Posted by Wendy on August 27, 2008 at 17:15:51:
Ed,
What a great post. I really appreciate that advice. My husband and I have been doing this real estate. I am working full time and manage most of the paperwork right now. My husband is working this full time. I want to be able to leave my job so bad and want this to be full time. How do I move towards this goal?
When you you start the bigger deals? - Posted by Wendy
Posted by Wendy on August 26, 2008 at 20:40:27:
At this time we are purchasing properties one at a time. We (my husband and I) have been able to purchase one a month, which I think is a good plan.
For those who are seasoned, when did you decide to go into larger deals, perhaps 4 or 5 properties at a time? While I really want to move along in real estate, I also want to maintain a certain amount of liquidity and not tie down all funds with property purchases.
Can anyone give any advice? It would be greatly appreciated. Is this the correct line of thinking or do I need to let go and be more aggressive?
Re: When you you start the bigger deals? - Posted by Ed Garcia
Posted by Ed Garcia on August 27, 2008 at 11:15:25:
REI as a Business
Wendy,
One of the things Iâ??ve tried to do is teach Realestate Investing as a business.
I donâ??t know were youâ??re located but if you bought 5 houses, and eke out positive cash flow, the houses may or may not appreciate depending on your location and meanwhile youâ??ll be Mr. and Mrs. Fix-it as a Landlord. So the first two things that are a must is to make your money on the buy (buy below market) and cash-flow.
Iâ??m sure your thoughts were, if we buy and hold weâ??ll have residual income to retire on.
OK, nothing wrong with that thinking, but your holding the wrong properties to accomplish that goal. The properties that we should portfolio are the type of properties that are designed to make money, (Commercial Property). This can be a Commercial building, Strip Center, Apartment buildings etc. These properties make us money by design. Houses only make us money if we steal them and can sell them at a higher price.
Wendy, I teach people how to do REI as a business. Donâ??t worry Iâ??m not soliciting you. I just want to tell you who I am, what I do, so that you can understand why I say the things I do to introduce you to my kind of thinking.
The old thinking or most small investors think to get in the business, Iâ??ll buy a few houses and piece by piece build me a portfolio of properties that hopefully one day will be paid off and I can retire off of the income of my portfolio. Itâ??s true that if you bought 10 houses and put 30 year self liquidation loans on each of them in 30 years or there about they will be paid for and you and your wife can live off of the income. However there is a better way to do it.
EXAMPLE
You buy 10 houses and you do exactly what weâ??ve just discussed. Youâ??ve got 10 roofs to fix, 10 garbage disposals to fix, 10 houses to maintain and will have to go from house to house in you pick up truck fixing whatever needs to be fixed. This is not exactly the ideal way to retire.
Wouldnâ??t it be better if you owned a 10 unit Apartment building thatâ??s much more maintenance free and you have a manager taking care of it for you?
Instead of 10 houses all over town and driving all over town fixing and maintaining up keep, itâ??s all at one location and not as management intensive.
As far as return on investment and cash flow, 10 houses will cost you a lot more money then a 10 unit Apartment complex, so you would have a lot bigger investment and exposure in owning 10 houses. From the standpoint of Risk/Reward you get a lot more bang for you buck owning a 10 unit building.
I know what youâ??re thinking. Sounds great, but at this time Iâ??m not in a position to buy a 10 unit Apartment building. Most people arenâ??t, and thatâ??s why flipping is advantages.
You can buy fix and sell, until you done enough deals to work your way up. You can buy duplexes, triplexes, and fourplexes, just as easily as a house. You can buy them in a combination of ways, Seller carry- back, Subject to, Cash down with conventional financing, Lease/Option/ Wraparound, combinations of all of the above etc. This will also give you leverage. So you can see that thereâ??s more then one way to skin a cat.
FLIPPING houses vs HOLDING houses.
If you buy a house to hold. How much do you think it will appreciate each year? Just for the sake of this post, lets say in Texas it will appreciate 5%. In a 5 year period of time assuming the market stays strong, the property will increase in value 25%.
So if I bought a house regardless of price, over 5 years it will go up 25%.
Wendy, I have investors who have attended my workshop from Texas who buy between 50 and 60 cents on the dollar. These investors try to be in a deal after fix-up no more then 70% LTV (Loan To Value).
After saying that, lets say you bought a house for $55,000 put $10,000 into it for fix up and itâ??s now worth $100,000. You hold it for 5 years and now itâ??s worth $125,000. You now have a house worth $125,000 that you only owe $65,000 and have $60,000 in equity. Not bad and nothing wrong with this scenario.
However, what if you bought a house using the same numbers and sold it 4 months later for $100,000 making $35,000 and then purchased another house the same way doing the same thing in another 4 months. Do that 3 times a year and you made $105,000 in just one year. Conceptually, instead of making $60,000 over a 5 year period of time you could make $525,000. I have a student in Huston named Charlie Fuller who did over100 houses that way last year.
As I said, I teach Real-estate investing as a Business. That being said I feel itâ??s important that you establish a game plan.
Wendy, there are various investors. Part time investors, whoâ??s intention is to make their main income being their job. An investor who invest in real-estate for residual income. They usually have multiple income streams such as other businesses and investments etc. And finally Full time investors, whoâ??s livelihood depends on real-estate investing. There of course are others, but that the mainstream.
Food for thought,
Ed Garcia
Re: When you you start the bigger deals? - Posted by Dave Cech
Posted by Dave Cech on August 28, 2008 at 12:41:41:
Great post Ed, I think it does a wonderful job of concentrating efforts on what investors call the Time Value of Money. Faster the turn over on your money the greater the returns.
After 15 years of land lording I began to turn my money faster. Nothing has been quite as profitable as moving my properties quickly rather then holding. How ever I have a few cherry commercial properties I hold because they are easy to maintain or own. these properties I use professional management to keep the projects some what passive. Also they are in great locations that have the highest potential for appreciation and growth. Its great to have a guy like Ed to give us feed back in this forum. Imagine we have a guy that has a huge business is mentoring us all online for how much?? He is truly a giver. Thanks again Ed!