All Forum Posts by: Scott Trench

@Marvin Q.

 You may not use an alias here on BiggerPockets. BUT, if you go to change your privacy settings, you can hide your last name.

http://www.biggerpockets.com/settings/privacy

Does that work for you?

-Scott

@Bill Gulley

Haha! Perhaps we should come up with an online class and title it something like:

"How to Use BiggerPockets to Be a Rockstar Real Estate Investor"

@Brandon Turner could host this, or something just like it, covering different aspects of real estate investing every week on Thursday evenings! 

We'd probably call it a "Webinar", and make sure to give everyone a chance to sign up for the weekly webinar.

;)

As far as finding mentors go, perhaps "The Ultimate Guide to Finding Incredible Mentors" would be of use to you!

With a little bit of programming magic, our very own @Edd Morgan has produced yet another invaluable tool for real estate investors everywhere.

This one pertains to our keyword alerts. In the past, if you were to set a keyword alert, you'd have no idea how frequently it will be used in the forums - you might be setting yourself up for zero notifications, or thousands.

For example, as a young padawan, I initially set up a keyword alert for both "Colorado" and "CO". Well, as you might imagine, "co" is used in many different ways - it can be short for "Colorado" or "Company", or used in something like "co venture, co investors, co _____"

If only I'd had a tool like this:

Now 340 alerts per month is pretty darn overwhelming for that particular keyword - especially since it may or may not pertain to my investing interests. This definitely was annoying for me the first time I logged back in and had 35 notifications and only half of them were relevant to me!

Seeing this, I might avoided that and simply changed my keyword to "Denver". Let's see what that comes up with:

123 keyword alerts per month is much more manageable. That means that 3-4 times per day, someone is talking about Denver on BiggerPockets. I definitely want to be alerted to those conversations and jump in so that I can better understand my market!

Anyways, I hope that you get a chance to play around with your keyword alerts! They might just be the single most powerful tool BP offers for the ambitious networker!

Hey @Troy Fisher , @Paul Santos

We are aware of the "profile" complete thing (I see it too). Rob and I are working on figuring out that bug and getting everyone back to 100% completion today and tomorrow. Seems like there was some trickiness with the new data collection process. Sorry about that!

I was thinking about this the other day, and I got a question from a user about using a property manager to manage my house-hacked duplex.

It's my opinion that it would be quite silly to use a property manager as a house-hacker. Here's why:

First, most of the difficulty in managing a property comes from running it like a household. Landscaping, minor repairs, shoveling snow and fixing all the other little problems that come up as being a homeowner account for the vast majority of expenses and time commitments of house-hacking. Managing the tenants just isn't a huge added time commitment or expense on top of maintaining the entire property.

Second, unless you are a real pro (in which case, you are probably beyond needing to house-hack), it will be pretty darn difficult to hide that you are the owner of the property as you'll show an obvious interest in the maintenance and correct treatment of your home. Once the tenants realize that you are the decision maker, you will be contacted regardless.You will be disappointed if your goal in hiring a property manager is to avoid making decisions regarding the tenants.

Third, the economics of being your own property manager are incredibly in your favor as a house-hacker. Oh, the lawn needs some weeding? No problem, just do that after work. Oh, there's snow on the ground? No problem, just do it when you wake up. Oh, there's a leak under the tenant's sink? No problem, just call the plumber. Those economics are terrible for a property manager who will have to spend time commuting to your property, calling the right people to do the work, or do it him/herself, and will bill you for the entire operation. These economics are even more obvious in things like collecting rent (which can be done online at $0 transaction cost nowadays), showing the place, and making sure the tenants are treating the place right.

Anyways, I just want to throw this out there that if you are going to bother to house-hack and don't want to do the perhaps 5 hours of work per year that go along with managing the property yourself, you've probably missed the point..

You really don't need a property manager if you are house-hacking.

@Isaac A.

Collecting rent from people who live less than 50 feet from where I sleep is perhaps the easiest job of all time... literally. I have an online system that bills the tenants once per month, and then spend 15 seconds once per month transferring it from the online bill pay platform to my bank account. Asides from mowing the grass and normal household chores (which every homeowner in the country also does) that's about the extent of the work that I do to manage the property.

Why on earth would I spend $100-$200 per month on a property manager? Managing a house-hack property is not any more difficult than managing a house if you live there, except for politely dealing with the tenants from time to time (perhaps once every few months outside of neighborly interactions).. Would you hire someone else to manage your home?

I recently bought a list of 200 or so for properties meeting certain price and type criteria in a zip code that I'm interested in here in Denver, CO. Purchased the list roughly two weeks ago.

Purchased it for $135 from List Source. Enabled me to direct mail and visit all the properties that I'd be interested in that area. Who knows if it will work though...

Hi Robyn,

This topic actually comes up quite frequently. I recently wrote a Guide on "How to Find Incredible Mentors" here on BP. Perhaps perusing it would be of value to you!

http://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/2015/06/20/ultimate-guide-finding-incredible-mentors/

-Scott

@Joshua Dorkin

Is correct - this will get much more customized over time. After tinkering with this for a few weeks, we decided to get some basic recommendations out there for the folks that are new to the site. As time progresses we'll add some neat stuff for the long term folks like @Joel Owens and @Bill Gulley.  The recommendations will simply lead you to the dashboard and if you aren't interested in seeing them you can "x" out of them in the top right of each box.

Thanks guys!