All Forum Posts by: Steven Barr

How much of your rental property cashflow should you live off of? 

For example, if I cashflow around $30k/month, how much of that should I ACTUALLY be spending on my lifestyle? What percentage should go towards my personal mortgage, toys, travel, etc..

Further, I wouldn't want to develop spending habits that had me on razor thin margins, so what should my OVERALL spending percentage be relative to my cashflow? 50%? 70%? 80%?

I understand the goal is to work to continually increase your cashflow by acquiring more properties over time, and that annual rent increases will give you a natural boost, but I imagine you want some cushion built in to your spending habits for inevitable bad times economically?

Thanks! 

Do y'all have any recommendations for most RE friendly bank to use? I would like to be using a big name bank with branches everywhere like Bank of America, Wells Fargo, etc. I am using a large bank right now, and I won't mention their name, but they are a NIGHTMARE. Leaning towards switch to BoA or Wells Fargo, but wanted to see if anyone had experience with them or possibly a better suggestion?

Ex (quick money movement, low fees, great service and communication, ability to be reached, online wires) 

I should also add that I don't need them to have great loan terms or RE products. I am simply looking for ease of use in transactional purposes like checking, wires, and personal distributions.

Thanks so much!

There's all these formulas for calculating expenses and backing in to cashflow, right? How do you guys manage this operationally? 

In reality, rent will hit your bank account, but it doesn't separate itself into specific categories. Do you shuffle your estimated capex and opex to a separate savings account? Or do you just let it all sit in one checking account, and then only take a small portion of it as a distribution if you want cashflow?

I am looking to use conventional 20% down financing to purchase a home. Is it possible/are there places to allow you to take out loans for just the rehab portion of the deal?

We just tried to put in a cash offer on a house, only to find out that our hard money loan could not be consider a ‘cash offer’. 

My question is twofold… 

1. Is this normal?

2. If this is normal, why in the world would anyone use hard money and pay the points, fees, and high interest instead of just using conventional financing?

Do y’all make your renters show proof of renters insurance before you will allow them to rent your properties?

@Ron Brady and @James Alderman is 10% what you are using for maintenance/repairs AND capex? Or just maintenance and repairs?

I plan to sell these properties within a few years after BRRRRing them, so not sure I should really be modeling capex, as those items will be addressed in the rehab? Curious to hear your thoughts on that

How are y'all calculating your projected maintenance expenses for BRRRR properties?

I know the rule of thumb for a traditional rental is 40-50% all in expenses (vacancy, prop mgmt, taxes, ins, repairs, CapEx, etc)..

But are y’all using a lower maintenance/repair rate due to the fact that the property was recently rehabbed? If so, what all in expense number are you using for calculations?

Will you buy properties on septic? Specifically using the BRRRR strategy?

@Karen Johnson we never ended up going through with Ribbon. Had to change our strategy given the current market conditions. They were also primarily SFH focused