All Forum Posts by: Trevor Ewen

@Krista Mcknight 

Welcome. I grew up in Evanston, Illinois. Always happy to see the other Chicago-area-ans on the forum.

I don't know a great deal about Renatus, but from the look of their site, they are selling a guru-like dream to folks who want to hit it big. Building wealth happens extremely slow. Most people gain real estate experience over the course of years. 

In your position, I would ask myself a simple question: What do I have to offer? Here are some examples of answers from people starting out:

- Money
- Sales abilities
- Property management skills
- Contracting/renovation skills
- Tax advice
- Legal advice
- + More

Once you have the answer to that question. Find out how you can contribute to real estate using that skill or asset. One word of caution. If 'Money' is what you have to offer, I would recommend not going in too big too early. Try and spread the investments so you can learn from the different projects you fund.

@Coreal Jules 

You are making the right decision to get interested early. At your age, you can complete a 30 year loan in your early fifties. It actually allows the possibility of completely paying off investments before you're like to retire or do something else. I envy you.

On the podcasts, they regularly talk about house hacking. Depending on the cost of living in your area (or wherever you plan to go), I think this is a tremendous way to get started. In part, because you have to live somewhere, so why not buy a multi-family with FHA money?

FHA loans allow you to live in a property and take loans with an extremely low down payment (I think 3.5% down was just brought back). This gives you a tremendous advantage over other would-be investors who need to show up with 20% to put down.

FHA loans won't make a bad deal good (they'll actually make it worse). But they can make a good deal affordable.

@Jimmy Thomas 

Welcome.

If you're looking for funding partners, very few people will work with you without a reputation.

The one notable exception is people you already know. If these people trust you to work hard and improve their investment, they will be the right people to fund your early projects. Friends family, old friends, old coworkers: these are the kind of people likely to fund your first deals. Once they can speak to your success, other investors will be much easier to come by.

@Coblentz B. 

Welcome. Very interested in getting into Caribbean investing in the future. Do you own anything in Port of Spain?

@Stephen Masek 

Where are the out of state properties located? We had no trouble getting ours going in Tennessee, but it's a good thing to be aware of for the future.

@John Horner 

I understand your issue. The government/regulatory level of respect for self-employed/business owners is slim to none. Furthermore, investors are also not a respected crowd. This is all very sad, because good investors are the people providing safe/reasonable places for people to live. 

Lending policy, from a federal perspective is focused in live-in homeowners. If you can swing that to your advantage, you may have a better chance. Also, I have hear (but not experienced) that portfolio lending may be a better option as well. I would look into portfolio lenders in your area.

@Jefferson Kim 

It's an interesting thought. Churches are a source of community stability for so many people. I like to think of mega churches like a mega corporation.

If we use the same logic that we would with Detroit, we know that Detroit felt the strong affect of a changing auto industry. Your average analyst would characterize Detroit as a 'one-industry' town. Once the one industry had problems, so did the city.

If we look at Churches through the same lens, then we should be worried about the destabilizing effects a mega church can have. Here is a great example from Seattle. Ultimately, like work options, they need to be diversified and spread out. This is a characteristic that makes Little Rock attractive. You wouldn't want to invest in a place that has 100 factories and 50 houses. Likewise, you may not want to invest where the local stability and commercial (space) economy is dominated by a single religious offering.

@Nathan Grant 

I grew up in Evanston, Illinois. If your client is on the North Side, I may be able to recommend an option. Send me a personal message if you get a chance.

@Ross McKenzie 

The most important thing is that you have good information about you and what you do. People actually like the personal touch, so I definitely recommend going with it.

As a software engineer, I actually think that many realtors and real estate sites choose the hard route of generating the site template themselves (working with a designer, etc.). One of the easiest ways is SquareSpace, which is definitely the slickest web generator I have seen.

@Danny Diaz 

All of the REITs that I invest in are traded on stock exchanges. In other words: they are available as an investment product open for anyone's purchase. 

As for dividends, I just look at their SEC yield numbers (dividends reported to the SEC in the last 30 days), and also their historical SEC yields.

In the end, I choose REITS based on low commission / dividend ratio. I also desire diversity among the REITS themselves (some domestic, some foreign). Financial advisors would be unlikely to recommend having more than 10% of an equity portfolio in REITS. 

I don't think I can make any specific recommendations. But here is a good list of recently critically reviewed REITS:

http://money.usnews.com/funds/etfs/rankings/real-estate-funds