BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 397: Live Calls! A Travel Nurse, a College Student, a High-End Flipper + More BP Members Put Brandon, David, and J Scott on the Hot Seat
Episode Date: August 27, 2020In today's episode we open up the phone lines again to field your real estate investing questions... and for an added twist, we bring in the familiar voice of author, BiggerPockets Business Podcast ho...st, and house flipper/investor extraordinaire J Scott. You'll hear callers chime in with questions like: 1) "Help me get started" 2) "should I partner with family members?" 3) "How do I transition from single family to multifamily" – and much more! From refinancing and the finer points of BRRRR... to mentorship and long-distance investing... It's all here! Tell Brandon and David what you think of this new format in the show notes at biggerpockets.com/show397. We want to hear from you, too! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
This is the Bigger Pockets podcast, show 397.
Figure out what your goals are, figure out what your long-term strategy is,
figure out what your niche is, whether it's flipping, whether it's wholesaling,
whether it's rentals, with multifamily, whatever it is.
Figure that out and then go after those deals, really try and acclaim that market
and build an expertise and hit your long-term goals, whatever they are.
But at the same exact time, don't pass up great deals.
You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio.
real estate for investors large and small.
If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing, without all the hype,
you're in the right place.
Stay tuned and be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from biggerpockets.com.
Your home for real estate investing online.
What's going on, everyone?
It's Brandon Turner, host of the Bigger Pockets podcast,
the Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast that is here with my co-host, Mr. David Green,
and a special co-host today as well, Mr. Jay Scott.
So I'll start.
Welcome to the show, gentlemen.
David, good to have you back.
Jay, good to have you here.
Thank you very much.
We are back by popular demand,
another very popular show format that Brandon and I did.
I guess it would probably be a couple weeks ago
where we brought people in to ask questions live,
shooting from the hip, testing out if we really have real estate knowledge.
Now you guys know the show is not scripted.
And we brought Jay in for a little bit of backup.
Yeah, this is my favorite thing in the world.
answering live questions. And so I'm really excited for the show. And I appreciate you guys having me on.
Thank you. Yeah. It should be a lot of fun. Now, those who don't know, Jay, Jay was the author of lots of books,
including the book on flipping houses, the book on SB and Rehab Cust and a lot more. And Jay is a rock star in a lot of
different avenues of business and life. He is also the host of the Bigger Pockets business podcast,
a phenomenal show. Because at the end of the day, real estate is business. And the better you are
business, the better you're going to be at real estate. So you should be listening to his show.
New episodes come out every Sunday. Every Tuesday.
Oh, Tuesday.
All right.
Well, I get them on Monday.
Because I'm special.
With that, let's get to today's quick tip.
Today's quick tip is many of you are aware of this, but if you're not,
BiggerPockets has a new rent estimator tool.
If you go to BiggerPockets.com slash rent estimator,
you can actually go check it out.
It's part of the Bigger Pockets Insights program,
which is a new feature we have for Pro members.
So you can go try it out and check it out if you want.
But if you are a pro member, you get to analyze unlimited rental comps.
And it uses data.
And it's really fancy.
Our data scientist built it and is continuing to refine it all the time to make it the best
rent estimator tool you'll ever see.
It's just super nice and easy for analyzing deal.
So I love the thing.
Check it out.
Again,
BiggerPockets.com slash rent estimator.
Did you know your house gets bored when you leave?
I can't actually prove that, but it probably misses out on the action.
The footsteps, the late night fridge raids.
Yeah, when you're gone, your place is basically on unpaid leave.
It's sitting there in the dark thinking, I could be.
contributing right now. Your side room wants a side hustle. Even your Wi-Fi is like,
we could be networking. You're on vacation, spending money like it's a sport while your staircase
at home is fully capable of sending your income upwards. Here's the twist. You can go on a trip
and actually earn money. Airbnb makes that possible with the co-host network. If you're away
for a while or have a secondary property, you can hire a vetted local co-host with real hosting experience
to handle it all.
A co-host can handle guest communications.
It can manage reservations
and keep things running smoothly
so you don't have to check your phone
between beach days.
That means less stress
and more time enjoying your trip.
You can relax,
knowing guests are taken care of
and your place is in good hands.
You travel, your house works.
Everyone wins.
If you're ready to host
but could use some help,
find a co-host at Airbnb.com slash host.
Here's why savvy real estate investors
are obsessed with bonus depreciation.
It lets you take that rental property or commercial building you own and depreciate most of the cost against your income.
Legally, 100% IRS compliant.
That's instant cash flow improvement.
Cost segregation guys is the number one firm nationwide, specializing and identifying these faster depreciating assets in your property.
They've completed tens of thousands of studies across all 50 states from remote cabins to apartment complexes.
So if you own investment property, this is a no-referral.
brainer. So visit costsegregationguise.com slash BP for your free proposal and find out how much you
could save this tax season. Do you ever notice how every passive investment somehow turns into a very
active lifestyle, active spreadsheets, active phone calls, active stress? Here's a better question.
What if you could buy brand new construction homes, 10% below market value in the best markets
across the country, without making real estate your second job? That's exactly what rent to retirement
does. They're a full-service, turnkey investment company, handling everything for you. In some cases,
investors get 50 to 75% of their down payment back at closing, plus interest rates as low as 3.75%. They've partnered
with BiggerPockets for over a decade, helping thousands invest smarter. If you want to do the same,
visit BiggerPockets.com slash retirement to learn more. And now, I think it's time to get into the show.
Anything you guys want to add before we jump into the questions, like David said, it's the Q&A format show.
called in. We did a live recording on my Instagram on Instagram live. And that's where the callers
came from. But anything you guys want to add? Yeah, make sure everybody, you hop on iTunes,
you rate the show, and leave a comment and tell us how you like this format, because I
enjoy doing it, but we want to make sure you guys love it as well. Yeah. And make sure that you
are following at Beardy Brandon and at Bigger Pockets so that on Instagram so that you can be notified
when we're going to do these in the future. Yeah. And for good measure, follow David. You are David Green
24 on Instagram and
Jay you have a TikTok at
what's your TikTok
you guys should see David's
dances I mean Jay's dances it's pretty amazing
No no no no what's your Instagram
Jay Scott underscore
1, 2, 3 flip
All right there you go
I think if you bought real estate and TikTok
You might want to sell from what I hear from the news
That might be a bad area to be owning right now
Yeah very well might be
That's sad guys let's get over with our chit chat
And get on with the interview show
and with that, let's get to the first caller.
Our first guest, we're bringing in as Dusty.
What's up, man?
Welcome to the podcast.
Yeah, so thank you to all you guys for everything that you do.
I've consumed a bunch of content over the last six years
and finally started making some moves in the last like 18 months.
So finally a landlord, homeowner,
and working on a cool deal that I want to bounce off you guys.
So I live up in Lake Tahoe, like Inclined Village, Nevada.
and I'm working on a property. It's a mixed use. It has residential upstairs and commercial
downstairs. And downstairs is ideal for an office space or storage potentially. And I know that
the commercial space would probably bring in more revenue, but I'm worried about our world now
with where we're going if having a commercial space and office space is actually going to
be something that's a long-term good move or if I should just make it into like,
residential storage for the community itself and just kind of like have it be more passive in that way.
So love to hear about like if business going into like an actual like renting out an office is
a good move or not. That's a great question. Jay, you want to start us off? Yeah. So I guess the first thing
I would suggest is run your numbers with a worst case scenario. That worst case scenario being you buy it,
you get the residential portions rented out and the commercial portion sit completely empty.
Is that going to destroy you financially?
Is that going to turn this deal into something that you wouldn't even touch?
So at least that way you know what your worst case scenario is.
You know what your biggest downside is.
If you're willing to accept that risk, and again, that's your worst case risk.
It's probably not going to be that bad.
But if you're willing to accept that absolute worst case risk, well, then you say,
okay, this deal is worth doing.
How do I mitigate that risk?
Can I turn it into a different type of commercial?
And then you run the numbers with a different type of commercial other than office.
maybe it's retail, maybe it's storage, maybe it is light industrial, whatever, and what do the numbers look like there?
Then run the numbers with turning that into another residential unit or multiple residential units.
What do the numbers look like there? And that'll give you an idea of what the more likely scenario is.
And then you look at all those scenarios and you say, okay, I'm going to try and let the commercial scenario play out.
If it happens to work, great. But if it doesn't work, I go with one of the backup scenarios.
But you start with saying, what is the absolute worst case scenario?
And if this happens, am I willing to live with it?
Can I live with it?
Can I afford to live with it?
And if the answer is yes, then absolutely assume that it's not going to be that worst
case.
And then you move forward with whatever is going to generate the best income based on
what's going on in the world.
David, do you want anything that?
I would say in addition to Jay's advice, which was very sound.
And what I hope you guys noticed about what Jay said is we looked at this the same way
we would look at a different deal with multiple exit strategies. Well, you're going to go into flip it,
but if it doesn't work, can you burr? If you can't do that, can you regular buy and hold? Can you
Airbnb? You're looking at my plan and my backup plan and my backup plan. That is literally how
our brains process information. And that's why real estate is a form of business and this is a business
decision. I would add to it, in addition to what gets you the most income? Ask yourself,
what is going to be the most work? There's ways that you can earn income that are very involved.
the beginning, if you don't have a lot going on, don't seem bad. It might even seem fun. But as you
grow in your success, that work becomes less desirable. So some forms like self-storage may make
less money, but they may be less work on your behalf so you can make more money somewhere else.
Is there a return on effort? I know Jay, you're working on a book on metrics. Is that R-O-E? Is there a
thing, is there a thing? Because you're getting a 12% return, let's say, but it took you 100 hours
of work. That's like a really low R-O-E, right? Do we just, did I just make that up or is that a thing?
Well, ROE is return on equity, so let's be careful with that one.
REOF.
It's REOF.
RALF.
Well, I think a good investor is going to look at it as I'm not putting in any of my own effort.
I'm going to pay for that effort, and then that increases the cost, the upfront cost,
and then you look at your return metrics based on that increased cost of paying somebody to put that effort in for you.
It's really good.
But I'll tell you, if there isn't a metric for return on effort, it's just a technicality because every one of us thinks
about it. I mean, I think about that with everything there is, even getting up off the couch.
Is it worth getting up off the couch to go answer that door? Or is it no one important and I'm not
going to go? That's why ring doorbells are popular because they saved us the effort of getting
up to see who it is. So yes, you should always be thinking about that.
Yeah, I'm going to make it. We're going to make a t-shirt called what's the return on effort?
What's the R-Av? That's going to be our t-shirt. We're going to sell bigger pockets.com size
shirt. You can get it there.
But I would also say if you're considering a regular commercial use,
versus storage for the residents.
I would look at which direction is easier to go in.
If you start with storage and it doesn't work
and you want to actually turn it into something
that a company could rent,
that could be very expensive.
It'd probably be easier to start the other way.
Try to rent it out to someone who's going to run a business out of it.
And if that fails, then you could go back to storage.
And the last thing, I think this is a question
a lot of people have to ask in the commercial space in general
that the pandemic has kind of changed about real estate investing.
is companies like Amazon are definitely changing the way a lot of stuff is bought.
And so if you are going to be renting it out to a foot locker or some kind of store
where people can easily buy stuff online, I might skew away from those type of companies.
And I would skew more towards something where you have to go there to get that service,
such as a massage place or a restaurant, something where you have to go there to get that.
You can't order a hot meal off of Amazon.
Yeah, really good.
What do you think, Brendan?
I got nothing to add to what you guys said.
That's great.
All right, dude.
Well, thank you very much, Dusty, for coming on.
That was a perfect example of Brandon Turner showing return on effort.
He had Jay and I both talk.
And then he just said, yeah, what he said.
And now everybody's going to talk about what a great episode with Brandon Turner this was.
Great R. Oh, yeah.
All right.
Well, thank you, Dusty.
Now we're going to bring in.
Yeah, thank you.
Anise.
Welcome to the show.
Hi.
Thank you guys so much.
It's great to see you.
Yeah, thank you.
Thank you.
I'm going to try to make this as quick as possible.
My husband and I are chefs. The 16-hour days, we realize it's not going to be what we need.
And so we do not own anything yet. And we decided that since we've been out of work since March,
the best way to go about this is to get a financial partner. We're going to bring in the great team.
It's been highly researched and things like that. But we wanted to know what's a good deal
and how to address our partner. If they're putting in the finances, is their name on the house?
Do they take the money? I know, Brandon, you've done the 50-50. But if they don't want that,
How do we know it's a good deal?
And how do we know that it's not when discussing a partner?
Yeah, that's a great, great question.
So I'll address that from a couple, a couple of sides.
Then I'll let them go since I let them take the last one.
So my first thought is there's two types of partnerships, really.
I mean, there's probably lots, but there's debt partnerships and there's equity.
Most people when they think partnership, they think equity partnership, which would be like,
you know, we each have 50, 50 or 70, 30 or whatever.
There's also, you're just borrowing private money from somebody.
So true story, like, I borrowed money from Jay here before, like on a deal.
He was my private lender years ago.
Are we, am I still paying you?
I don't think so anymore.
I wish.
Yeah, okay.
You don't need my money anymore.
Unfortunately.
Yeah, so Jay was a debt partner to me at one point because I just paid them monthly.
So there's always that option.
I like to pursue that before I like going the equity option.
Though most people don't necessarily want to do that, especially if you're newer to real estate,
they want to be a 50-50 or whatever.
I like 50-50 generally because it just like, it's hard to argue against that.
Like, you could argue like, well, I do a little bit more work.
I'm going to be 60-40 or 70-40 or 70.
30. But it's really, it's, everyone's usually pretty good with, oh, yeah, I guess that makes
sense. We'll just split at 50.50. That said, I mean, you can kind of also look at a deal in like,
there's three things. There's the money. There's the hustle and there's the, you know, the deal or the
knowledge, like putting it all together. There's like a few different categories. So if you're doing
most of that, maybe you could take a little more of the equity. If all they're doing is bringing the
money, then maybe you could offer a little less. But I just like doing money 50%, everything else,
50% and if you're both putting money and then we can, you know, obviously have a discussion,
but what do you guys think? Well, Jay, what do you think? So, well, before we get into like the split
and stuff, there's some other things you want to think about when you're working with a partner.
And so here's a couple of the things. I always kind of run through a checklist in my head.
If I'm ever going to consider working with somebody, one, I like to work with people I've had
a history with because partnerships always seem great at the beginning. It's just like you're
going out on a first date with somebody. First date,
a lot of times are great, how many of those first dates end up being somebody you marry?
Generally, not too many because you start to find things after some period of time that you don't
really like. So working with somebody that you have a history with is always a better situation
than somebody that you're meeting for a first time. That said, sometimes you have to go with that
person you're just meeting because there's nobody else. Second thing I like to ask, do we agree on
the vision? Like, do we want to get to the same place? If you partner with somebody whose goal is to
flip 50 houses a year and you want to flip two houses.
houses a year, you're going to have a falling out at some point. If you're partnering with somebody
who wants to ultimately buy rentals, but you never want to buy rentals, that's not going to be good.
If you're partnering with somebody who's thinking about doing like quick flips in and out in a
couple of weeks, you're not going to get along well with somebody that's like wants to do ground-up
construction. So always make sure when you're working with somebody, you're thinking about where your
vision is, where you want to be at some point in the future. Next, think about who's going to be in
charge. So a lot of times, I have trouble working with people that want to micromanage me,
because I like to micromanage other people. So make sure you figure out early on who's in charge.
Another question I like to ask is, for every partnership, there are going to be situations where
you're going to sort of be that person's employee. They're going to be telling you what to do,
and you're going to have to listen. So you have to ask yourself, am I willing to work for that person?
If the answer is no, then it's probably not going to make a good partnership. Vice versa,
there are going to be plenty of times in that relationship where that person's basically working for you and doing what you say.
So would you want that person to work for you? So you kind of have to ask both those questions.
And then finally, you have to ask about skill set. When I have a partner, I don't want a partner that can bring the exact same things to the table as I can, because then we're going to have the same weaknesses.
We're going to fall down in the same places. So obviously you're looking for somebody with money.
But what other things can they bring to the table that you don't have? Between the two of you, do you have a good compliment?
of skills that make like a strong team.
So those are some of the questions I like to ask.
In terms of how you split it up, 50, 50, 60, 40,
I'm very much with Brandon.
Money is worth about 50%.
Everything else is worth about 50%.
So if that person's bringing all the money and you're doing everything else,
50-50 is great.
If you're both bringing some of the money and you're doing everything else,
well, you probably deserve a little bit more than 50-50.
But yeah, that's, I think Brandon hit everything there.
Yeah, I would add, you mentioned that you were a chef.
And here's something I would mention for everybody who's considering going in with a partner.
Like Brandon said, I think that's the most wise counsel we can give you is go in as a debt partner, not an equity partner.
Tell them, hey, I'll give you a return on this deal regardless of how it performs rather than I'll give you a percentage of the upside.
And oftentimes I'll hear people say, well, we're going to be partners and we're going to split up the work.
And that sounds as a theory like it's a good idea.
But imagine if someone said, hey, let's open a restaurant.
We'll go 50-50 on it and we'll work in the kitchen together.
We'll split up the work.
Now, you being a chef, can you imagine someone who doesn't know anything about how to cook
and they're not getting in a kitchen?
Would that save you 50% of the time or would that cause you twice as much work
as you have to go now fix all the mistakes that they just made?
Like, you're smiling so you know where I'm going with this.
Be careful that you don't fall into the theoretical trap of thinking,
oh, we're going to split it up and that person doesn't know what they're doing.
They're not experienced.
Like Jay said, you haven't dated them very long.
You don't know what they're really like.
And now you're in as an equity partner with a person that's screwing up your kitchen
and you would pay money to get out of that deal with that person.
And that's what we want to see you avoid getting into that position.
Awesome.
Thank you guys so much.
Yeah, thank you.
Hey, as you take off, I'm going to throw in one more thing.
I was talking my brother there a day about this, the partnership idea.
And I think one of the biggest mistakes people make with partnerships is partnering
too soon.
Now what I mean by that is I think what people do is they go into a partnership like, hey, let's go build an empire together.
What I think people should do is let's go do a deal together because you never know how you're going to be until you're working with them.
So start with let's do a deal, start with another deal.
You know, start small.
And after two, three, four, five deals, maybe then you can say, okay, let's create a business and LLC.
Let's go into this together.
But way too many people, myself included, have been like, oh, let's do this.
And then within like a day, you're like, oh, no, what have I done?
And then it's really hard to back out.
It's really awkward and uncomfortable.
So, yeah, I would start small and go from there.
All right, next, bringing in Corey.
Corey, welcome to the show, man.
How you doing?
Good, guys.
How are you?
Well, good, good.
What can you help you with?
Real quick.
So I flipped my first house at 19.
I've been flipping since then.
I just turned 24, actually last week.
And I have an opportunity to move across country
and pretty much mentor with much older developers.
and he's starting kind of like a wholesale division of his business.
So number one, is that something that you would suggest or do you think it's kind of like
is the grass greener kind of thing?
But it's also, you know, is there, how do I transition from the flip side to the wholesale
side?
Yeah.
So when you say wholesale, just so everyone's on the same page, you're talking about finding
deals and then just assigning the contract or something over to another person who's actually
going to flip them, right?
Correct.
All right.
Yeah.
So, Jay, why don't you take this one?
I feel that's a good one for you.
How do you, like should he do that?
And what's your opinion on the best way to do that?
Yeah.
So again, like we were saying with the last question is always start at the end.
So what is your goal?
It sounds like you want to go from flipping to wholesaling.
One, I mean, is that something you've decided for some reason?
Well, let me ask you.
So why do you want to move from flipping to wholesaling?
quicker money less risk and then using that money to purchase cash flow.
Okay. So next question is what about wholesaling do you think you can't do right now, given your
flipping experience? What additional help do you need? Because a lot of people look at wholesaling
as wholesaling is not necessarily an easier form of flipping, but a lot of the same things you do in
flipping you do in wholesaling, except you're removing the renovation.
piece. So what exactly do you need to learn or what experience do you think you need to kind of make
strides to become to transition from flipping to wholesaling? I think definitely the plus side of
working with this older developer and mentor would be, you know, his connections and definitely
just be able to learn from somebody who's where I want to be. Okay. I look at this like a job offer.
So you, for a lot of us, if we want to get to the next phase,
of where we want to be, we can't always do that just purely as an entrepreneur. We can't necessarily,
in the most efficient manner, teach ourselves and learn on our own. Sometimes it's important to find
other people that can mentor us or to take a job with somebody that can teach us. So I see nothing
wrong with it. If you vetted this person well, if this person is a good match for you both personally
and professionally, if he's offering you something that you think is going to provide you what you
need. If the big question is, should you be moving across the country for it? I see nothing wrong
with that. A lot of times we need to take chances. We need to do big things. I would just make sure you ask
the right questions up front. Is he the right person to do it? Are you going to get out of it exactly
what you're looking to get out of it? Just make sure you're not jumping into it because you don't know
what else to do. Think through it, but if it kind of checks all the boxes, yeah, absolutely. It sounds like
it could be a great opportunity. Yeah, I'll just add that. I like the idea of going to either mentor,
work underneath or just learn from somebody else who's more experienced. I've always thought that
was a solid way to get going. David, you want to finalize any thoughts there? Yeah, the only thing,
my brain always goes to how do I do both. Can I work my flipping business and then go work for
this person and maybe make less money flipping, but give away a chunk of the profit to somebody else.
So I don't know if that's possible for you, but I would definitely look at is there a partner
or someone else that can manage your flipping stuff while you learn the new skill? And if
wholesaling becomes more profitable when the flipping, then you jump in with that.
both feet.
Awesome.
All right, man.
Thanks so much, Corey.
Cool.
Thank you guys.
All right.
Next, we're going to bring in Roberta.
Roberta, welcome to the show.
Am I saying your name correctly?
Yes.
I'm a complete newbie.
Stay-home mom,
homeschooling.
And my husband and I just found out about,
you know, the rental properties.
He has a really good job,
but we have some credit issues.
We just found that.
out. There's some things that we wanted to dispute. And so just being new to this,
we're like, do we hire somebody to help us fix our credit or to dispute these things? And also,
we inherited his dad's home. And it's still going through probate, but it has a lot of equity in it.
So we're looking to probably like six to seven months to be able to take out of refi. We live in
California, so the homes are really expensive here. So our plan is to probably six to seven months
start turning that equity into rental properties and probably investing out of state because not in
California. Sure. That makes sense. I'll just on a couple of quick thoughts. First of all, with the
first question about the credit stuff, I'm not a credit expert. I'll say that I know there's a lot of
scams out there. And my personal belief is that most people could pick up a book at a library on
credit repair and probably do everything that a credit repair special is going to do. I'd be curious
actually Jay and David, if you agree with that. Because I'm pretty new to that stuff. But my assumption is
there's not that much out. It's not like a super, super complicated thing, but picking up a book or two
from a library would probably get you 90% of the way there. What do you think, Jay? What do you know about
credit repair? Yeah, so I'm not even sure if you need to pick up a book at the library. There is so much,
I mean, we got the internet now. And there's so many good resources out there. And I agree with
Brandon that most, if not everything that needs to be done or can be done to improve your credit,
you can do yourself as opposed to paying somebody. Sure, it involves maybe you writing some letters on your own,
you're making some phone calls on your own, but at least that way you're controlling the process.
You're not trusting somebody else. You're not paying somebody else a lot of money.
So, yeah, I would hop on Google and just do a search for how do I fix my credit?
And if you get stuck, if you get to a point where there's something you can't do, I'd be surprised if that happens.
But if you do, then consider go hiring somebody, but I'd be willing to bet you can do it all yourself.
Yeah. And then as for the second question is, you know, you got some equity.
you're a lot of equity in this property in California.
I'm going to let David tackle that one.
What's the best way to kind of go about that?
What should be their next steps, David?
Well, you've got a couple options.
The obvious one would be an equity line of credit,
but you're probably going to have a hard time getting one of those right now
because with the shelter in place in the pandemic,
we're seeing a lot of banks that took those products off the table.
Something that I would recommend that a lot of people might not think about
would be actually selling the house you're in now,
moving the equity into something that you can house hack
to reduce your monthly payment and keeping a lot of the money set aside on the next house.
So interest rates are really, really low.
A lot of people I'm seeing are refinancing, we're doing them in like 2.75, 2.875%.
So let's say that you sell your house, you have a couple hundred thousand.
You buy the next one, but you don't put it all down.
You buy the next house hack and you keep a lot of the money set aside.
You only go put 5% down on the next house.
Now you kept all that money, but your payments didn't go up that much because interest rates
are really low. And then when you consider that now you're getting income from the additional
property that offsets the slightly higher mortgage, you're actually coming out net positive.
So you've got yourself a house act that could eventually become a rental in California.
You got your equity out of your house. And now you can take that and start investing with
a little bit more aggressiveness at a state because your own expenses are lower after the house
hack so you can roll the dice a little bit more with that income.
Thank you so much for all your input. Like I've been watching you guys like staying up all night.
watching Bigger Pocket podcast.
And I've learned so much in two weeks,
and I'm really grateful you took my Zoom call.
Thank you.
Thank you.
All right.
So next,
we're going to bring in Jordan Morhead.
Jordan,
what's up, man?
We've been like Facebook friends
and Instagram friends forever,
but I've never actually spoken to you online like this.
So what's up?
Welcome to the show.
Thanks.
How's it going, guys?
Jordan, I just talked about you in the last webinar I did for Bigger Pockets.
We had one of your testimonials in there.
as a preview member.
Thanks to meet you too.
It's funny.
And I'm right with them.
Like you and I have been like corresponding for years now and yet we've never actually
chatted.
You little creeper.
You've crept your way right into the podcast.
Good job.
Absolutely.
What I do.
That's awesome.
What can help you with?
So I've got a pretty, pretty simple question.
I don't know.
I have a house in Austin, Texas that I bought in 2018,
remodeled it.
It's got about 200,000 in equity in it.
It's having some issues because when I,
I bought it, I didn't realize that the ADU doesn't quite have a real foundation, but it's working.
It's a great cash flowing rental right now.
I'm struggling with, do I sell it and pull that equity out?
And as an agent, I have to disclose everything.
Or do I hold onto it and just keep fixing the subfloor every couple of years?
That's a good question.
Any idea what a new foundation is going to cost to put under that thing?
You can't put a new foundation in without tearing down the house.
figure that out the hard way.
All right.
I can probably start with this one.
Okay, okay, go ahead.
So how much is a new subfloor every couple years?
Only like two grand.
It's not bad.
And that's every two years or so?
About it.
Well, I've only owned it for two, but that's what I've had to do.
So you've got to assume $1,000 a year to put new subfloor in as like a capax.
Did your numbers still work with that?
Oh, yeah.
No, it works pretty well.
It's not making great cash on cash if you factor in the equity,
So the return on equity is low, but your return on initial investment was good, right?
Yeah, it's great.
Return on initial.
So I would be leaning towards selling it.
Here's why.
If you can put your equity to work for you somewhere else, I would definitely be looking to do that.
That foundation problem is a problem.
It is less of a problem in a hot market where someone just wants a house and they're willing to take that problem on because they can't get anything.
And Austin's very hot.
If you don't sell now and you roll the dice and it turns out that five years later,
Austin's not selling like hotcakes.
Now it's almost impossible to unload that thing
because they're going to want a huge discount.
So just with the state of how the market is,
this is the good time to sell,
for lack of a better phrase, problem properties,
because there's so much demand,
people are going to buy them.
So I would get out of that one.
I'd put my money into something
that's not a problem property
that can hold for a long time
and not have to worry about getting a low return on equity.
Yeah, no, I think that's a great idea.
Yeah, I agree with David.
I've been saying for a few months,
now that I think at some point when the government stimulus runs out and things catch up with us,
we're going to see a softening in the market.
And one of the strategies I've been telling people for the last few months is now is a great
time to sell off anything you don't want to hold for the next five or 10 years.
If you have the opportunity to sell this and capture that equity and still make a profit,
I definitely agree with David.
Okay. Thanks, guys. I appreciate it.
Absolutely.
All right, very cool.
All right. Next, we're going to bring in, it was like Justin.
Justin, welcome to the show. Can we help you with?
Okay, so I have 18 years while 19 ones on the market,
and I'm looking to get into the apartment. So, I mean, do you think at a time like this,
it's a good time to look for something like that, four or five homes,
put four or five homes on the market and shoot for an apartment complex?
Yeah, good question. So you basically, you've got 18, 19 units now, or 19,
you've got one you're selling. Should you sell a few of them, take the cash,
and go dump it into some larger apartments.
That's kind of the gist of that.
Correct.
Or more.
I mean, I don't have to hold on to all of them,
but just something I would like to get into is the apartment complex.
Sure.
Yeah, Jay, what do you think?
You want to start that one?
Yeah, so I would start with,
you want to get into apartment complexes
just because you think it's fun
because you think it's more profitable
than those 18 or 19 units and single family.
You're looking to make things simpler
by having everything under one.
On roof, what's your thought there?
One roof.
The biggest thing is one roof, one area.
I have them spread out between two towns, basically.
And, I mean, it's not a bad drive.
It's about 30-minute drive from Georgetown to Belton-Tinthiple area.
But, yeah, just under one roof, preferably.
And I just refinanced all of them.
So, famous went from $6,000 down to about $4,500.
But, I mean, just, I guess, your opinion.
Yeah, so, well, you're playing real-life monotone.
and you've got all these houses and you're trying to trade up to, well, not quite a hotel,
but a multifamily. So I obviously, I think that's a great strategy. My biggest concern is you're
selling off everything. You're going to pay a lot of taxes and then you're going to take that
money and you're going to roll it back into more real estate. And so basically you're going to end up
with the same thing you had in a different format, but you've already paid some taxes. So I would look
into being able to do what about this? I mean, the 1031 exchange. Yep. That,
That's exactly what I was going to say.
So if I were you, I would definitely, I see nothing wrong with training up single family
homes into a multifamily.
I think it's great.
You get the economies of scale.
You may get better cash flow depending on the area and the class of property.
But for me, again, just I wouldn't want to pay those taxes.
So yeah, if you can do a 1031 exchange and move your money from the single family or the
multifamily, I think that's a great strategy.
Yeah, keep in mind the 1031 is awesome, but it also gives you that really tight timetable.
And multifamilies are incredibly competitive right now.
And so, find the deal first.
Find the deal first.
Yeah, exactly.
I would see if you can do that.
And then, because you'll sell your houses and your small stuff really easily.
So I would go and focus on that apartment and then don't sell the properties until you have the apartment.
Because otherwise you might be stuck trying to buy, you know, I mean, I did that.
I sold a property that was cash flow in really well.
And I bought another one because I had a hard to hurry.
And actually my cash flow dropped significantly by doing that.
And I should have just never sold the, I mean, I'm glad I did because I got some other benefits out of it.
But that timetable kind of forced me to buy a worse property.
than the one I was selling.
That's another thing I thought about, too, is hold on to the property's cash out refinancing six
months to a year.
I mean, that's something, also another option as well.
But then the cash flow is a lot less.
And when you can get 100% out of the money that's in the house and go and put it into something
else, I think that's a little bit more valuable for me as far as cash flow.
Yeah, and that's something that's going to be personal to everybody.
Some people like to have a lot of equity in their houses.
and they want higher cash flow.
Other people are thrilled to be able to use debt as much as possible,
leverage as much as possible.
They're happy with lower cash flow for a few years.
But obviously, that's higher risk.
It's a longer-term strategy.
So they're pros and cons of using a lot of leverage,
and that's something that's very much a personal decision
and what's going to help you sleep better at night.
Right.
Okay.
Awesome.
I appreciate it.
Yep.
Thank you.
All right.
Next, we're going to bring in, it looks like Ricky.
Ricky, welcome to the Bigger Pockets podcast.
man, good to have you here.
Hey, what's up, everyone?
I'm sorry for that audio, but I'm...
No, it's good.
Let's go.
How you guys on?
You know what?
I'm in Hawaii.
It's sunny.
It's not too bad.
You know, I'll survive somehow.
I'm coming to San Francisco.
And my question is,
so I'm looking to start burying into the Houston market.
And I think my only option is to use a hard money on.
And as you know, hard money, it's expensive, right?
So I guess when using a hard money,
should you be all in that?
65%. And then that way that extra 10% could pay out the hard money interest, just the like the
origination fee and all. My question is, what strategies would you use when using hard money?
You want it to, you know, use it for the purchase price plus the rehab as well.
Yeah. Let's have the guy who wrote the bur book, David Green here, answer that one. What do you think,
David? Are we talking about buying buy and hold rentals in Houston?
Burr. Burr in Houston. Okay. But we're going to, so we are going to be.
keeping them. If you're going to use hard money, you've got to be fast. That's what I would say.
And a lot of lenders are going to make you wait six months before you can do a refi if you want
to get into a Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac product. So like we told the last person, you need to find
the next apartment before you put your houses on the market, do the hard part first.
I would go look for a portfolio lender first. Find someone that will let you refi quicker
if that's the road you're going to take before you start the process of finding the deal
and then using hard money.
I don't think hard money is expensive per se, relatively speaking.
This is the cheapest we've ever seen it.
It's expensive compared to a regular loan.
So if there's no way around this and you're going to wait six months,
you might be better off to just use standard financing,
keep your closing costs low.
Like a lot of the time, if you go to a mortgage broker,
you can actually have a higher interest rate
but get a lender credit back to cover your closing cost.
That's what I would recommend doing.
max that rate up as high as it goes, which is really not that high when rates are this low.
You're only going to have it for six months.
Keep your closing costs low.
Then refinance into the lower rate with the higher closing costs to get the better deal for you once the burst completed.
I mean, Jake, it's just straightforward.
Thank you guys for having me on the podcast.
Yeah, thank you, Ricky.
Appreciate it.
All right.
Next, Luke Nelson.
Welcome to the show, Mr. Luke Nelson.
How you doing?
Hey there.
How are you guys doing?
You know, not too, not too shabby.
What can we help you with?
Thanks.
So I actually hear I work right now.
So I am 19 years old as of tomorrow.
And I'm looking to get into our first.
Thank you.
Single family or multifamily with an FHA loan.
And I wanted to kind of ask single family and multifamily on that part.
And I have a couple other questions after that.
Yeah.
So you want to house hack it, right?
You want to live in one unit and rent out the others.
Yeah, house hack or kind of mix it with a burr.
Sure.
Yeah.
Okay.
So first of all, I love the strategy.
I love, obviously, David talks a lot about the house hacking stuff.
he's really into it as well.
What market are you in?
So I'm in the Denver area, but I'll be living in Boulder for school.
So I might be looking at a college town.
Okay.
Yeah.
So Denver, Boulder, I mean, it's one of those cities like Austin, like San Francisco.
It's just super expensive.
There's not a ton of multifamilies there, but there are some.
So my guess is you're going to have a whole lot more options in the buy a house, rent out the bedroom type of house hacking than you are on the buy a duplex triplex.
It's not impossible to find the duplex triplex.
But what I found in those big expensive markets is those duplex triplex triplex.
taxes go really, really high and really expensive.
And so I think you may, what I really like is the ADU, the idea of like find the house with
the mother-in-law or with the attic or with the basement where it's still a single-family house,
but it's kind of like also can be kind of a multifamily.
I like those ones.
You have to be careful the zoning issues there.
You don't want to get in trouble with that.
But David, what do you think?
100% what Brandon said.
You're looking for multifamily principles, but not necessarily a multifamily property because
other people are going to be just descending on those things like local.
during a plague, man, it's so hard getting multifamily properties in some of these cities.
The other thing I'd say is you don't have to burr if you're only putting three and a half percent
down. The whole point of burr is to add value to get your capital out. Well, if you're not putting
capital in, you don't have to worry about that whole component of it. If you're going in,
putting three and a half percent down, five percent down, buy a place that is going to be in
high demand where students are going to want to live, look for as much square footage as you
can possibly get, put bunk beds in those rooms and rent them out to the other college
students have their parents put their name on the lease, not the students themselves so that they
are paying you. And you are going to walk out of this thing like an Elon Musk entrepreneur-style
person leaving college with your school paid for and money saved up. And you could literally
buy one of these things every single year you're in college as long as you can save up another
three and a half to five percent. Hey, we had an episode come out last week at the week before
with Todd Baldwin, I think it was the name, right? That's what his strategy was basically
in Seattle was buy the big house, rent out by the bedrooms, essentially a house hack it that way.
So, yeah, make sure you guys, you know, you, you know, Luke as well as everyone else, listen to
that episode. It was phenomenal. And I think that strategy works in markets like yours really well.
And I have nothing to add except Luke, congratulations on being 19 years old and taking action.
That's awesome. Yeah. Thank you. One last question if you guys have a second.
So I also have a car. I might be looking to sell soon. Do you think it'd be a wise idea that
it's a classic car, not exactly the most daliable vehicle? You think I should look at it?
have maybe selling it to get into these properties and then eventually also at the same time get into a
more reliable daily car. That's a good question. Jay, what do you think? I'm a big fan again. I said it a little
bit earlier that right now any assets, just because I think the market is going to see a softening,
in general, the equities markets. And so any asset that you're not, you don't want to hold for the
next five or 10 or 15 years, now's a good time to sell it. If this is a car that like you want to pass
down to your kids in 20 years, by all means, just hold on to it. But if it's like, you don't want to
Like, I'm going to sell it now or I'm going to sell it in a few years.
I think now is a good time, especially if you have a good use for that money and you're going to put that money to work to generate cash flow for you.
And then use that cash flow to buy that car back five years down the road.
There you go.
Love it.
Yeah.
Thank you, Luke.
Yeah, thank you, Luke.
All right, next, let's bring in, I think it's Dee Hartley.
Am I saying that correctly, Dee Hartley?
Yeah, it's Dorian.
Like Dorian, great.
Dorian.
What's up, Dorian?
Welcome to the show.
Good.
Thanks.
Thanks.
Big fan guy.
I've been listening to, uh,
you guys for a while now. So it's cool. I guess my big question is I'm fairly new to investing.
I've got six properties now. So I'm now kind of like in that middle zone where like I've started
the ball rolling. Yeah. Still do a lot more. But my question is at this point, I don't know,
I've kind of just been finding good deals. So like my first house I bought was a home. I turned the
basement into a rental. And then, you know, me and my wife got a second home. We were able to get a
couple of vendor take back mortgages. So I've just been taking deals that have come to me.
Like, oh, this is a good deal. So whether it be a burr or a cash flow or a buy and hold,
I've just been taking good deals, do you guys think I should continue on that path and just
keep taking good deals? Or do you think I should niche down and really find a strategy and stick to
like, you know what, I want to do long-term buy and holds or I want to do just burr, I want to do just
flips. I'm kind of caught in that like, do I focus down or do I just keep taking good deals.
Yeah, that's a really good question. Jay, what do you think? We'll start with you.
So, David made a comment earlier about embrace the end. Like, you can do more than one thing at a time.
And this is one of those situations where I say you need to be doing both things. One,
figure out what your goals are, figure out what your long-term strategy is, figure out what your niche is,
whether it's flipping, whether it's wholesaling, whether it's rentals, with multifan, whatever it is.
Figure that out and then go after those deals, really try and acclaim that market and,
build an expertise and hit your long-term goals, whatever they are.
But at the same exact time, don't pass up great deals.
And there are so many people out there that are saying, I can't find anything now.
And you're sitting here saying, yeah, I'm just finding good deals.
Great.
Keep finding those deals.
Bring in a partner that you can offload those deals to wholesale those deals.
Don't ignore them necessarily unless you find that to niche down, you really need to focus
100% of your time.
Nothing wrong with that either.
Nothing wrong with giving 100% to something.
but yeah, do both things.
Figure out what the long-term strategy is,
start to focus on it so that in five or ten years
you're actually achieving what you want to achieve
instead of just kind of going along with the tide.
But at the same time,
don't pass up good deals if you have the bandwidth.
Yeah, okay, cool.
Yeah, I would just add, like,
I think you need to be very clear and specific
when it comes to like what you're going after
and marketing and stuff.
But if the good deals come across your play,
you don't necessarily at your level don't need to say no.
But like, if you're just,
like, well, I'll buy anything, then chances are.
Anybody who says that isn't doing anything for marketing,
they're not finding deals because they haven't defined what they wanted.
But if I said, like, for example, I buy mobile home parks.
Everybody knows that's what I do.
But I'm also like a guy brought a flip deal to me here on Maui.
Of course, I'm going to do it because they just brought it to me.
Now, I don't do a whole lot of work to go find those deals, but they come, so I'll do them.
The biggest mistake I see new investors making, newbies making is they just say,
I want everything and so they don't actually do anything.
Right.
But you're past that stage now.
You're good enough that you could probably tackle a couple things.
Yeah, so it's more about my time.
Focus my time on a specific thing,
but I'm not going to say no if a deal comes along.
Yeah, bro, get yourself a mentee, someone really smart
that knows, like, that picks things up quick.
And when those deals come your way,
paint a path for how to acquire the deal and exit the deal,
let that person put their time into it.
And you just work on filling up that funnel.
Hey, Doreen, what market are you in?
I'm in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, just two hours from Toronto.
All right, well, if anybody's up in that market at all,
what's your Instagram?
It's Dee Hartley 77.
So yeah, link up with me.
I'd love to meet up and chat and talk to all you guys.
And thanks for having me.
Awesome, man.
You play in matchmaker, Brandon.
Always one step ahead.
Nice.
All right.
Well, thank you, Dorian.
All right, next up, we got Shane.
Shane, welcome to the podcast, man.
Good to have you here.
Hey, how's it going, guys?
So my situation is kind of interesting.
So I close on my first house hack to rental property in February.
and then shortly after, of course, everything hit the fan.
So now I'm kind of in a position.
It's kind of been answered already.
Jay, I know you said that there's an asset you can capitalize on.
So I'm in a position where I could rent out my property when I leave
because I got a job offer in a different state and make about $100 a month on it
after, you know, Kappex and all those things.
Or I could sell it for a small amount of profit and take out a good chunk of equity
and reinvest.
I've done some research and Ken McElroy is predicting a big downturn.
Jay, I know you said there's going to be a soft thing in the market.
So would you guys recommend pulling out that equity at this point or holding it long term?
Yeah.
So I'll take this one.
One, yeah, I'm friends with Ken and I see a lot of things the same way on what we think's going to happen in the market.
So yeah.
But to get to your question, I invest a lot in military towns, small military towns.
And the number of properties I buy from one demographic of seller is crazy.
And that demographic of seller is guys who have gone into the military.
They get stationed in one place and they move to another, move to another, move to another,
and each place they get stationed, they buy a house.
The kind of the general theory there is fantastic.
You kind of build up your portfolio, buying one house here, you move to a next place,
you buy another house.
But the reality of that is it's really difficult to manage a one-off property in multiple locations
because you have to find a good property manager.
If there's an issue, you have to fly back for one property.
You have to find contractors for one property.
It's really, really difficult.
So what I generally tell people is if you're going to invest long distance, invest someplace
where you can build up a portfolio.
Don't go someplace and say, oh, there's an opportunity in Denver.
I'm going to buy that house.
Oh, there's an opportunity in some city in Ohio.
I'm going to buy that one-off's a really difficult.
So if you're moving and you're not planning to build a portfolio in that area,
I think now is a great time to sell that property and then start investing somewhere that
you're going to be living or somewhere that you're willing to invest to build a larger
portfolio.
Yeah, totally.
And I think for me, I wasn't planning on leaving and then I got an opportunity that's
pretty hard to pass up.
So the plan wasn't to have that one off, but I think that's a really good note and I appreciate it.
Absolutely.
Thank you, guys.
As a general rule, I'll say this before you go, for people that are asking the question,
should I hold or should I sell and wait? That's really tough. It's a hard extreme on either
end and you leave a lot on the table because you don't know what's going to happen.
So I prefer to get out of that binary thinking and think, should I reposition or should I hold?
If you're going to sell it, where would you put that money? And like Jay said, you're putting it
in a smarter place. So if there is a recession, you're good because you're in a military town.
But you also didn't put all your capital aside.
And then if prices don't go down,
now you've got to reenter at a higher price point and you're worse off.
Right.
All right.
Well, thank you guys.
I appreciate your time.
Thank you.
All right.
Next, we're bringing in Liora.
Am I saying you name correctly, Leora?
Yeah, you're saying it right.
All right.
All right.
Good deal.
Welcome to the show.
How can we help you?
Thank you very much.
Okay.
So mine,
my question is pretty similar to the kid just right before.
I'm in Minneapolis.
My hometown, sort of.
Yep, stuff got really real here. My neighborhood burnt down, but I just bought a multifamily property,
and it's turning out to be a house of horrors. Everywhere I look, there is a new problem,
and I know that's totally going to happen, but it's becoming to be very unmanageable.
Of course, I also bought in February, and I lost my job two weeks later, and I've been permanently
laid off. And so I guess I'm just, I'm trying to figure out where to go from here. My partner wants
to buy, you know, we're not married. We want to buy in Allentown. Now I don't even want a yard. I just
want to turnkey, ugly house that needs paint. But I'm kind of just trying to get some guidance on where
to go from here. I did, I redid all the plumbing. I'm starting to do the time lapse videos.
I'm getting people to, you know, a lot of people to chat with about kind of, yeah, I mean, I just
redid all the plumbing myself. I'm refinishing all the plumbing myself. I'm refinishing all the plumbing.
the floors myself. I'm redoing everything. But should I basically buy, you know, should I,
should I sell it? Should I hold it? So it's really, you know, it's just a big, it's a big question,
I guess. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so like what do you do in a situation? I think that's a really good
question because this happens to people. Like I wouldn't say everybody gets in real estate has a bad
experience, but a lot of people, let's call it, you know, 20% have a really bad first deal.
Something just goes wrong, whether they didn't know it right, they didn't do something correctly,
whether the market burned down, like, I mean, just like literally in the area.
Like, how do you handle that?
I guess my one thought is this.
My one thought is this.
It doesn't matter, first of all.
I'll say that.
And I don't mean that make, make like light of the situation.
What I mean is 10 years down the road, when you want 100 units and you're bringing in 30 grand
a month in cash flow and you're living on, you know, in your dream location, who cares
that first deal whether you kept it or didn't keep it.
Right.
So the only goal of the first deal is to get to the next deal.
So if you go ahead and sell it, great.
Don't feel like you have to keep it because you did that first deal.
It's your first deal and there's a motion there.
Like, sell it.
Move on to the next one.
That's fine.
If you can get your money out,
or even if you lose money,
if it makes you feel better,
sell it.
If you want to keep it,
do you want to just put your head down and say,
you know what?
Like even a money pit has a bottom.
Every pit has a bottom.
You will get to it eventually.
So you could just keep just,
I've been in money pits before.
I just keep digging.
You'll keep going down until eventually I reach it.
And then we come out of it.
And when I look 10 years later,
those money pits are now making me thousands of dollars a month in cash flow.
And I'm like,
wow,
I'm glad I kept that thing.
So as long as I can get it rented, I'm into it, but it's just, it's insane, like, the amount of work.
So I guess I'm just going to keep checking along and try to buy it.
I'm going to go, you know what, honestly, I'm going to go with a single family for now and rent by the room, kind of like the leap.
I want to do it to, like, a lot of airline folks.
So I'm just going to try to take that route from here on out because I know I'm going to be doing a lot of work myself.
So, but thank you guys for everything.
I listen to all the, all the episodes.
So I'll see you guys.
If we ever get to have another conference, I will see you there.
I saw you in Nashville.
That's awesome.
Sending love from Minneapolis.
Thank you.
Stay out of my family.
Say out of my mom.
All right.
I will.
Party on.
All right.
Thank you.
All right.
Next, let's go to May.
May.
Welcome to the podcast.
Oh, hey.
Oh, my goodness.
This is exciting for me.
Okay.
So thank you guys so much for doing this.
This is like a huge resource for a lot of people.
I know we're all super jazz to be here.
So a little bit about me.
I live in the Bay Area.
I invest out of state, obviously, because there's not a lot of cash flow,
and that's my business model for me and my husband.
That's what we go for, right, over equity.
And so right now we have one rental property out of state,
and we're looking at another one and we want to invest with family.
But my husband wants to, and I kind of don't think that's necessarily a good idea.
So I wanted to see what you guys thought about.
I guess why I don't want to is we've done a lot of research and they have it necessarily.
So I don't feel like I always see the vision.
Yeah.
Or like why do that over buy more Tesla stock?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I generally say don't invest with family and then I invest in family with family.
So it's one of those like I've invested with my in-laws and I've been with my parents.
I invested with like other family members I've been involved.
And so like I, it,
makes, it's like, I do it, but it's just, it's so dangerous because if you like your family,
it makes Thanksgiving dinner very awkward when things go wrong. And so, uh, I don't like it for that
reason. That said, the reason I have violated my own rule and done it is because we've had a lot
of conversation with both sides, both parents on both sides on expectations, what to expect,
what not to expect. And my parents and the and in-laws trust me implicitly. And I know if something
went wrong, they would trust me through that as well. And so we've kind of worked through those
But Jay, what do you think?
Family?
I'm right with Brandon.
I don't like doing it.
I have done it.
It's one of those.
Well, let me ask you a question.
Are you investing with family because it's a win-win for both sides or because you're
doing it because you feel obligated because they've asked you to or they feel obligated
because you've asked them to.
What's the goal?
And then what is the relationship going to look like?
Is it an equity investment?
Is it debt?
Is it 50-50?
So what's a little bit more information?
there. Yeah, so I think my husband approached them about investing. So I guess it's like from that
point of view. So like we kind of need them. We need their equity. And my father-in-law has been trying
to through like all these hoops and whatever invest with his retirement. And like that makes me feel
uncomfortable. Right. Because it's not just like extra, you know, stuff. It's like either this works or
we lose you money. I don't know. Okay. So, so here's something to think about. I apologize for cutting you off.
here's something to think about. Would you be willing to, or would they be willing to invest with debt,
meaning they make a loan to you and you pay them 6%, 8%, 10% interest? That way, you're on the hook to
pay them back whether your investment makes money or loses money. So they won't necessarily lose money.
But at the same time, they have some upside. So basically all the risk is on you, they're not making
as much money, but they're still making money in their IRA. Because I do a lot of that out of my IRA. I'll lend money.
I don't take the risk because it's not an equity investment.
I'm not a partner.
And the person, whether they make money or lose money,
they're going to pay me back the interest on my loan either way.
So that's kind of a win-win.
You're taking the risk.
They're making money.
They're just not making as much, but they're not taking any risk.
Okay.
Sorry.
I apologize for my children.
I'm a stay-at-home.
That's okay.
But yeah, no, that's an interesting, right?
Like, I guess I would feel more comfortable, right?
If I take on all the risk, all the responsibility.
I've also done all the research.
Let me ask you a couple of questions, may?
Are you paying rent right now?
I own my home.
Well, I guess the bank owns my home and I house hack.
And can I ask what your mortgages?
It really bad.
Oh, wait, you said you're your house hacking already.
That's what I was going to say is what if you borrowed the money to buy a primary
residence where you were the tenant and you use that money to house hack and turn the house
you're in right now into a rental rather than going and buying one out of state where
you're not the tenant.
It's a new market.
You don't know.
They have to put all this trust into someone that like a system they're not familiar
with, whereas if you just do it local, and now they're investing in you as opposed to investing
in a deal they don't understand. It might be, if you really want to take on partners, I would probably
look at it from that angle. Okay. So I do need to add one more thing. If you're,
is it your parents or your in-laws? It's my in-laws, right? It's not my parents. Okay. So either way,
if your husband is part of this investment, there are law, not laws, there are rules regarding how
IRA investments can be used. One of the things that you, they,
they can't do is they can invest that money with a close family member. And I believe son or daughter is
disqualifying. So make sure you talk to a good, what's called ERISA, so retirement fund,
accountant or attorney before you go down this path, because it's very possible that you could be
running into some violations of ERISA laws if you have a close family member that invest with you
out of their IRA.
Okay.
I think we've overcome,
we have an LLC,
so I think that overcomes it,
but that is good for me to check,
double check.
That protects you.
It doesn't protect your in-laws
who are lending out of their IRA.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
Thank you.
I appreciate it.
No problem.
And I'm not an accountant.
I'm not an attorney,
but I have done a lot of lending
out of my IRA.
And I know I wanted to lend to my brother
before I wasn't able to,
and I know that they may be able to,
you can't do some research,
make absolutely certain.
Okay, perfect. Thank you guys so much.
Thanks, Mae.
Yeah, good deal.
No problem.
Thank you, May.
Did you know your house gets bored when you leave?
I can't actually prove that, but it probably misses out on the action, the footsteps, the late
night fridge raids.
Yeah, when you're gone, your place is basically on unpaid leave.
It's sitting there in the dark thinking, I could be contributing right now.
Your side room wants a side hustle.
Even your Wi-Fi is like, we could be next.
networking. You're on vacation, spending money like it's a sport while your staircase at home
is fully capable of sending your income upwards. Here's the twist. You can go on a trip and actually
earn money. Airbnb makes that possible with the co-host network. If you're away for a while
or have a secondary property, you can hire a vetted local co-host with real hosting experience
to handle it all. A co-host can handle guest communications. It can manage reservations and
keep things running smoothly so you don't have to check your phone between beach days. That means
less stress and more time enjoying your trip. You can relax, knowing guests are taking care of and
your place is in good hands. You travel, your house works. Everyone wins. If you're ready to host,
but could use some help, find a co-host at Airbnb.com slash host. People love to call real estate
passive income, which is interesting because most of the investors I know are very busy. Busy finding deals,
busy managing teams, busy worrying they picked the wrong market.
Rent to retirement flips that model.
They help investors buy turnkey new construction homes, often 10% below market value in top
rental markets across the country.
Their local teams handle the build, the property management, and the details, so you don't
have to.
In some cases, investors even receive 50 to 75% of their down payment back at closing, and
there are interest rates as low as 3.75%.
They've been trusted partners with bigger pockets for over a decade.
And if you want to learn more, visit biggerpockets.com slash retirement.
If you think property management is expensive, try mismanaging a vacancy or an eviction or a maintenance issue that turns into a five-figure problem because no one caught it early.
That's expensive.
A good property manager isn't overhead.
Their protection against small mistakes turning into big losses.
And that matters more than ever in this economy.
That's why I like mine.
Unlike other property managers, mind management.
your property like an investment.
They obsessively measure the things that matter for your bottom line.
Things like occupancy, delinquency, and net promoter score, and they have the results to
prove it.
Go to mine.co slash show me to see how mine performs and get your first month free, which is
much cheaper than learning the hard way.
All right.
Now we are going to bring in another, let's see, question.
Let's go with Megan.
Megan, you want to welcome to the Bigger Pockets podcast.
Good to have you here.
Hey, Brandon.
Hi, Scott.
Hi, everyone.
Hello.
I'm Megan.
Hi.
What can we help you with?
So I'm a COVID-19 crisis travel nurse.
Okay.
I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum.
I know a lot of people are hurting right now financially,
but when the COVID-19 started to break out,
I became a travel nurse.
I'm now happy opportunity to invest $100,000 in liquid cash.
And my husband and I own our home.
We have a mortgage on it still.
but over the past four years we've been doing the Mindy Jensen model where we do a live and flip
and the house is going to be we bought it for 309 it's valued anywhere from like 420 to 520
and it's kind of like do we keep his house do we sell it what do we do with this extra money that's
coming in yeah so you got you got a chunk of cash that you could invest and you also have equity
in your primary residence that you could potentially pull if you needed to um when did you get
your mortgage on your house in 2017
So you're, what, did you know, your interest right off top of your head?
Oh, yeah, it's 2.88.
Oh, wow.
It was a VA first time homebuyers loan, zero down.
Yeah, that's already a phenomenal.
I was going to say you could refinance and get a way lower rate.
You're not going to get a lower rate, but you could refinance and pull some of equity, maybe.
And that's one of the plans was.
And also, it's in Richmond, Virginia, and we really want to move to Florida and, you know,
BJ Scott's neighbor.
There you go.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Do you have an extra bedroom, Jay, right?
They can just rent from you.
So it's funny.
I have a really good friend down here.
that rents exclusively to traveling nurses.
Nice.
So it's a good business model.
Yeah, and that's, you know, for right now,
I used to live in Raleigh, Durham, in the Triangle,
and I house hacked my first home there, which was a townhouse.
And we really want to just keep investing in areas
with three different health care systems or more.
That way we have, you know, a large amount of students
and health care professionals to rent, too.
And we're just looking for long-term wealth.
You know, I'm a bedside nurse, I'm an ICU nurse,
and I would like to eventually be able to have kids and be home with them.
What's your timeline for moving, for relocating?
So while I'm travel nursing, COVID's projected the last two to three years.
So I'm going to be away from home for the next two or three years.
My husband's going to stay in our Richmond home.
He's, you know, asked for that just because we put so much work into it already.
Well, I'm gone.
He just wants kind of like a stable place to stay.
But any time in the next, you know, three to five years,
we're open to going. And even if you say, hey, jump tomorrow, we will. So, you know, we're pretty
fluid with plans. Yes. So I said earlier that I'm not a big fan of owning kind of one-off
properties in locations where you don't live. If you said to me, you were moving in the next year,
year and a half, two years, I'd say probably hold off. Don't buy anything local. If you said
it was going to be 10 years, I'd say, well, then that doesn't matter. Go for it. Start buying.
You're in the three to five-year range, which is kind of the gray area. It's like is that too short
can you build a portfolio on that time frame or would you end up buying one property or two properties
and being in a tough situation? So it's a little bit harder. But one of the things that I might
suggest is if you know that you're going to be moving or if you suspect you're going to be moving,
let's say to Florida, if you have an area in mind, well, maybe now is a good time to start
researching that area and consider start getting familiar with that area so that over the next three
to five years, maybe you could buy a property or two and start building that portfolio in the
area where you plan to live. Maybe you can even buy a property that you rent out for a couple
years. And then when you move down to Florida, you now have a personal residence that you could live in
for a few years and you could basically sell it tax-free. So that would help too because my income has
quadrupled unexpectedly. And Richmond is not a tax haven state. You know, we do have income tax. So
Florida, Florida would provide that for us. I think if you have a pretty good idea of where you're
going to be in five years, I like that.
the idea of starting to invest there. That said, if you're uncomfortable investing long distance,
there's nothing wrong with taking that money, putting it into your home, paying down your mortgage
and using that as a way to save. If you ever need to tap it, you can refinance or get a line of
credit to pull it back out, but that's probably better than just having the cash sitting in a
savings account. Absolutely. Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you, Megan. All right, next,
let's bring in Zari. I hope I'm not completely butchering the name.
Zahar, how do I say that?
Said it better than most of my teachers have my whole life.
Okay, good.
I go by Zee.
I live outside of Washington, D.C. area between Baltimore and D.C.
I actually have met Jay Scott.
He knows Wesley Peters pretty well.
I work at his brokerage.
I'm a real estate agent as well as a consultant in D.C.
As well as an investor that just started three years ago.
So pretty much currently I own rental properties.
I've done a few flips in D.C.
My question really is I get really emotional with my flips,
and I like to put in, like, high-in materials and, like, nice stuff, because
that kind of drives the market in D.C.
And I guess what I wanted to understand was,
I guess it works with each market,
but one to analyze which your budget should be
and when you should go with high-end material,
maybe mid-level material,
you know, especially when you're using wood floors
or you're using, you know, carpet,
one is a good idea and a strategy to analyze that.
Jay, you got to take this one.
Yeah, so I'm a big fan of scenarios,
and we've talked about that a little bit on,
with earlier callers,
running multiple scenarios.
So every time I buy a flip property,
I run through at least five or six scenarios.
So I'll run through the wholesale scenario.
I buy it and I resell it before I even close on it or within a couple days.
I run through the wholesale scenario where or the prehab, depending on what you want to call it,
scenario where I do maybe a little bit of fix up and then I resell to another investor.
I run through the scenario putting in low end finishes and selling it to a landlord.
I run through the scenario of putting in mid end finishes and sell it to a retail home buyer at a relatively low price.
I run through the scenario of putting in high.
high-end finishes and selling it to a higher-end retail buyer. I run through this scenario of
tearing it down and rebuilding. And typically, you can rule out a couple of those scenarios really
quickly, but then you get left with a few scenarios that you can like say, okay, if I put in
mid-level materials and I can resell it for X amount, what's my profit versus putting in
high-end materials and selling it for Y amount? And you can run multiple scenarios. Run a scenario of
hardwood floors versus tile versus carpet. Run a scenario of laminate countertops versus
marble countertops, run a scenario of replacing the roof versus not replacing the roof.
These are all scenarios you can run. And if you have a good agent, a good real estate agent that
knows the area really well, they can tell you, low-end materials you're going to fetch this
ARV, mid-end materials you're going to fetch this ARV, replace the roof, you're going to fetch this
ARV, add another bedroom, you're going to fetch this ARV, and run five or ten or maybe even 20
different scenarios and see what's going to allow you to maximize your return, not just financial
return, but your return on time, your return on risk, return on everything, and then just be really
flexible with those scenarios. Don't just, too many people go into a flip and say, I do the same flip
every time I'm going to go in and do it this way, just because I've done it this way the last 20
times. There might be a better way. So run those scenarios and analyze your returns for each one.
Thank you very much, guys. And I'll give you a quick scenario of how that worked out. Well, I had a
townhouse in D.C., which had three bedrooms upstairs. And I converted the three bedrooms into one master
bedroom with a master bath and on that street I was the only house that sold and I sold 20k over
this price and it was only because I took out that extra bedroom that I put you know so sometimes the
strategies like those do that's such a good example of why like you know some of the pad advice we give like
add a bedroom and increases the value can actually like it's it's very specifically there are examples where
that doesn't work you took out bedrooms and you increase the value and so it's rare but it happens and
people like it's such a good way to look at like where is the hidden potential where are people not
thinking. Obviously, as an agent and an investor, like, you get that. And I think people can learn a lot
from that. Thank you very much, guys. Thank you for having that. Awesome, man. Thank you, Z. All right,
let's next go in, uh, let's see. The name came up as iPhone, but I'm assuming that's your name.
I love that name. I love that name. I was a good, I almost named my son iPhone.
Sorry, my computer was acting outside to download the Zoom app on my phone. That's all right. What's your
name? My name is Partique. Partique. What's up, Partique? Welcome to the show.
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
So the question I have is I've been reading a lot about flipping and burr.
And I start.
So basically I sharpened my acts for so long.
And me and my partner that we went to school with started to execute and starting to look for a flip in beginning of this year.
We got hard money lender approval.
We interviewed a lot of lenders and they interviewed us.
So basically, all this, we spent a lot of time.
And now we can't find a deal.
And over this time, we have saved up so much money.
because as we've been looking for deals, sending in offers,
now we kind of have the cash together to do a full flip
without a hard money lender because we've been saving up
because of this downturn.
And so my question is, number one,
should I use my cash,
should me and my partner use our cash
and not use a hard money lender for our first flip?
And how do we find deals?
And I'm in the Houston market.
Well, so Texas has hit a lot more than any other states right now.
So what should I do there?
Yeah, I'll start this one.
My first thought I'll adjust the what to do when you can't find a deal thing.
This is the procedure I walk everybody through when they say they can't find a deal.
I always ask, and I'll ask you, how many offers have you made in the past week?
Like actually written offers?
In the past, written offers, I would just say two.
But I've been setting in offers.
I've been so our wholesalers that we've been looking at, when we review the deals,
our numbers don't work.
And even now the fact that we can do it without a hard money lender,
we have more wiggle room to make more profit and make more offers,
it still doesn't make sense right now.
Even their lists are so short.
And we've been even on Zillow and ATSAR and sending in random offers before actually
not written offers, but like, hey, we would like to send this offer, like in the little
text box they have on the right.
But we haven't gotten any hits over the past couple months.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, we're going to go with that.
And again, like, you're already doing like a lot of what you should be doing, obviously.
But I was going to say, like, most people have never made, they're not making.
offers because they're not analyzing deals because they're not getting leads.
And so like if you're having trouble finding offer, I mean, this is just basic stuff and you
know this, but I'll say it anyway for those who don't is, is if you're having trouble
finding deals, you've got to ask you how many offers are you making every week? How many deals are you
analyzing and how many leads are you getting? And you can usually diagnose the problem in one of
those three things. Now, it sounds like to me, you're making some offers. You're probably
analyzing some deals. Your numbers aren't there, which I would then go to the first one,
which is your lead source. Is that the lead sources is not there. Now, there's one more
the lead source in terms of can you do some different direct mode marketing? Can you
you do different like the text message kind of thing could you go into ringless voicemail could you do
that kind of thing and then really ramp that up i mean i'm not saying your guarantee but if you spent 10 grand
in direct mail marketing i bet you'd find something yeah yeah and maybe it means finding a new market
yeah yeah yeah you might just be overheated there yeah and i would like to add that like last month
or a month and a half ago i started driving for dollars yeah but i didn't do it as much i just did the
trial version because i got so fed up and i i even downloaded prop screen trial version and started looking
for people that fell for bankruptcy and sent out my own letters.
I probably did maybe like 30 letters.
I know that's not enough.
That's not even one hit.
But I noticed that's a lot of work.
And I would rather just pay a wholesaler to do that for me.
And I would focus on the flip myself.
Yeah, but there's so many bad wholesalers out there.
So I would encourage you even like, yes,
wholesalers could work.
I would almost consider find somebody local who's a 21 year old kid who's in college
who needs more money.
You pay them $9 an hour.
And you give them, like make them give you a list of three or
400 vacant properties in an area because they drove every day for after school for two hours
get that list built up and then email i mean mail those people every single month every other
month for the next year like okay okay you do that strategy you're gonna get if you're consistent
with that you're gonna get it just and then if you don't want to do the driving because you're
you got other stuff it's a super low dollar per hour job yeah okay i understand i work nine to five but
i've been working from home so that's why it started to do like some driving for dollars and
all that stuff on the side.
But what,
what,
yeah?
What's your Instagram,
by the way?
At K-O-3R.
All right.
So at K-O-3R?
Yeah.
K-O-3R.
All right.
So if you're in the Houston area
and you want to go
and do this work
for Partique,
hit them up
because there's people out there
who would love
to learn from what you've already figured out
and to be able to do that for you
and maybe take a small piece of the deal
or just to get part of your world.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Hit them up.
Thank you.
And the question,
I haven't, we saved up enough money as we've been looking for our deals.
Should I use a hard money now?
Jay, what do you think?
Yeah, I think it's always nice to have cash as a backup.
So if you use the cash on the first deal and then you find out you need it on the second
deal, you're going to be disappointed because you don't have it.
So I'm a big fan of if you can use hard money, use it if it still makes sense and save that
cash for when a great deal comes along and the seller says, yeah, I'll sell it to you,
but you need to close in 48 hours.
Because it's better to save the cash for that situation,
then use the cash, and then find that seller and be like,
I guess I can't buy this one.
So, yeah, I'm a big fan of saving enough cash for at least one deal
and putting it aside for when that great deal comes along,
but it really, really needs the cash.
Okay.
Yeah, the reason I started to think that is because I realized,
depending on the ARIVIA and depending on the house,
private money, hard money lending was taking between $6 to $9,000
on every deal that I analyzed.
It's expensive.
Yeah, it's expensive.
So if I hold it for three months, it was $6,000 to $9,000.
And I was like, if I can get rid of this $9,000 fee,
I can start offering a little bit more so I can get more deals.
And that's kind of why I started thinking that way.
But okay, I really like it.
Thank you guys.
If you're going to do one deal at a time, then use your cash.
But if you want to do more than one deal at a time,
then front load the hard money and save the cash for when you really need it.
Okay.
Thank you so much, guys.
I really appreciate it.
Thank you.
All right.
Thank you, Partique.
Next up, let's bring in Mahi.
Mahi, are you there?
Yes, I'm here.
Hi, everyone.
Hello.
Welcome.
Thanks.
So I am a Philly investor.
I invest in flips and I have some rentals and I'm in the market to purchasing a multi-unit.
So my question is, what are some clever strategies besides writing a letter to the seller to have a higher chance of winning a bid as a mortgage buyer against potential cash bidders in a semi-hot market, which I'm currently up against.
Oh, yeah, you took away my one that I say all the time, which is write the letter, make it personal.
So how do you get your offer accepted, especially when you're up against cash offers?
So by the way, for those who don't know what she's talking about, the letter is something I do a lot of times.
I'll submit just some kind of personal letter with my offer.
Just as, hey, my wife and I love this market.
We want to buy properties here, whatever.
So we do that a lot.
Even if you're done with a bank, honestly, like it's helped us even with banks because there's still a person somewhere that makes a decision.
usually and they like to,
people like to sell to people they like.
But besides that, David, what do you think?
Well, first off,
I'm assuming these are deals on the MLS that you're finding.
Yes, these are deals on MLS and working with wholesalers as well.
Okay.
Well, the benefit of a cash buy,
something I just want to highlight for everybody,
is it just that it's cash?
It's that it doesn't have contingencies.
It doesn't have a way for the buyer to back out.
So you can write an offer with a loan and waive contingencies on it,
Now you're risking your earnest money deposit a little bit more.
But now your offer is pretty much good as cash.
If you're pre-approved, then the lender calls the agent and says, no, she's already approved for the loan.
So maybe you go to your lender and you get a full approval as opposed to a pre-approval.
And they can go and say, oh, we've already looked at her file.
Underwriters have cleared it.
Now you basically are a cash buyer.
You're just not using your cash.
You're using the bank's cash.
It's the removal of contingencies that makes you competitive.
Yeah.
So I actually did that with my first deal.
I waived all contingents.
That works.
but right now during this pandemic, it's been really difficult.
I've waived all contingencies and it's still losing deals.
Yeah, that's what I'm like in my market too.
Go ahead, Brandon.
Well, I was going to say, and that's where like you probably, like,
I would encourage you to start thinking a different lead source then.
Like, how do you just get off the MLS, perfect the other skills that are more valuable?
I mean, I'm going to say like like the skill,
the skill to drive for dollars and send letters and negotiate with the off market
is a higher dollar per hour skill than working with an agent to find it on market deal.
So maybe it's time to go that route.
Jay, anything you want to add on that?
Yeah, yeah.
No, I agree completely.
You need to find deals where you're not competing with other buyers.
The only person you're competing with is your ability to negotiate with the seller.
So write letters, door knock or do skip tracing to find the owners of these complexes that you want and reach out to them.
And yeah, like Brandon said, it's a higher dollar per hour skill, which means it's going to take more effort and more work.
work, but you're going to get paid for it at the end. That is such a good point. I tell my clients
this all the time. When you chase the same house that 10 other people want, which in your case,
it's a flip house. Other flippers want it, but to a traditional buyer, it's just the prettiest house
on the market. Your agent's ability to negotiate just vanishes. You're not negotiating with the seller.
You're negotiating against the 12 other people that also want to buy that house. And you have to
want it more than they do and be willing to pay more than them. So what I tell my clients is, let's
stop looking at the same houses that everybody else is looking at. Let's look on the one that's
been on the market a little bit longer and see if the seller's more motivated. So I think you should
take that same principle and apply it to how can I work my sphere of influence and tell them I need
a house to flip. Do you guys know anybody with a hoarder house or an ugly house? Somebody who owns a rental
and they don't want it anymore and put your efforts there as opposed to just chasing after the
same deal that everybody else is chasing after. And David just brought up something else that's
really good. If you're finding deals in the MLS, if you're
the MLS anyway, look for anything that's expired.
Yep.
Find stuff that's expired in the last year or two because that's stuff where the seller was
motivated recently, but now there's no competition.
We just bought a new personal residence and that's how we did it.
We found an expired house in our neighborhood and we went to the seller and we negotiated
a great deal because they didn't realize it was a hot market.
So they weren't putting it back on the market.
But as soon as we made an offer, they were really excited.
They're like, oh, wow, yeah, we're still ready to get rid of this.
That's awesome.
It's a great advice.
All right, Mahi, thank you.
Thanks for joining us today.
And I think lastly, today we got one more that we're taking on here.
I know you've been waiting a long time.
Joseph, welcome to the Bigger Pockets podcast.
Good to have you here.
How's it going?
This is awesome.
Nice for doing this.
Yeah, thank you.
What can we do for you?
So I'm kind of crushing it.
I'm hyper-local in one market.
I am building up deals.
I went from, I started off with a condo because it was comfortable
and I just want to do the deal. I know the market because it's cyclical based on, it's in a
rural town where there's an academic medical center. So people are there for the college,
which I don't do college rentals, but I do that to grad students and to medical trainees.
They don't tear up the place. They're working 80 hours a week, and so they're not in your home.
I know the zoning. My next deal was a single family legacy property was inherited,
and I knew the zoning. I knew I could turn it to two units. So I turned the single family to two units.
I bought an off-market deal because I noticed that most of the deals that other people,
other investors and developers like myself, were doing more off-market deals. So I've started
pressing the flesh, et cetera, et cetera. My question is this, and I've heard this from a couple
sources and a couple mentors who are worth, who have a lot more real estate that they control than I do
that said, like, hey, look. And, you know, like, I think it's Dean Graziozi's story, too.
He's like, I ended up with like 2,000 single family homes. And that's what I'm worried about.
I want to play in my future. I'm moving super fast. I know I have a recipe that works,
a contractor that works. I'm going to hit hiccups at some point, but I'm picking up duplexes
like crazy. There aren't, there isn't a lot of large, you know, large, say 10, 15, 40 unit complexes
around this area. It's just small, you know, I'm not doing any more condos, but it's all duplexes.
And so do I just keep doing it because it's working or am I, I, I know where I'm headed
and I should just avoid that.
I don't want to flip because I don't want to have to compete against people,
and I want to build my portfolio.
So I'm kind of stuck because I have a recipe that's really working,
but I know where I'm going to be in 10 years.
I'm going to have 150, 250 units,
but they're all going to be duplexes.
And how do I dissolve that unless I hand it off to somebody else
and find one buyer, which is not going to be easy to do.
Yeah.
So really what we're talking here is like quantity versus quality in a way.
And I don't mean quality in terms of property, right?
but you can go buy a hundred unit apartment building
or you could buy 50 duplexes.
And I don't think there's actually a different.
Like there's not a right or wrong there.
In fact,
but the way you run a apartment complex
is going to be very different
than the way you run 50 rental house.
If you want to do the 50 duplex thing,
nothing wrong with that,
but you need to make sure that you build a business
and treat that 50 duplexes like an apartment complex.
So you got a manager that manages the whole thing.
You have systems and processes.
And so I mean,
I think if it's working in that market
and you can capitalize on that
and crush it and you can build those systems in so you don't have to do the work and you're not
you're not just cash flowing because you're there managing it and you're doing all the work but you actually
have all the systems in a business i would go that route and i would just stick with what's working
personally until it's not working anymore and don't worry about the exit because that's what people
yeah because you could easily i mean you could easily easily but you could package 50 these together
50 duplexes together and sell off 100 units to an investor at a low cap rate later on of the
commercial investment and there are wreaths out there
There are investors.
There are people that would buy that in a heartbeat, one big shot.
So I wouldn't worry.
Personally, I wouldn't worry about it.
But I'd love to get your guys to take on this, Jay and David.
Yeah, I agree with Brian.
I think you're looking for a problem that doesn't exist.
Awesome.
Certainly, it's going to take longer to disperse of 50 duplexes than 100 unit complex,
but you'll probably get a premium for them.
You may be able to sell them in bulk, even if you have to sell them off to individual buyers,
you'll probably get a premium.
and it also gives you flexibility.
For all you know, you may want to cash out 20% of your portfolio at some point to send
your kids to college, or you may want to cash out 50% of your portfolio to buy a house in
Italy to go live in and let your property manager run the other 50.
So there are advantages to having these subdividable assets.
Like Brandon said, instead of focusing on the problems, focus on the solutions, work on
your systems, work on your processes, find a great property manager, find a great team of
contractors start using VAs. There's some really smart people out there that manage a whole lot of
properties and basically do it completely passively because they focus their time on their systems and the
processes. I got a couple things I'd add. One, I would not assume you have to sell all 50 at one time.
If you go find the deal that you want to buy a 200 unit apartment and you put it under contract
and you just tell the seller, hey, I can pay you this much, but I can pay you more if you can give
me another 12 months to exit everything and you work out a deal with that person, then you just
sell them individually for as much as you can get. Put it all in a 1031 escrow and move it all to buy.
You could do like Jay did where you sell off 10 here, 20 there. You could refinance and put them
on to 15 year notes, pay those suckers down really, really fast and then just start pulling money
out to go buy apartment complexes with it. That becomes like a foundation. And you can also do
what I did in the meantime where I hired a person to manage all of the property managers of the
properties that I have. And now that's one phone call a month that I have with that person. And he goes
over the P&L, he goes over who paid, what's vacant, what questions we have. All the property
managers send their requests to the same email. It's not that much work to manage a lot of different
units when you can get some help. That'll probably buy you some peace of mind while you're building
this empire. Yeah, I mean, that's, did you guys, any of you write a book on that? I've read most
of your books. I need a, the long distance stuff makes me nervous. It's a market I know, but I need some,
I'm starting to realize as I've grown my portfolio, I need the anonymity and I need that
those, as you're talking about, David, those levels to just streamline the processes,
because I need to do what I'm good at, and I need to start adding, whether it's a virtual
assistant, and then, you know, a couple more handymen and that sort of thing, just to,
I think all three of us have that book mapped out in our heads. We just haven't written them yet.
There's not a lot of people that have 200 duplexes that are going to buy that book
that are trying to figure out what to do with them. But just that idea like systematizing and
be a business owner and that whole thing. That's exactly right, Brandon. You are transitioning out of being a
real estate investor into a business owner. You've always been one, but you're transitioning into
thinking like one. So you should go check out Jay's podcast, the Bigger Pockets Business.
Business podcast, there you go. Love it. So thanks for all your, all, everything you guys do.
It's, uh, I listen to it religiously and I put everything into into play. And I've,
I've crushed it. It's been fantastic. That's awesome, Joseph. Congratulations on that.
See you guys. Take care. All right, everybody. That was the end of this.
recording. I know we didn't get to everybody's questions. There's still people waiting. I think there's
20 people waiting in the waiting room right now. We did not get to everybody. But we've got to get out of here
because we've been going for like almost two hours now. So why do we end this thing? Jay,
can I get a quick update on what you've been up to in real estate wise lately? Just because of curious,
because I know you've had some movement. Yeah. So I just picked up my first multifamily that were going
to be syndicating. I'm working with some amazing people, Ashley and Kyle Wilson, who have been on the
Bigger Pockets podcast and our bigger pockets contributor.
So we picked up 150 unit in Houston that we are raising money for right now.
And I'm doing a lot of flips.
I'm buying a whole lot of rentals.
And I tell you, I was burned out on real estate about a year, two years ago,
took some time off and hitting it back full steam right now.
I'm excited to get back in.
That's cool, man.
David, what have you been up to?
I've been very busy helping put clients in contract on houses.
It's going really good.
I'm trying to hire some more buyers agents and showing agents for my real estate team.
and loan officers for the mortgage company that I just started.
I think we have 28 houses in escrow.
So I set a personal record for the most I've ever had an escrow at one time.
And it's going really good.
I think we're in this position with really low interest rates
and not very much inventory and people that are recognizing,
I don't want to be cooped up in an apartment or stuck downtown.
I kind of want to move out to the suburbs.
And there's a lot going on.
So a lot of growth, a lot of stress.
I was telling some of the other day,
my brain will just like turn off on me sometimes.
Like, okay, you're done.
No more thinking.
You need to just go stare into space or take a nap or take a walk.
And it feels like a muscle.
When you just work it out really hard,
your brain and your mind can get sharper and stronger
just like your body can.
And I recognize this is the same way it feels after a really hard workout
where I'm just like, okay, I don't want to move.
Same thing.
So I love that.
I hear you.
That's awesome, man.
How about you, Brandon?
What's going on with you, Mr. Humble?
you know, you know, I went to, no, I went to Yellowstone National Park and now I'm quarantined in here in Hawaii.
And we're still buying mobile home parks. So I think we have, I don't know, five or six hundred contract right now.
And I just had Ryan, my, I guess, head of all acquisitions and pretty much runs my entire life.
He just went on a, what was it like 13 state tour? I'm sure you guys watched him on Facebook.
Like, he just like went to like 13 states or something like that looking at mobile home parks over a two week period.
It was crazy. Yeah. And we just closed out our second fund.
so we're about to go into our third potentially.
And it's been exciting.
Is that all?
That's awesome, man.
Very proud of you.
Thanks, man.
Well, with that said, let's get out here, guys.
I appreciate both of you joining us and sharing your insights today.
Doing what you guys do is make me look better.
So thank you guys.
Thanks for having me, guys.
All right, everybody.
This is David Green for Jay Scott and Brandon the Pinnacle Turner.
Signing off.
You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio.
simplifying real estate for investors large and small.
If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing, without all the hype,
you're in the right place.
Be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from biggerpockets.com.
Your home for real estate investing online.
Do you ever notice how every passive investment somehow turns into a very active lifestyle,
active spreadsheets, active phone calls, active stress?
Here's a better question.
What if you could buy brand?
new construction homes, 10% below market value, and the best markets across the country,
without making real estate your second job. That's exactly what rent to retirement does.
They're a full-service, turnkey investment company, handling everything for you. In some cases,
investors get 50 to 75% of their down payment back at closing, plus interest rates as low as 3.75%.
They've partnered with Bigger Pockets for over a decade, helping thousands invest smarter.
If you want to do the same, visit BiggerPockets.com slash retirement.
to learn more.
