All Forum Posts by: Elizabeth S.

My mom actually mentioned this to me this morning. That is a great point to let the tenants know so they aren't surprised.

I haven't googled it but here would be my first thoughts:

investor - someone who invests their money, in this case it would be in real estate.

entrepreneur - someone who forges new paths by starting new businesses. So maybe this person has companies that support or sell to real estate investors. It could also just be a fancy way of saying you buy real estate and are your own boss.

@Account Closed if you wrote a blog post talking about each of these podcasts I would read it ;) hint hint.

Thanks for the post, I'm not familiar with a lot of these podcasts. Others I have listened to briefly and either strongly disagreed with their guests or lost interest in the show.

Sure, they'll five you 70-70% of the ARV. Use that cash wisely of course because you have a mortgage again. I'm in the process of doing one and the closing costs are around $800 it seems. I haven't priced any other banks though.

Another option would be a line of credit with your home as the collateral. You could buy on terms, you would just need money down and then rehab money. You could find a private lender. You could get a loan from the bank.

Oh the joys of needing money for real estate. So many deals and NEVER enough money!!

I buy houses in the $18,000-$23,000 range, typically put $3,000-$5,000 in them and then rent them for $650 a month. @Matt R. is right about the roof and furnace, they are profit delayers.

The key is to know the area or work with someone who does.

There is more to investing in any house than just working the numbers ahead of time to see if it will have positive cash flow and those are the factors that will kill you.

1. Contractors that you can trust, that do the job correctly and go above and beyond for you since you're not around.

2. A property manager who can rent the house to good people and make sure they are holding up their end of the contract.

People who buy expensive houses have the same issues, their tenants just drive nicer cars. It's all a process, just jump in and learn the lessons good and bad.

I'm glad you asked this I was wondering too! I didn't realize being allowed to message someone was tied to being a colleague.

Honestly what matters most is just buying the first one and not worrying too much about the 5 house mark. I say that from a position of every time I changed something I would re-work the #'s and make myself crazy because variables are always messing them up!! I have been buying 2 houses a year for the last 4 years. I still don't know where the line to stop and pay off is versus amassing more cash flow. But it doesn't seem to really matter because nothing happens super fast in buy and hold. So, create a general direction and then get stated, you can always tweak the direction along the way.

You're thinking about great things but you need to just get started first and experience land lording, cash flow, maintenance and the other challenges that come. The education happens at every step, getting money, choosing a property, networking locally, finding contractors and finding good tenants. We all want what the guy on the hill has but he got there after a lot of hard work. Don't be disappointed when it takes time. Keys to success: 1. Cash 2. Communication 3. Drive

Being from Indiana, we have a great market to invest in as well as great cost of living. We don't have the same extreme price fluctuations that other states have, it's pretty even keel.

I always recommend Bluehost for hosting and Wordpress for your blog. It would be worth the money to pay someone to set your website up then you can just handle the maintenance and minor changes. Wordpress is a very user friendly platform with lots of help forums for figuring things out.