All Forum Posts by: Tracy Butcher

Closed and the renovations have begun, now to keep it in budget. 

I haven't quite decided yet, it will be a flip or rent, probably rent to be honest. 

If I flip I'm projecting 30-$35k ROI.

But, my ultimate goal is to have a decent portfolio with a steady income/cashflow. 

I have found that each time I've been about to purchase a property it "tells me" if it's a flip or a rental. Some houses are just better for one than the other. 

I actually used Rental, BRRRR and Fix & Flip. For a BRRRR it should cash flow about $300 monthly, and as a all cash rental about $600 monthly, and both of those were with more upgrades than really necessary for the house because I wanted to way over budget the repairs, because I'd rather over budget and be happy that I'm under than go way over.

I've been a bigger pockets fan for years, I've even been a featured agent here in the past. I've been searching for and working towards purchasing my first investment property for years and years, every time I found one that fit, other local investors with more experience, more readily available funds or alternative financing, and more connections were already writing offers while I was touring the property. I'm not upset by that, it's just been a longer time finding my first property than I would have liked. But today 3/2/24 I got my first investment property under contract. I'm looking forward to giving it a facelift and finding a tenant for it, assuming the inspection doesn't find anything more than my contractors and I found during the showing. I'm excited to get this going, and add additional properties. 

Closer to Flint than Detroit ;D 

I'm an agent and I have 2 different vehicles I could show up in. One is a 2018 Durango SRT the other a 2021 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon, one paid for in full, the other almost paid for in full. 

Where I'm showing houses depends on which vehicle I drive. Dirt roads get the Jeep, nice weather paved streets get the Durango. 

One person who replied mentioned they felt it would appear the person had a car payment and would be more eager to get to closing (could be good or bad depending on the person), I want to point out that not all agents, or agent investors or investors for that matter, rely on solely on the income from real estate to pay their bills. 

Being the owner of 2 other non-real estate businesses pays for my cars etc, real estate is my income for retirement and charity, so where I'm always eager to close for my investor clients and my non-investor clients, it's more about seeing them get what they're reaching for than my commission. Of course, I work for commission, because we work for money, but I'm not going to go without if I don't close this week, so, it's you getting to the closing table I'm reaching for, and the commission is just my paycheck for helping you. 

As a rookie investor, I'm looking for meet-ups or masterminds in South East Michigan. Specifically Northeast Oakland County and Southeast Genesee County (closer to Flint than Warren) but I'm not averse to traveling to them either. If you've got one started or you participate in some in this area I'd love to hear about them. Thanks much!

This is an exciting opportunity. 

As mentioned before, yes we do have termites here in Michigan, it is not something we typically have to worry about with most houses though.

I wouldn't think a "pretreatment" for them would be necessary, though having a property you're not occupying inspected for and treated for pests semi-regularly isn't a bad idea, I would be more concerned with carpenter ants, bees/wasps, roaches, and bedbugs in a property in Michigan than termites.  

I call it pop and soda both, but I don't talk about it much so it's used rarely. I call them fireflies, though I'm not sure when I started doing that as I distinctly remember calling them lightning bugs in my youth.

I call them vacation properties or short-term rentals.

I would have that double-checked (either by having your CPA research it and confirm, or getting a different CPA to review it) and make the correction through an amended return if it is in fact incorrect. As an LLC who had had to file 3 years' worth of amended business and tax returns because of one partners bookkeeping mistake that wasn't caught by the CPA (not her fault as said partner told her the info was accurate over and over and she'd have no other way of knowing), having to do with assets changing. It is much easier and less financially detrimental to repair it sooner rather than to find it later. Regardless of if any of the partners like the outcome better or not. An amended tax return correction is always better than an IRS correction.

If you hold your properties in a business entity, such as an LLC, you should be getting COI and W-9 from your GC's and providing them 1099's if you pay them more than $600 during the year. If you hold the properties in your own name that wouldn't be required. Obviously, you should confirm with your tax professional for the best answer. I've owned a Plumbing & Heating company for 14 years and we get hundreds of 1099's each year from property management companies we do service work for.