All Forum Posts by: Sean McDonnell

Our biggest investing mistake so far was trying to do everything ourselves initially. We did not do a good job of managing our first long term rental and the tenants totally took advantage of us. We learned our lesson and hired a property manager who is doing a great job and we hardly think of this property now! We lost money the first two years but the lessons we learned were invaluable and now it cashflows a solid $200 a month and has appreciated over 75k. Gotta love real estate

Congrats on your deal! How are you paying for the rehab? What is the ARV? Are you going to refinance into long term debt and pay the seller off? Sorry I have so many questions haha

Congrats on your first deal! How much are the units renting for? 

@Joe Prillaman I am going to rent out your "struggling" Airbnb and help you boost the ratings. Be advised, I am very high maintenance and will require you to be on call at all hours, especially if I wake up in the middle of the night and want someone to talk to. Also, I expect you to be there to greet me each morning with a hot cup of coffee and a Britts donut. 

The 1% rule is based off the purchase price. From my understanding, this rule is intended to allow you to quickly analyze a potential investment property to see if a detailed analysis is worth the time. Generally, if a property meets the 1% rule, it will cashflow. On our team, we use the 1% rule to filter out bad investment properties. If a property meets the 1% rule, we will usually conduct a more thorough analysis to see if we can help and investor purchase it. Often times, we find red flags during the detailed analysis that kill the deal (most of the times, it is major repairs needed) but that is a part of the game :)

@James H Webb III I think your mentality is awesome! We should never crave failure and I argue we should hate failing! BUT, going into this journey with the mindset that you will fail is important so you can be on the lookout for how to grow through failures. I love Thomas Edison's quote, "I failed my way to success" 

Always learning, always growing

@Ashley Brooks I have had some similar experiences and generally agree with you! In my area, there is a lot of new construction that make decent long term rentals. When looking to help someone acquire their first deal, I often show them some of the new construction options because the repairs/maintenance should be light the first 5 years. As long as the numbers meet that investors criteria, I agree that is a great first/second property to tackle!

Have you written a business plan? I have found that to be a good place to start and use to develop your why, your vision, your mission, and your goals. That will serve as the foundation for your success and give you something to work towards. Also I recommend The Millionaire Real Estate Agent by Gary Keller. He lays out the steps in an executable way! Good luck :)

Hey @Rudolph Shepard Jr ! Yes, that group still meets on the first Tuesday of the month at 7 PM at Waterline Brewery in Wilmington. It is a great place to go and network with other local investors!