All Forum Posts by: Scott Trench

It's great to have you here on BiggerPockets @Olivia C.

Hi @Dinesh T., it's great to have you here on BP!

This is an awesome dataset.

I'm sure that the highest income earners are earning a great, optimal return on their money like @Bryan Hancock suggests. I think the data also seems to suggest that point number one of yours - "Spend FAR less than you earn" - is the real driver of wealth for the richest Americans:

It still seems to me at this time that preserving, then increasing, your income and investment returns - savings first - is the fastest way for almost everyone to grow their wealth. That would appear to change as you move up the table above though!

Savings can come in many forms. In this case, I'd suspect that they simply earn so much money that they don't feel compelled to spend it all AND they focus a good amount of time on reducing their largest expense - and the one that many Americans seem to do nothing to prevent - taxes.

I've been on a bit of a reading binge for the last year and half and am going through about a book per week. I've found that books on wealth building and business success seem even more applicable to success in real estate than even many books directly related to real estate!

Here are some of the great books from that list (in my opinion) if you are serious about building private wealth and succeeding in business:

1. The Richest Man in Babylon

2. Rich Dad, Poor Dad

3. The Four Hour Work-Week

4. The Millionaire Fastlane

5. The Millionaire Next Door

6. Think and Grow Rich

7. How to Win Friends and Influence People.

8. The One Thing

9. The Miracle Morning

10. The Lean Startup

Since you asked about real estate books as well - here's a great list of the 25 best real estate books:

http://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/2013/04/14...

Hope that Helps!

@Kevin Lewis

Welcome to BiggerPockets! I too was in this position last year, and have dedicated a good chunk of the last year to studying this and analyzing my decisions with my first purchase. Also - I'm from Columbia (Clarksville), MD and moved to Denver about 2 and half years ago - I think you'll love it in MD!

I personally "House-hack" and live in half a duplex, while renting out the other half. I think this is a great approach when you are interested in both living and investing in a new area. You can read about that process and my experience here:

http://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/2015/02/21...

There are two schools of thought here on LLC's - there are the lawyers and bigshots who like to tell you that you absolutely need an LLC, and there are investors that do without. The answer, as is frustratingly often the case in real estate investing is that it depends.

Here's my personal decision on why I don't invest with an LLC for my fledgling portfolio:

http://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/2015/06/06...

I hope this information helps you! Feel free to reach out with any questions!

@Rick Griffith

Thanks for this awesome post and the resources you link to here! I thought I'd add in the  Ultimate Guide to Finding Incredible Mentors, here on BiggerPockets.

Hopefully my experiences here will be helpful to those looking for real estate investing mentors!

Hi Paul,

BiggerPockets can't verify the truth and accuracy of every post on the platform, and we can't vet every deal. The truth is, with over 350,000 members and over a million visitors to the site each month, we simply can't verify that all of the information on the platform is true, ethical or relevant.

We do have a moderation team in place, and if you see that any posts are in violation of our terms of use (www.biggerpockets.com/terms), please report those posts. Furthermore, if you are aware of illegal activity on BiggerPockets, please report that activity to the relevant authorities. 

We appreciate that you have the community's best interests at heart - we do as well!

-Scott

@Brandon Hall I agree with @Ben Leybovich

It seems like your core strength is in the accounting profession and that real estate is a skillset that you are developing. It also seems to me from your post that you think you'd be just as happy doing either. 

I therefore think that since you are ambivalent towards both, that the question you might want to answer is "which of those two paths will build the largest amount of wealth in as short a time as possible?"

With just the information at hand, I think that the odds might be better for you in that endeavor (fastest path to more wealth and income) is through your accounting practice and scaling that business. Then, you can plow those earnings back into real estate. 

-Scott

@Jennifer Rogers

Welcome to BiggerPockets! I am a relatively new investor from here in Denver and actually bought a property back in November that has been great so far. It's possible, but requires a good amount of hustle I think. 

Here's the story of how I bought that Duplex:

http://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/2015/02/21...

Also - you asked about the Denver meetups - you can see the latest one and the schedule here:

http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/521/topics/217...

@Bill Hamilton

You're right of course that there is a strategy involved in paying down newer debts  first because they affect your score more than old debt. Thank you for bringing that point up and adding to my comment - we always make sure to mention that when we are going more in depth with folks we work with. For some reason I just trailed off after "even if it's just...". Not sure what happened there but my mind must have wandered, so thanks for the follow up there.

Credit repair can either be mind numbingly simple, or thoroughly complex (science, or art as you describe). You can either look at it as:

"I need to be as strategic as possible with every single payment I make to maximize the rapid increase of my score by playing with a complex set of rules" 

OR

"I need to pay off my debts and build a strong financial foundation." 

The first mindset is dangerous, in my opinion, and does not solve the root of the problem with these folks in most cases. We prefer mindset number two - start today and get your mind right. Mindset number two allows for mistakes, and works towards a long-term financial foundation. 

One of the other things you mention here is that people with bad credit need to "work with a professional". Personally, I've become frustrated with this statement. Where's the "professional" at the homeless shelters or churches that I volunteer at? Not with us, that's for sure. They're stuck with me. I hope I'm better than nothing, though we do always provide documentation with professional contact info on it. Sure, the professional might help them play the game more strategically, but the reality is such that a lot of the folks we work with have bad financial habits and don't prioritize simply paying off debt, which are far more impactful to their score over the years than their ability to manipulate the system.