All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

It's not a step-by-step how-to guide so you won't read it and suddenly know exactly how to go from $0 to a million. It will help you develop your perspective and it provides a great litmus test for deciding how, when, and why to invest your money.

What's missing for me is the timeline. If the repair was unsatisfactory, you should have figured this out at the time. Either demanding that the repair was redone, or that the tenant pay for the replacement of the cabinet door.

If time has passed between then and the tenant is moving out, and you want to take the money out of their security deposit, the tenant can argue that the repair was done at the time and that you did not demand any further compensation at that time. Having something in writing might help your case but it seems to me that you'll have to swallow the cost of replacing the cabinet door and can't pin it on your tenant.

First decide that doing nothing will get you nothing results.

Second, once you decide to do something. Do the first thing first, then the second thing, and so on.

Nice!

If it was easy, everyone would be doing it. Also, it often costs something (time, money, sacrifice).

There are people in this world who only like to do easy things and they don't want to invest themselves in making a better life for themselves.

Of course you could fail but if you never try, you'll never know if you might succeed.

Not having money is a problem (despite what people will try and tell you about investing with no money down) and the secret to that is just plugging away at your savings. Make a deal with yourself to manage your expenses and to pay yourself first by putting aside a percentage of every pay check into a savings or investment account.

I would focus on what you can do right now:

- Use your current job to gain experience and knowledge about real estate.

- Networking. Meet people and learn from them.

- Be open to opportunities. They will come around from time to time and you will see them if you have your eyes open.

That being said, and based on your brief description, I would recommend house hacking to you. You will find many helpful posts and discussions here about the concept but essentially, you and your girlfriend need a place to live. Your first home purchase could be a multifamily (such as a duplex or larger) where you live in one unit and your rent out the other unit(s) and use the rental income to pay off your mortgage.

There is no hard and fast rule about how long a cycle will last but it is true to say that the real estate market is cyclical.

There are many examples in economics, politics and nature. The conditions that lead to any one particular situation will often be the cause of a reaction to move in the opposite direction.

I know this is a sweeping generalization but it holds true in the majority of cases.

Example: The economy is doing well so people are buying houses. As more people buy houses, prices go up. Prices go up until the market is no longer able to bear those high prices (e.g. people start going into foreclosure, interest rates go up) and then the prices correct. Prices go down again and people are nervous but eventually they come around and start buying houses again. Prices go up, ... and repeat.

Check your offer. Does it have an expiry date?

Its perfectly fine to put in an expiration on your offer. State that your offer is valid for a specified period of time. Your offer is fixed for that period. If they get back to you late, you can then choose to honor the terms of your offer or you can change the terms.

I live far away from my two investment properties. I have property management taking care of landlord issues and they are excellent. So no pet peeves, unfortunately. Hoping to hear the stories though. One day I'll live closer by and be able to do more of the day-to-day stuff.

Thanks for the interesting post. Just worked out my number. I'm not at 25X just yet in investments/savings. but it was encouraging to see that I was further along than I thought. 

In theory, I'm thinking about scaling back/retiring in my 40s. I like my job but I don't love it. For now, I'm working on my list of things I'll do when I do quit my job.