All Forum Posts by: Wade Sikkink

QB and Xero aren't built for a real estate business.  Too many "tricks" are required to make them do what you want, which is give you the ability to see not only categories of transactions, but also unit and property assignment.

Has anyone out there in BP nation ever attended a Think Realty event?  They have one coming up in Dallas in April and Baltimore in June.  Just wondering if attending is worth while.  Tickets seem reasonable at $75, but then there's the expense of getting there.

I think you have just figured out that real estate is a get rich slowly game.

People selling seminars and books won't tell you that, but that's the reality for most people.

@Austin Fruechting Fair enough.  It sounds like you have a great deal of experience using Quickbooks and know how to set it up to do what you want.  At 107 units, you have a large business on your hands, which is probably your full time gig.

Dave only has 1 property at this point and I would guess that means he isn't doing it full time and probably is in a little different space than you are with your business.

Quickbooks is definitely a powerful tool, it's just not always the most user friendly software to figure out, especially for people using it sparingly.  I used it for an ecommerce business I had and it took me a while to get the basics figured out.

We own a 14 unit in a town of just under 3000.  It's been a great investment.  The town is small, but it's a bedroom community for a neighboring city of 250k+, and our little town is growing fast.

The comment above about being the only game in town is very true. Our 14 unit building is the only apartment building in town. We don't have any trouble staying full because we are more affordable than SFR rentals.

My only advice would be that small community multi's can be good investments.  I would just make sure the community is either up and coming, or close to a bigger city.  There are a lot of dying small communities out there and those could be a trap if you got into one.

Good luck.

Appreciation is a legitimate investment strategy.  It has it's own risks, that are different from a cash flow strategy, but that doesn't mean it's not a realistic strategy.

We are in the process of adding SFR's to our portfolio, for a couple of reasons, one of which is appreciation potential. We are closing on our first SFR next week and are looking for more.

I think as long as you can cover your holding costs comfortably and have a long enough horizon, then appreciation isn't any riskier than cash flow.  And, even if the property doesn't appreciate that much, you are still getting the benefit of mortgage pay down.

I don't think credit reports are super useful in tenant screening.  Many have credit that's not stellar.

We ask for the names of previous landlords as a reference.  That is by far the best screening if you can get it.  We had a applicant one time that gave us the info on his current landlord.  I called the guy and he told me the tenant was habitually late and was currently a month and a half behind on rent.  Pretty easy decision on that one.  We've also had tenants that looked marginal on their application but the previous landlord said they were solid and always paid on time. 

If we get a good previous landlord reference and can verify their employment, that's all we need.  Oh, that and a clean report on criminal check.

Real estate is a get rich slowly game.  The vast majority of what you do will take some time to come to fruition.  Eventually, things can start to snowball, but for most regular people trying to get into the game you just have to start somewhere, then keep chipping away at it.

If you have enough cash to get a property or two going, do that.  You might also be able to use equity in your personal residence as collateral for a down payment on another property.  Then it may take a couple years for things to build up enough to get your next property.  Keep doing that and one day you'll wake up and have a nice portfolio.

I'd make a lousy guru, because I won't tell you that you can get rich with no money and no experience.  I'm just trying to give you my realistic view.  Most of what you see out there about people becoming millionaires overnight simply isn't true, or they are very rare cases that have less chance of being repeated than buying lottery tickets.

Don't mean to be a downer, just a realist.  Good luck.

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Wade

Quickbooks is not made for a rental business, too many tricks to make it work right, particularly as your business grows.

I've looked into this space a lot and can give you some good ideas if you PM me, @Dave Younts