guess we were on different pages until recently. I thought such a cash flow was more years down the line.

As for education, I try to read articles here and elsewhere in spare pockets of time I can find. The bulk of my free time is spent marketing.

I know the power of necessity. I follow MoneySavingMom.com and we coordinate a local meeting of Financial Peace University by Dave Ramsey. I did a major overhaul of our budget when I decided to cut my hours to dedicate more time to our business, and I do review it every month to see if there is anywhere else I can shave off a few bucks.

Yeah, I think my husband was basing the numbers on a friend's report and an article he read once. He was told one unit would cover the mortgage, and another the expenses. I ran the numbers today and saw that even if they were all two bedrooms, the rents wouldn't cover the mortgage, not counting taxes or anything else.

Because that was what I learned and haven't had a chance to research any other method. The software I has only allows me to search preforeclosures and foreclosures. Well, I mean I can look up any address directly, but I can't pull absentee lists or anything else from that. After postage and other expenses, I don't have a lot of room for additional subscriptions.

I thought it was 90 days but when it says "filing date" to "auction date" is roughly 2-3 weeks on my source. I didn't notice that at first (until this month really) and had been following up every thirty days. This website http://www.foreclosureuniversity.com/studycenter/foreclosurelaws/california.php supports that. I think it was more an issue of me not understanding where a property was in the process. It explained why so many letters kept coming back.

I think I sent letters to about 350 properties, about 800-850 letters including multiple owners, different mailing addresses, and followups. The first 6 months I was working full time and not able to send out that many letters, and also I was always behind, losing time and not being able to follow up until it was too late.

That's all I've had time to research so far. I tried craigslist once and got zero calls. I've put my business card on a few community boards, but haven't found spots that are legal to put up bandit signs. Although I haven't researched that since I expanded my farming area recently. The area I live in, which is the zip code I was working on exclusively for 6-7 months, is really strict.

Thanks, I'll let my husband know. I couldn't find concrete numbers to explain why I think that's a really lofty goal. Even if I went back to working full time and Saturdays, it'd still take 6-7 years to save up $100k.

My husband has been a community manager ("landlord") for three years, so we understand that side of it.

I read the second thread you linked and it's very discouraging.

Following that rule, a fourplex where we rent out three units for $1k/ea, the building would have to be $150k. That won't even buy a SFR except in the shadier parts of LA.

I was also working off the assumption, because I read it somewhere once, that one unit would cover the mortgage, but I just used a calculater on Wells Fargo, and it said the payment for a 30yr fixed 3.75% FHA loan would be $3,258.48. The rents wouldn't even cover that. Back to the drawing board, I guess.