Speaker 1: Welcome to How to Money. I'm Joel and I'm Matt,
Speaker 1: and today we're talking about investment properties. Yeah, that's right,
Speaker 1: So we're gonna be talking about investment properties today. Man,
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to it. We each have a few
Speaker 1: and we've got some thoughts. We've been doing it now
Speaker 1: for for quite a few years, and I think we
Speaker 1: got a lot of information to share with the listeners
Speaker 1: out there about how we've done things, kind of the
Speaker 1: ways that we've I feel like had successes with running
Speaker 1: properties and and maybe some of the ways that we
Speaker 1: haven't done it as well as we had hoped. But quickly,
Speaker 1: let's talk about really people want to know about our
Speaker 1: cover photo and how they came about. And there's one
Speaker 1: lingering question that I've gotten from a bunch of listeners already. Matt,
Speaker 1: you've talked about working from home, but nobody knows what
Speaker 1: you do. It's kind of fun. We we got Kate,
Speaker 1: my wife, to take our photo, our goofy photo. But
Speaker 1: it's it's good, Okay. Not are photographers. We we've been
Speaker 1: photographers for the past ten years. And she she stays
Speaker 1: at home now with the kids, but is still a
Speaker 1: talented photographer. So that's what I still do though, primarily weddings,
Speaker 1: because weddings are just way better than anything else. Why
Speaker 1: why do you say that it's more fun. You get
Speaker 1: to deal with folks that are having a blast, as
Speaker 1: opposed to say headshots maybe of you know, of some
Speaker 1: company or something like that when you're sitting in office.
Speaker 1: Weddings are just jam full of uh, fun and action
Speaker 1: and activity. You're basically going to a party every other Saturday. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: And just I love it documenting it so that people
Speaker 1: can have smiling yeah picture proof for the rest of
Speaker 1: it all day and enjoying myself. Man, it's awesome. Seriously, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's the best. So now everyone knows the secrets out
Speaker 1: your wedding photographer, because you've alluded a few times to being,
Speaker 1: uh to working from home, and so people are like, well,
Speaker 1: just well I work from home. That's my my day job.
Speaker 1: Folks are like, oh, yeah, you get a party every
Speaker 1: other weekend, right like you said it. But then Monday
Speaker 1: through Friday are that's that's emails, editing, the post processing,
Speaker 1: phone calls, meeting up with folks in person as well,
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. Running a small business, that's
Speaker 1: the thing that some people. Taxes, insurance all yeah, all
Speaker 1: that action, there's a lot more to it. Anybody can
Speaker 1: kind of be a photographer maybe for a year or two,
Speaker 1: but then when it comes to taxes, and really taxes
Speaker 1: and insurance are the are the big things that start
Speaker 1: to gum things up a little bit, and folks are like, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't know if I want to keep doing this
Speaker 1: because this is more complicated than I thought. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: I think that's the interesting thing because I'm friends with
Speaker 1: a few photographers and I've found out through the years.
Speaker 1: You certainly have to have that artistic sense right to
Speaker 1: be able to make it at all. First and foremost right,
Speaker 1: you have to have that. But to add to that,
Speaker 1: and almost just as important, you have to be able
Speaker 1: to run a business. You have to learn and and
Speaker 1: want to know how to run a business well. And
Speaker 1: if you can't do that, that artistic side is especially
Speaker 1: if you're gonna have your own small business like you do. Obviously,
Speaker 1: you can be a photographer for someone else and and
Speaker 1: and just enjoy it as a hobby even obviously, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but but you have to know how to run that business.
Speaker 1: And there's a lot involved with that. Yeah, And you gotta,
Speaker 1: I mean you you need to want to know how
Speaker 1: to do that, and that's I think that's one of
Speaker 1: the things that fits me so well as I just
Speaker 1: love I mean I literally love doing do incorporate taxes,
Speaker 1: like all the boring stuff that literally goes into like
Speaker 1: the admin side, like the back end of working on
Speaker 1: the website, all that kind of stuff. Man, I love it,
Speaker 1: which is love building the thing from the ground up.
Speaker 1: It's just it's a blast, which is why we're a
Speaker 1: perfect fit. And to go to you guys, go to
Speaker 1: Poor not Poor dot com and you'll see, you know,
Speaker 1: Matt did a lot of the does a lot of
Speaker 1: the images, does a lot of so the background work,
Speaker 1: and um, I'm kind of tackling some of those, some
Speaker 1: of those other things, some of the the audio, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the audio editing, because that's that's where that's what I'm
Speaker 1: into when I know, well, you make us sound good
Speaker 1: and I make us look good, Joel, So it's great.
Speaker 1: Are are the things that we're good at balance each
Speaker 1: other out well, and the things that we enjoy. And
Speaker 1: I think if you've listened to the first few podcasts here,
Speaker 1: you might have already kind of got an inkling of that.
Speaker 1: So on Poor not Poor podcast. We drink a different
Speaker 1: beer every week. So we're gonna get into talking about
Speaker 1: investment properties in just a second, but first let's talk
Speaker 1: about this beer man. What would you bring for us today?
Speaker 1: All right? So today I brought the beer and it
Speaker 1: is called scatter Brain. It's an I p A from
Speaker 1: a brewery called Bearded Iris Brewing out of Nashville, Tennessee. Sadly,
Speaker 1: I haven't been able to visit the brewery yet, but
Speaker 1: my mom was up there for a conference, and so
Speaker 1: I was like, hey, hey, Mom, I'm gonna need you
Speaker 1: to go pick up some Bearded Iris beers for me
Speaker 1: while you're there. I'm gonna need you to do this
Speaker 1: if you could, please, I asked nicely. And also like
Speaker 1: tossing your laundry as well. Also could you do my laundry?
Speaker 1: She's like, your thirty three son, I'll get your beer,
Speaker 1: but I'm not doing your laundry. And so Mom was
Speaker 1: kind enough to bring back two four packs of beer
Speaker 1: de Iris beer for me. They specialize in I pas.
Speaker 1: I think they've done a couple other things, but like
Speaker 1: literally they'll have like seven I PA s on draft
Speaker 1: that are just different IPAs. That's what they do, so
Speaker 1: they know what they're doing. And uh, I will tell
Speaker 1: this interesting story. First off, how do you feel about
Speaker 1: your mom or someone close to you being a beer
Speaker 1: mule for you? Because that's what they call them when
Speaker 1: you when you send someone out to get beer for
Speaker 1: you in another state or another location, your beer mule. Yeah,
Speaker 1: by that definition, I have been a beer mule for you,
Speaker 1: that's true. You have, you have? We brought back some
Speaker 1: Abissell Brothers and uh Trullium, Yeah Trulli. I'm out of Boston.
Speaker 1: I couldn't think of them. Uh yeah, man, but that
Speaker 1: was absolutely worth that check bag from from Boston. Holy cow,
Speaker 1: that's I will stay you do it all over again
Speaker 1: just to get that beer. The only way I'll check
Speaker 1: a bag is for beer. That's the only time I'll
Speaker 1: ever check a bag Bucks, and just to get some
Speaker 1: amazing stuff that you're not gonna be able to get
Speaker 1: at least in our state in Georgia. So well know, yeah,
Speaker 1: bestl Brothers and nor Trillium. Neither of them distribute right
Speaker 1: at all. Yeah, and so actually literally the only way
Speaker 1: you can get that beer. When I went to Amsterdam
Speaker 1: one time, I brought back. I believe I brought back
Speaker 1: thirty seven beers across a couple of bags, check bags.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of beer. And it was so worth it.
Speaker 1: I was drinking. It just reminded me of the trip.
Speaker 1: For I still have one bottle left that's just chilling
Speaker 1: bottle of Canti, just chilling for me. So because it
Speaker 1: last twenty years, I believe those those gooses that you
Speaker 1: can have them on your shelf for twenty years. So
Speaker 1: I want to tell you real quick story about my
Speaker 1: mom getting the beer. So she went to the brewery
Speaker 1: with some of her co workers because she was there
Speaker 1: for a conference. And she shows up with the brewery
Speaker 1: and it looks like it's closed apparently. So she walks
Speaker 1: up to the door and takes a selfie because she
Speaker 1: just wants to prove to me that she actually went
Speaker 1: even though it was closed. Oh, instead of being like, sorry,
Speaker 1: you couldn't get there closing, she was gonna text me
Speaker 1: the picture. And I guess there's this window. There's this window,
Speaker 1: and people are everyone staring at her and she's taking
Speaker 1: a picture. Everyone inside the brewery is staring at or
Speaker 1: while she's taking this picture, and her friends are like Uh, Cheryl,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure they're open. There's a bunch of people
Speaker 1: and they're looking at you while you're taking the selfie.
Speaker 1: And so she went in there and she asked the bartender,
Speaker 1: excuse me, do you sell beer here? Oh my god.
Speaker 1: The bartender kind of looks at her like, yes, yes, ma'am,
Speaker 1: that's actually you are. In fact, that's all we sell.
Speaker 1: In fact, that's what we do here. We sell beer
Speaker 1: and beer alone. All right, So the beer is scatter.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the beer because we've got a lot
Speaker 1: of real estate to talk about too. It's an I
Speaker 1: p A. Let's crack it nice. Yeah, this can it is.
Speaker 1: It's one of those almost all silver cans. I like
Speaker 1: how breweries are doing that because the way that they're
Speaker 1: a lot of breweries are brewing a lot of different stuff,
Speaker 1: and so they're not dedicating an entire new label necessarily
Speaker 1: to each beer. They can just yeah, kind of slapping
Speaker 1: on a new label with kind of the standard can. Uh,
Speaker 1: like a silver tall silver can. I like that. Anytime
Speaker 1: I see that, I'm like, I must be good. So
Speaker 1: Bearded Iris does sixteen ounce cans of beer and four
Speaker 1: Seliman four packs, and I believe it's about sixteen bucks
Speaker 1: for four packs, so it's not cheap. It's about four
Speaker 1: bucks a beer. But they're making some of the best
Speaker 1: I pass right now. No, but where on the street
Speaker 1: is They're coming to Atlanta soon, they're gonna start distributing.
Speaker 1: I think they distribute down in parts of Tennessee. But
Speaker 1: that's it so so just locally for thoughfully, we'll get
Speaker 1: them soon. Nice hazy kind of got that orange juice,
Speaker 1: sort of look to it, man, beautiful color orange and
Speaker 1: uh so we will be drinking this bearded iris scatter brain,
Speaker 1: I p A. And we will give you our full
Speaker 1: beer tasting notes at the end of the podcast for now, though, Man,
Speaker 1: that's delicious, fruity hazy. It's got that, man, it's got
Speaker 1: a nice natural sweetness to it. Half of my beer
Speaker 1: descriptions include a man, I don't really have like a
Speaker 1: word for it sometimes because we're drinking good seers here, homie,
Speaker 1: I'm just thinking about it as delicious. Okay, So let's
Speaker 1: get into investment property talk. What our investment properties, Matt. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when you hear investment properties, I mean the way we're
Speaker 1: gonna talk about it today is there's kind of two types.
Speaker 1: You've got your flip. So an investment property can be
Speaker 1: something you purchase and that you plan to sell pretty
Speaker 1: much right away for a profit. Or you can be
Speaker 1: coming at it from a long term buy and hold
Speaker 1: sort of option and you buy it and hold it
Speaker 1: and you know, rents it out. Whether it's be commercial
Speaker 1: you know you can buy and hold with commercialist date
Speaker 1: where you're running out of businesses or single family homes
Speaker 1: or multi family homes, we're you know, running out too families.
Speaker 1: So and that's what we're gonna be focusing on today
Speaker 1: is the buy and hold. Yeah, and just uh quick
Speaker 1: note to people, we will Matt and I each own
Speaker 1: a few investment properties. Will get into the specifics in
Speaker 1: a minute. Uh. We Also, this podcast will be a
Speaker 1: little bit more of a forest conversation, and eventual later
Speaker 1: podcasts you will get down into some of the trees
Speaker 1: on how to potentially screen a tenant, um, other decisions
Speaker 1: you need to make with your rental property about repairs,
Speaker 1: how you choose where to buy. But for now, we're
Speaker 1: kind of going to kind of look at the forest
Speaker 1: and get an overview of what you should be thinking
Speaker 1: about if you're interested in rental properties and why you
Speaker 1: should be interested and potentially pursuing a rental property in
Speaker 1: your portfolio. That's kind of our general approach to to
Speaker 1: what we're gonna be talking about investment properties. And then
Speaker 1: so us personally, Yeah, man, how did you get started
Speaker 1: with with rental properties? And in particular, Yeah, so I
Speaker 1: bought my first house in two thousand nine, and I
Speaker 1: got it for a just ridiculously cheap amount of money,
Speaker 1: as as did I three thousand nine. That was a
Speaker 1: good year, man, two thousand nine was the right time
Speaker 1: to buy a house. So actually, I think we both
Speaker 1: bought at the same time when there was an eight
Speaker 1: thousand dollar tax credit that you didn't have to pay back,
Speaker 1: right right. There was one before that, uh that was
Speaker 1: like I think so fills that had to be paid back.
Speaker 1: But this eight thousand dollar tax credit for a short
Speaker 1: period of time, I don't know how long it was
Speaker 1: in effect, for six six months to a year, was
Speaker 1: you didn't have to pay it back. And so that
Speaker 1: was like the perfect time, the perfect impetus to buy
Speaker 1: a house. The iron was hot and the prices were low,
Speaker 1: and so I think it was up to ten percent
Speaker 1: of your purchase price. So really if you could get
Speaker 1: in that eighty thousand to eight, you know, writing that
Speaker 1: eighty thousand dollar price range, you're you're maximizing your the
Speaker 1: government's paying for ten of your home. And so I
Speaker 1: bought a home into thousand nine and paid eighty nine
Speaker 1: thousand dollars for it. The federal government paid eight thousand
Speaker 1: dollars of that, so it was really more like an
Speaker 1: eighty one dollar purchase. I lived in it for a
Speaker 1: couple of years, and I had a roommate for a
Speaker 1: little bit, and then um kicked him out because I
Speaker 1: got married, and so just decided after a while it
Speaker 1: just made a lot of sense to buy another house.
Speaker 1: And rents were going up, and I was like, oh man,
Speaker 1: it makes so much sense to to get in on
Speaker 1: this rental action. And you were charging that friend right
Speaker 1: like you had a roommate, and so that was sort
Speaker 1: of like your first tenant essentially, it was in your
Speaker 1: own house, living with you. Yeah, And and considering how
Speaker 1: cheap I was looking at how much I was paying
Speaker 1: in rent every month, and compared to what rents are now,
Speaker 1: obviously it wasn't too bad, but it was still like
Speaker 1: seven a month, and I just couldn't find I knew that.
Speaker 1: I think my new mortgage was like seven fifty dollars
Speaker 1: a month, and then I could get someone a roommate
Speaker 1: to pay more than half of that, So it just
Speaker 1: made sense. I was like, oh, man, I can start
Speaker 1: saving a lot more money if I buy this house
Speaker 1: and I have a roommate in here. And then that
Speaker 1: compounds on itself when you think of the idea of
Speaker 1: actually buying another house and running that out and how
Speaker 1: much more you can save, which then compounds and you
Speaker 1: can buy more rental houses exactly right. And a lot
Speaker 1: of folks call that house house hacking, right where you
Speaker 1: kind of buy a property thinking that like, Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna live here, but you know, I've got three other
Speaker 1: rooms and I'm not using if I can get three
Speaker 1: other roommates in there, and they're gonna pay for my
Speaker 1: mortgage right right, And it's not like your rip and
Speaker 1: people off. It's just you're providing a great place for
Speaker 1: people to live while at the same time, you know,
Speaker 1: obviously you had to pay up front and put the
Speaker 1: down payment on the home and and everything else that
Speaker 1: comes with owning the property yourself. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: people that want a temporary place to stay. I don't
Speaker 1: want you know, he my my roommate at the time
Speaker 1: was month to month and he was I don't know
Speaker 1: that totally cool with that. He he just wanted a
Speaker 1: place to stay for three to six months and was
Speaker 1: more than happy to pay. He didn't know how long
Speaker 1: he had to be able to handle you for right,
Speaker 1: It's like, I don't want to commit to a whole year.
Speaker 1: But just like we talked about with potential air b
Speaker 1: and bs UH last episode, you know, you can make
Speaker 1: a lot of money on AIRBBS. You're not ripping people off.
Speaker 1: People want a place to stay for a night and
Speaker 1: you've got You're taking on a lot of a lot
Speaker 1: of risk, but there's also a lot of potential reward.
Speaker 1: And it's the same with UH investment properties that you
Speaker 1: rent out on an annual basis. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: risk and reward, but the reward could be could be
Speaker 1: quite nice. Man, Absolutely so, seeing you kind of think
Speaker 1: through all that back then own the time that you
Speaker 1: guys were considering so you and Emily, when y'all were
Speaker 1: considering getting your second house, is when we started having
Speaker 1: these conversations. This is way before poor not Poor a
Speaker 1: long time ago, but that's honestly, that was a huge
Speaker 1: sort of kickstarter for for us to kind of start
Speaker 1: thinking that as well. We we we've got some good
Speaker 1: friends of ours that live up in Asheville. And that
Speaker 1: was my first, I guess awakening towards investment property. Like
Speaker 1: I didn't grow up in a family where that was
Speaker 1: a thing, where investment Oh yeah, everybody's got investment properties.
Speaker 1: It was very foreign to me. But seeing my friend Clark,
Speaker 1: his first home that he purchased was a triplex and
Speaker 1: so literally, I mean they moved in and within the
Speaker 1: first month they had two other renters. Well they took over,
Speaker 1: they're already they're already there, and so they actually just
Speaker 1: maintained the lease that they already had and they were
Speaker 1: able to have income generated by this property that they
Speaker 1: had not owned and lived in right off the bat.
Speaker 1: And so I helped him a lot. I mean, I
Speaker 1: have to move into the house and kind of got
Speaker 1: to see that firsthand. So those seeds were planted then.
Speaker 1: But then honestly I thought, man, if Joel can do this,
Speaker 1: he's an idiot. Yeah, I was just like, if if
Speaker 1: he can do this, I need to start I need
Speaker 1: to start thinking down that, you know, thinking on this
Speaker 1: down this path. But like, honestly, it just had to
Speaker 1: do with us talking about it. Yeah, right, And so
Speaker 1: that's what I'm hoping too, that listeners that are listening
Speaker 1: to this episode can at then this conversation, they'll think, Man,
Speaker 1: it's really not that complicated. It's not as nearly as
Speaker 1: scary as maybe I thought in my mind. Let's let's
Speaker 1: start thinking more about this. This should be an avenue
Speaker 1: that we should consider. I feel like the first thing
Speaker 1: that people say usually is they think about the worst
Speaker 1: case scenario with tenants or but but in what else
Speaker 1: in life do you really consider the worst case scenario? First,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of great case scenarios. And sure, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of potential pitfalls, and there's a lot of
Speaker 1: things that I mean, I think we could from from
Speaker 1: our like seven years as being landlords seven or eight years,
Speaker 1: there's there's some things that we can tell you that
Speaker 1: you need to avoid, that you need to consider. But ultimately,
Speaker 1: if you do a thorough job screening and you're smart,
Speaker 1: and you have a house that's in good condition that
Speaker 1: you would want to live in, and that's always my standard,
Speaker 1: what I want to live in the house. If I
Speaker 1: wouldn't want to live in the house, then I'm not
Speaker 1: considering it. Time for some upgrades. Yeah, so yeah, So
Speaker 1: where where are you then today with uh? With real estate?
Speaker 1: So we have three rental homes and we also rent
Speaker 1: out the back part of our home and they're all
Speaker 1: single family homes. At one point you mentioned triplex. At
Speaker 1: one point we looked at a triplex and we put
Speaker 1: in an offer, but we didn't get it. Uh. There
Speaker 1: there have been a couple of multifamilies so we've been
Speaker 1: interested in but just haven't haven't quite gotten them yet,
Speaker 1: and we put in offers but just haven't gotten them.
Speaker 1: But that is something we'd be interested at some point
Speaker 1: in time. You and I kept from the same cloth
Speaker 1: man same yeah, same here. I mean, yeah, like you,
Speaker 1: we've got three as well, which is it's just funny
Speaker 1: how how similar we are. Hopefully we'll kind of continue
Speaker 1: to be able to expand that portfolio too. So what
Speaker 1: is your kind of ultimate goal? Like why do you
Speaker 1: do this? Yeah? That's great question because and I think
Speaker 1: anybody that's looking to go into having rental properties needs
Speaker 1: to think through why they're doing it, because the why
Speaker 1: behind it. And I mean for me, it's all about
Speaker 1: financial independence at some point and having another stream of income,
Speaker 1: having another way to make money. And I think there's
Speaker 1: a lot of value in real estate being one of
Speaker 1: those pillars of how you make money. And so yeah, ultimately,
Speaker 1: rental properties are a great retirement asset to have as
Speaker 1: well because they can provide income every month. Uh. Most
Speaker 1: people these days don't have pensions, just have four O
Speaker 1: one case, maybe a little bit social Security. You're not
Speaker 1: sure how much you're gonna get there either, So it's
Speaker 1: one of those things that is perfect in the now
Speaker 1: to provide some extra income. Yeah, and then on top
Speaker 1: of that, it's it's something for the future as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's exactly for us. Again, like I mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: being self employed, our income is varies greatly depending on
Speaker 1: the season, right, So there's season and then there's low season,
Speaker 1: and so for us to kind of be able to
Speaker 1: stabilize our our variable income some is always uh, is
Speaker 1: always welcomed, and our family feels a little less stressed
Speaker 1: when we know that we've you know, we've got rent
Speaker 1: kind of coming in. Obviously we've got mortgages, but still
Speaker 1: annoying that some of that we're going to be able
Speaker 1: to put towards our our expenses and cost of living
Speaker 1: living for ourselves, um, but also to man. Another reason why,
Speaker 1: like the more the bigger picture reason why why we
Speaker 1: love it the investment properties as well, is that we're
Speaker 1: able to buy into what we love, which is the city,
Speaker 1: like being you know, invested in the city both emotionally
Speaker 1: but also obviously financially as well. Like we believe in
Speaker 1: in in our city. We we love it, and to
Speaker 1: kind of be able to to kind of be able
Speaker 1: to back that in a in a way that's really
Speaker 1: really tangible is great, I think as well. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: so the last house that I bought, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: uncam anyhow weird, uh, Matt and eyes lives are linked.
Speaker 1: The last rental homes we bought were literally it's been Yeah,
Speaker 1: we we've been destined to to do this. It was
Speaker 1: our first foray into another neighborhood. And we'll get into
Speaker 1: the recent location is really important when picking rental property
Speaker 1: in just a minute. It was our first foray into
Speaker 1: another neighborhoods about ten minutes away from where we currently live,
Speaker 1: and and all our other rental properties are kind of
Speaker 1: right by almost exactly where we live, and we ended
Speaker 1: up buying houses that were two doors down from each other.
Speaker 1: But it's it's because we love that neighborhood over there
Speaker 1: so much. Yeah, but we love you know what made
Speaker 1: has drawn me to that neighborhood for so long. It's awesome, man.
Speaker 1: I have always I've told Emily this for years and years.
Speaker 1: When I retire, I want to live next to a
Speaker 1: disc golf course, and actually maybe before that, I just
Speaker 1: want to someday live next to a discolf course. Got
Speaker 1: to walk out the door. And so the only discolf
Speaker 1: course basically an in town Atlanta is right there where
Speaker 1: this rental property is. So I wanted to have that.
Speaker 1: I wanted to have that place near to that disc
Speaker 1: golf course. I love that park. It's just it's so awesome.
Speaker 1: The numbers worked too, which was nice. If the numbers
Speaker 1: didn't work, I wouldn't buy it, but it would kind
Speaker 1: of have all that line up together. Yeah, that's that's
Speaker 1: a nirvana, right, like the location you already believe in
Speaker 1: that you love obviously in the city that we love,
Speaker 1: but then also to have kind of like these sweet
Speaker 1: trappings of man Sunday, I could be over here and
Speaker 1: walk straight out onto the whole one of the disc golf. Well,
Speaker 1: I knew, at least in the meantime anytime I've got
Speaker 1: to go over there and repair something, I was, sweet,
Speaker 1: you're gonna throw your disks in the drunk and I
Speaker 1: can go throw four or five holes at least as well.
Speaker 1: It's like Emily, I'll see yet too. Yeah, so it's
Speaker 1: kind of it was kind of perfect, perfect for me
Speaker 1: in that regard. Yeah, so Matt, let's talk about how
Speaker 1: we manage our properties. Serves more the particulars. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: interesting because the guy that I bought this last house
Speaker 1: from had fifty plus properties, jeez. And he told me
Speaker 1: at the time and he sold me this property, he
Speaker 1: said that the biggest piece of advice I can give
Speaker 1: you is to get a management company, which is interesting
Speaker 1: because I totally disagree with him, and I manage all
Speaker 1: my properties myself. And for the time being, I think
Speaker 1: until I probably get to double digits, I plan on
Speaker 1: managing all my properties myself. And we both do that.
Speaker 1: And why do you think that's important? And why do
Speaker 1: you continue to do that? Yeah, I can see somebody
Speaker 1: that has fifty properties. Why why you don't want to
Speaker 1: do that? But yeah, so that's that's one one way
Speaker 1: you can approach it, right, it's pay management company. And
Speaker 1: and I would even suggest that there too for folks
Speaker 1: that know that they want to get into investment properties
Speaker 1: but don't want to deal with the headache. Cause when
Speaker 1: I talk to people about investment properties, that's one of
Speaker 1: the first things they talk about, right, is, Oh, I
Speaker 1: don't want to. I just don't want to get the
Speaker 1: phone call in the middle of the night saying there's
Speaker 1: a leak and try to have to figure that out.
Speaker 1: It's like, well, you don't have to get that phone call.
Speaker 1: The management company can if you don't want to, don't
Speaker 1: want to deal with that. But in your you've you've
Speaker 1: been a landlord now for six and a half years.
Speaker 1: How many of those have you gotten? That's my thing
Speaker 1: what I want to tell those people. It's overblown, that's true,
Speaker 1: don't worry about it. It almost never happens. But I
Speaker 1: guess what I'm saying though, is that if that is
Speaker 1: the barrier, don't let that be a barrier. Because management,
Speaker 1: you know, they take some off the top, but it's
Speaker 1: not it's not it's not a big deal. Management companies
Speaker 1: will usually take approximately ten, so I might take seven,
Speaker 1: so might take twelves right about percent. It's gonna be
Speaker 1: somewhere in that range. A lot of them take we'll
Speaker 1: take the first month's rent to just to kind of
Speaker 1: get it up and running that initial So you're you're
Speaker 1: you're talking about a big outlay there, and the numbers
Speaker 1: have to be a lot better on a property if
Speaker 1: you're going to use a management company, if you're planning
Speaker 1: on self managing, give a little more leeway in what
Speaker 1: you're going to purchase. The thing is, for most management companies,
Speaker 1: they're collecting the rent and they're answering those phone calls.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing. You're you're still paying the plumber
Speaker 1: or the electrician or whoever may be out of your pocket.
Speaker 1: They're calling the dude, but it's not like they're getting
Speaker 1: a cheaper like you can shop around. You don't know
Speaker 1: that the management companies canna shop around for you. So
Speaker 1: there's and they they'll put on a certain face for
Speaker 1: you the property owner, But man, how are they actually
Speaker 1: treating tenants as well? I mean, I know I had
Speaker 1: horror stories of management companies in college, trying to get
Speaker 1: them to respond to stuff in our apartment right, or
Speaker 1: even just trying to get trying to get the place
Speaker 1: to begin with, Like you'd have to show up at
Speaker 1: a certain time on a certain day. I'm like wait
Speaker 1: outside in the cold literally to remember to get a
Speaker 1: place where we wanted to live and my roommates. And
Speaker 1: in my mind, the biggest reason not to use the
Speaker 1: management company is you're probably not going to be charging
Speaker 1: market rent. The that was the biggest thing I got
Speaker 1: when this when this guy, this investor guy that had
Speaker 1: fifty plus homes and and he sold this one home
Speaker 1: to me. He's kind of starting to eliminate some of
Speaker 1: his port portfolio, sell off some of his houses. And
Speaker 1: when he said get get a management company, I looked
Speaker 1: at the lease that he had, because there was a
Speaker 1: tenant in there currently. I looked at what he was
Speaker 1: charging and I said, that's not anywhere close to market rent. Really, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And there's a lot of waste, that's what you're saying,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of waste. There's there's a lot of waste,
Speaker 1: and so I want to keep an eye on those things.
Speaker 1: I want to make sure I know my properties. I
Speaker 1: want to make sure I'm there. That's why we can
Speaker 1: get into this in just a second. That's why location
Speaker 1: is so important. I personally want the homes to be
Speaker 1: really close by me, and I don't want to management
Speaker 1: company because I want to be over there from time
Speaker 1: to time. I want to move alow every once in
Speaker 1: a while or whatever it may be. I want to
Speaker 1: see them, be present, say, see how things are going,
Speaker 1: kind of get to know them and what's going on
Speaker 1: in their life. Yeah, that's that's definitely our approach, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, but you and I both definitely manage our
Speaker 1: properties ourselves, and so kind of moving on then, I
Speaker 1: guess to some rules of thumb. What you know, if
Speaker 1: you're considering a property is if you're gonna do that,
Speaker 1: if you're gonna self manage, it's important to make sure
Speaker 1: that you kind of have the capacity to do that yourself.
Speaker 1: If you if you know that you want to kind
Speaker 1: of self manage, and this is something you want to
Speaker 1: kind of that you want to start doing, make sure
Speaker 1: that you have obviously the financial capacity, right, Like you know,
Speaker 1: you have to put a chunk you know, twenty Typically
Speaker 1: with investment properties these days, it's if you're wanting a
Speaker 1: competitive rate, and you need to make sure that you've
Speaker 1: got the mental capacity just to think about it. And
Speaker 1: if when you do get a text or an email
Speaker 1: or phone call that says, hey, this is busted, like
Speaker 1: like I did a few weeks ago over the over
Speaker 1: the holidays, you need to make sure that that doesn't
Speaker 1: stress you out and that you don't have any margin
Speaker 1: in your life to where one small thing is just
Speaker 1: going to wreck everything, right, because there's gonna be a
Speaker 1: little small things that kind of crop up here and
Speaker 1: there a decent bit. So that's something to I think
Speaker 1: that to consider. Make sure you've got the capacity for that.
Speaker 1: And it might be best for you to have a
Speaker 1: partner where you guys are both excel at different parts
Speaker 1: of this. Someone brings the money, someone brings the sweat,
Speaker 1: the sweat equity to it. Yeah, you want to make
Speaker 1: sure that you've got that capacity. And one thing that
Speaker 1: goes along with capacity in my mind is location. So
Speaker 1: how close are these rental homes to you? Every mile
Speaker 1: that you have to drive further to your rental home
Speaker 1: to go check on something, it might be a minor issue.
Speaker 1: That's the that's the crazy things. I Sometimes someone will
Speaker 1: call you about you know, the stove's not working and
Speaker 1: guess what it was just a flip breaker. And if
Speaker 1: you had to drive twelve miles to go free that
Speaker 1: out first is a mile and a half. Every mile
Speaker 1: passt is just it's more infuriating to drive, and so
Speaker 1: well we we hate driving. Yeah, yeah, yeah, obviously when
Speaker 1: you're Atlanta, every mile is like you know, you can
Speaker 1: do the math, it's next minutes. It's an episode one.
Speaker 1: You'll know we hate driving. Um. I think it's really
Speaker 1: important for us, and it's something that you at least
Speaker 1: need to think through. Hey am I cool driving this
Speaker 1: far for stuff like that? Or how how am I
Speaker 1: actually going to run this in actuality? And at least
Speaker 1: for us, it's really important to have them close by.
Speaker 1: And even this our our new rental homes that are
Speaker 1: you know, ten twelve minutes away, not two minutes away.
Speaker 1: I see it in myself. I'm like, oh, it's just
Speaker 1: a little more annoying to go over there than it
Speaker 1: is to the other ones. Yeah, I'm with you there.
Speaker 1: So if someone's considering getting an investment property, like what
Speaker 1: do you think, like what like the terms of the
Speaker 1: loan that that folks should be looking at Well. I
Speaker 1: think the first thing first is you have to have,
Speaker 1: like you just mentioned, a bunch of money saved down
Speaker 1: and so if you don't have down for a round property, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mentioned that a second ago. Is that kind of
Speaker 1: standard now standards? Okay, that's pretty standard, and all this
Speaker 1: mortgage companies are requiring down instead of like the standard
Speaker 1: or even obviously less, but that some folks are doing.
Speaker 1: But then they're getting hit with am I you? And
Speaker 1: I would I don't think ever recommend any loan for
Speaker 1: a home if you don't have at least to put
Speaker 1: down and so and and on around property. So you'll
Speaker 1: also need to factor in potential closing costs, potential repairs
Speaker 1: to the home and uh you you just want to
Speaker 1: be repaired. You can't bank on the tenant, uh you know,
Speaker 1: hopefully in a perfect world everything works out and tenants
Speaker 1: paying gangbusters for all twelve months of your loan term.
Speaker 1: But you'll need to be financially prepared. You need to
Speaker 1: have you have some financial margin in your LAFE for sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: emergency fund set aside even specifically for that house, not
Speaker 1: just for yourself personally, but I mean look at it
Speaker 1: as as a business because it is. You need to
Speaker 1: have a reserve and that'll help you weather the storms. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and obviously you want to shop around for that loan.
Speaker 1: You want to shop locally with at least three mortgage
Speaker 1: providers to try to find the best terms, the best
Speaker 1: the best rate. Yes, so make sure you shop on
Speaker 1: that because there's a lot of people that talk to
Speaker 1: one person and like, all right, let's do it. You're
Speaker 1: talking about thousands and thousands, tens of thousands of dollars
Speaker 1: over the life of the loan if you don't shop around,
Speaker 1: and that's a lot of money. Yeah, a lot of
Speaker 1: times if they do just hit one check with one lender,
Speaker 1: it's always too as well. It's always just like a
Speaker 1: big bank. It's just one of these big lenders and
Speaker 1: they're not really getting a competitive there's gonna be extra
Speaker 1: costs kind of thrown in there, and the measuring is
Speaker 1: going to be a little more expensive. And the big banks,
Speaker 1: the big banks are the absolute worst. They charge the
Speaker 1: higher rates. So you want to check. You know, local
Speaker 1: is better. I would say that some of the online
Speaker 1: banks are great for refinancing, but you might have issues
Speaker 1: and I can personal experience for you, right experience for me.
Speaker 1: Actually that an arstilation is when it comes to a
Speaker 1: new purchase. As an online bank did not come through
Speaker 1: for me, and so I had to quickly, last minute
Speaker 1: try to turn to a lender um that was close by.
Speaker 1: And so I would I would recommend going with someone
Speaker 1: that you can actually know and talk to and that
Speaker 1: lives in your vicinity. Uh, and and shop with a
Speaker 1: few few of those potential loan officers in your area. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So do you want to talk about R O I
Speaker 1: and the one percent rule and all that kind of stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think the easiest way to break it down to
Speaker 1: hey is this is this house to deal? Yeah, min,
Speaker 1: how do I know whether or not I should buy
Speaker 1: this house or not? Yeah? Yep, So before you even
Speaker 1: get a loane terms, I guess that's the first thing
Speaker 1: you actually have. Sucsess talked about that first. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: that's how we do things around here, It's right. And
Speaker 1: so the the easiest way for me to think about
Speaker 1: it in my mind and to explain to other people
Speaker 1: is think about the one percent rule. Can you get
Speaker 1: one percent of the cost of the house back in
Speaker 1: monthly rents? So let's say for a simple math, you
Speaker 1: are buying a hundred thousand dollar house, will your monthly
Speaker 1: rents be equivalent to a thousand dollars a month? And
Speaker 1: if they are, then it it's a great purchase. And
Speaker 1: if they're not, you have to think about that really,
Speaker 1: you know, really long and hard, because if it's close
Speaker 1: and you think, you know, by next year, maybe I'll
Speaker 1: be there, you know, maybe, But if you're if your
Speaker 1: monthly rent is going to be six dollars on a
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollar house, it's probably not a good person. Yeah,
Speaker 1: or there better be a really good reason why that
Speaker 1: house is either really special or that you foresee rents
Speaker 1: going up immediately there. Yeah, there there should be something
Speaker 1: else going on. But I think there's too many rule. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think there's way too many people that get into
Speaker 1: the real estate investing game and instead of asking themselves
Speaker 1: the one percent rule, they ask themselves the question of
Speaker 1: will the monthly rents cover my mortgage? And that's a
Speaker 1: terrible question to ask. And then there's just a lot
Speaker 1: of in lords that I've met over the years that say, well,
Speaker 1: the you know what, the rents are covering my mortgage,
Speaker 1: I'm golden, And they're only looking at the equity, I
Speaker 1: guess in the home because otherwise, why I'd go through
Speaker 1: all that if you're getting nothing right And in my mind, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's I'm not banking on purely just the thirty year payoff, right,
Speaker 1: and then I've got this, this house on my hands.
Speaker 1: It's worth something. You know. I want to be able
Speaker 1: to not be already. You know, you might be a
Speaker 1: little you know, miffed if you get that text at
Speaker 1: three am or whatever from your tenant. I want to
Speaker 1: at least know in the back of my mind I'm
Speaker 1: making money every month. So I'm happy to respond to
Speaker 1: this because you know what, this is actually making me
Speaker 1: money and this is a good thing for me. And
Speaker 1: if it was only covering the mortgage amount, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: feel that way. And then all of our all of
Speaker 1: our properties are single family yea, yeah, So what do
Speaker 1: you what do you think about that? What do you
Speaker 1: recommend to people should they start single family go directly
Speaker 1: into multifamily. I mean, if you I think it maybe
Speaker 1: comes down to personality. If you know that you're gonna
Speaker 1: get into this and this is something you really want
Speaker 1: to pursue in something that you're interested in making, say
Speaker 1: even full time and you want to look at it
Speaker 1: like a an eight unit property, sure go for it.
Speaker 1: But if you're gonna if you're looking at managing that yourself,
Speaker 1: just know that you're going from zero to eighty miles
Speaker 1: per hour, like right off of the bat. So I'm
Speaker 1: trying to think if if we would have been prepared,
Speaker 1: so say, instead of getting a single family, if we
Speaker 1: would have our first investment property would have been say
Speaker 1: even a duplex or a triplex. And I think there,
Speaker 1: I mean, would there would have been a more a
Speaker 1: greater learning curve right as as compared to just slowly
Speaker 1: kind of been able to being able to learn things
Speaker 1: over the years. And that's just our approach which we
Speaker 1: prefer doing, is just kind of learning things ourselves, kind
Speaker 1: of nit nice smooth, slow sailing. Yeah, we're kind of
Speaker 1: in the in the slow rental building game. You and
Speaker 1: I say, I'm in no rush. We're in everywhere. We're
Speaker 1: buying a house every couple of years. So we're not
Speaker 1: we're not gangbusters full speed ahead. What I tell a
Speaker 1: lot of young people when uh they talk about wanting
Speaker 1: to buy a house, uh potential to you know, how
Speaker 1: do I say about money to buy this house? And
Speaker 1: and you know how how it's getting so much more
Speaker 1: difficult to afford housing in my area. I encourage them
Speaker 1: to consider buying a duplex. I think, if you're young
Speaker 1: and starting out, that's actually a really smart way to
Speaker 1: be able to get a house and to cover cover
Speaker 1: some expenses. You can usually cover three quarters of your mortgage.
Speaker 1: Uh if you have a duplex by running out the
Speaker 1: other side, and then you're kind of getting into the game.
Speaker 1: And then eventually, let's say, you know, you save up
Speaker 1: your money and you go buy your own single family house.
Speaker 1: You we're not both sides of the duplex. It's kind
Speaker 1: of a great way to get into it. Obviously that
Speaker 1: wasn't the path that I took, but I see that
Speaker 1: as just a really smart way to get in there,
Speaker 1: to get started, to get in the game. As a
Speaker 1: as an aside, that actually makes me think of the
Speaker 1: our Airbnb episode that you know that we did recently.
Speaker 1: I feel like we're further, We're closer to doing it
Speaker 1: than not like last time. I said. I was like,
Speaker 1: I think we're like fifty fifty. Yeah, I mean, so
Speaker 1: you're saying duplex, and so it made me think of, oh,
Speaker 1: or a basement basement department. Yeah, man, I feel like
Speaker 1: we're like close to pulling the trick on less. I
Speaker 1: feel like we're like the of the way I agreed
Speaker 1: that we're gonna do it, so my airstream passion convinced
Speaker 1: to you. Oh man, absolutely. So it's like us one
Speaker 1: night sitting down and talking into microphones and trying to
Speaker 1: convince each other that we should do this too, where
Speaker 1: the next day I was like, man, I really should
Speaker 1: do this. Let's do it. We'll keep updating everybody and
Speaker 1: no new news and yet but I just thought i'd
Speaker 1: tell you that. And I'm about to take a road
Speaker 1: trip and look at that air stream that I mentioned
Speaker 1: to you. So it sounds like we're both kind of
Speaker 1: getting really close and getting each other. We're firing each
Speaker 1: other up, potentially making a plunge and pissing off our
Speaker 1: lives at the same time. So, so what else do
Speaker 1: you think folks need you consider then, just, you know,
Speaker 1: broadly if when they're considering an investment property, Yeah, so quickly,
Speaker 1: when we're just talking about a duplex and and maybe
Speaker 1: you know, young person buying a duplex instead of a
Speaker 1: single Emily home. Uh, one other benefit to that, I
Speaker 1: think and if you are want to start out small
Speaker 1: kind of like kind of like we did. I do
Speaker 1: think it's really wise to live in your first home
Speaker 1: before you rent it out, so instead of it there's
Speaker 1: a couple of benefits this first we just talked about
Speaker 1: how much money you have to put down. You can
Speaker 1: put down a lot less money to live for a
Speaker 1: house that you're gonna live in. You can put down
Speaker 1: less to which I wouldn't recommend, but you can. So
Speaker 1: my first home put down, lived in it for two years,
Speaker 1: then rented it out, and I kind of been trying
Speaker 1: to follow that cycle living in that hunt next home
Speaker 1: for two years and then moved and rented that one out.
Speaker 1: And so I think there's something there's a few good things.
Speaker 1: You kind of get to know the home, you know
Speaker 1: the area, you know the corks, you know the neighbors.
Speaker 1: There's just there are a lot of benefits to doing
Speaker 1: it that way, not to mention the fact that you're
Speaker 1: gonna get a lower interest rate, get to put less
Speaker 1: money down. Um, there's just a lot of benefits to
Speaker 1: living in a place before you actually end up running
Speaker 1: it out. So, Matt, what about general handiness. You're handier
Speaker 1: than I am. How handy do I need to be
Speaker 1: if I'm gonna own a run a home. I mean,
Speaker 1: you either need to be handy with like a tool
Speaker 1: or with a cell phone, because I feel like you're
Speaker 1: handy when it comes to finding somebody to fix something
Speaker 1: for you, right, I mean I'm sing about Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I'm handy because I enjoy it. I like learning,
Speaker 1: oh man, especially when it's something that I know I'm
Speaker 1: gonna have to do my own home or or another
Speaker 1: property soon. Like, well, if I can learn how to
Speaker 1: do this myself and then know that it's not gonna
Speaker 1: take that long, that's a skill, hey, that I get
Speaker 1: to learn, And yeah, I've bettered myself in that sense,
Speaker 1: and be it. It saves me money times however many
Speaker 1: times I have to do it. So that's one of
Speaker 1: the ways I approach it. I really enjoy learning and
Speaker 1: how to do things that might be a little more
Speaker 1: considered handy mane work. But those are things I enjoy
Speaker 1: enjoy myself. But do you have to be able to
Speaker 1: do those things yourself? Now? I just ask around and
Speaker 1: ask your friends to de texts or like a you know,
Speaker 1: Facebook post, be like, hey, does he may have an
Speaker 1: h fat guy because my a C just went out.
Speaker 1: If you have friends or anybody that kind of knows you,
Speaker 1: they'll be like, oh yeah, check out so and so. Yeah,
Speaker 1: get a few quotes. Yeah. Yeah, don't go to the
Speaker 1: first person that comments on your walk because that probably
Speaker 1: that person is probably maybe it doesn't have the best recommendation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you definitely get checking in a few Yeah. I think
Speaker 1: on questions of whether you need to be handy or not,
Speaker 1: I am not handy, but I have learned to do
Speaker 1: a few things, and you like to learn as well. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I've replaced the toilet, I've fixed a water heater,
Speaker 1: replaced thermister. I believe that's what it was, called thermal
Speaker 1: couple or something like that. Now I was like thermal
Speaker 1: couple or something like. Uh, it's like it is a
Speaker 1: copper piece that the thing that heats up that tells
Speaker 1: the furnace to keep going in exactly so. And you
Speaker 1: YouTube videos, by the way, are invalid. Yeah. In the
Speaker 1: age of YouTube, you you have very little excuse not
Speaker 1: to at least attempt fixing something on your own. I've
Speaker 1: fixed an air conditioner by replacing my air condisher stopped
Speaker 1: working and it was the condenser. No, not the condensor,
Speaker 1: it was the capacitor. Capacitor was the capacity, so you
Speaker 1: can tell because it gets domed the and so there's
Speaker 1: all these things. You know, YouTube will teach you so much.
Speaker 1: If you want to fix something, just google. Yeah, just
Speaker 1: searching on YouTube and just watch three videos and you're
Speaker 1: gonna go. I would say this the minimum requirement for handingness.
Speaker 1: You need to be able to paint, and you need
Speaker 1: to be able to paint your own home, you know.
Speaker 1: And then so the interior specifically the interior specifically if
Speaker 1: you can't or unwilling to do that, if you're going
Speaker 1: to hire basic things like that out and eventually if
Speaker 1: you have enough homes you can do that. But when
Speaker 1: you're starting out, you need to be able to at
Speaker 1: least put in some of the sweat equity to do
Speaker 1: some of the basic things cleaning clans. You need to
Speaker 1: be able to fill holes and throw get a new coda,
Speaker 1: paint up for sure, because that's that's pretty important. When
Speaker 1: it comes to if you're unwilling to do that, I
Speaker 1: would say I would say rental properties just probably aren't
Speaker 1: for you. Yeah, there's there's definitely a degree of kind
Speaker 1: of d I wideness that that goes along with having
Speaker 1: investment properties obviously the way you know, the way that
Speaker 1: we approach it for certainly. Yeah, so handy nous. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's a plus. No, you don't need to be bringing
Speaker 1: Captain d i y, you know, Mr Sunday. But you know,
Speaker 1: if you can mow alan and paint and uh and
Speaker 1: do some cleaning, then I think you're well in your way.
Speaker 1: And you know what, if you're curious and like to
Speaker 1: watch some YouTube videos and figure some stuff out, this
Speaker 1: this is the perfect place to experiment and try to
Speaker 1: fix things yourself. And you know what, I will tell
Speaker 1: you what, as a guy that's not very handy truly,
Speaker 1: in all honesty, I'm I'm really not very handy. To
Speaker 1: actually fix something like that yourself, when you know your
Speaker 1: limitations is super exciting. It's really fun to be able
Speaker 1: to you know what, I just did that. Holy crap,
Speaker 1: I didn't think I could do it and I did it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's it's fun fixing, fixing something physical right and and
Speaker 1: in the world in an age where we so much
Speaker 1: of our work revolves around bits of data now on
Speaker 1: the computer, to be able to do something with your
Speaker 1: hands I also very much love that. Man, it's yeah,
Speaker 1: feel so good. So something else I wanted to talk about.
Speaker 1: Two Screening tenants I think is one of the things
Speaker 1: that turns a lot of people off when it comes
Speaker 1: to because they think, oh, man, what if I get
Speaker 1: somebody a terrible renner or somebody that in there that's
Speaker 1: a criminal or something like that. There are so many
Speaker 1: tools today, it's it's not like it was even ten
Speaker 1: years ago. Specifically, we use a site called my smart
Speaker 1: move dot com which takes out so much of the
Speaker 1: stress when it comes to getting a new tenant. Right.
Speaker 1: So it's a site run by trains Union, and all
Speaker 1: you have to do is just create an account and
Speaker 1: then you send your potential tenant, you punch in their
Speaker 1: email and send them, uh the form to to basically
Speaker 1: fill out that reports back with their credit report with
Speaker 1: like any like a criminal record or any past evictions
Speaker 1: anything like that, and so like there's no guesswork anymore.
Speaker 1: Like obviously, you know, you meet with them and you
Speaker 1: get to know them and make sure there seems like
Speaker 1: they're going to be a good tenant. But beyond that
Speaker 1: called prior landlords. Oh gosh, yeah, that's the number one
Speaker 1: number one thing called called previous landlords. Make sure they've
Speaker 1: always paid and that's for really or on time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's where you get you know, obviously you have an application,
Speaker 1: you get them to fill it out right down that information.
Speaker 1: You talk to their previously previous three landlords and and
Speaker 1: their employer to make sure they're employed. And that's that's huge.
Speaker 1: But but the TransUnion my smart Move service is excellence,
Speaker 1: like the bow on top. Just to know that, like,
Speaker 1: all right, man, these guys are they they said they're awesome,
Speaker 1: Their landlords landlords have you know, said they're awesome. And
Speaker 1: then there their credit is great and they're not a criminal.
Speaker 1: And I will say you can make takes a lot
Speaker 1: of stress out of it. You can make decisions based
Speaker 1: on if their credit is bad. I have rented to
Speaker 1: people with bad credit based on other things other references income,
Speaker 1: proof of income. Uh. And when you do that, I
Speaker 1: suggest taking a larger security deposit. So if someone's got
Speaker 1: bad credit but good income, you take a larger security deposit,
Speaker 1: and that's kind of your your hedge against kind of
Speaker 1: meet in the middle. You don't want to if they
Speaker 1: still have a great place to rent and you want
Speaker 1: to be able to provide provide that to them as well.
Speaker 1: All right, So one other thing you want to make
Speaker 1: sure of when you're looking at buying a rental property,
Speaker 1: you want to buy in a place that people actually
Speaker 1: want to live. So when you lift your rental property,
Speaker 1: you don't want to get people trickling in one every
Speaker 1: you know, one person that's interested in every couple of weeks.
Speaker 1: You want to steady stream of people that are interested
Speaker 1: in living in your plate. You want open the floodgates.
Speaker 1: A tip my buddy Clark has telling you about up
Speaker 1: in Asheville. One of the things he told me was
Speaker 1: to make sure that you go by that the house
Speaker 1: you're considering that property, go by there at night and
Speaker 1: sit there just to like just see what's going on,
Speaker 1: you know, because like there's a lot of things that
Speaker 1: you will notice when you're there in the day, but
Speaker 1: just go there at night just kind of hang, you know,
Speaker 1: roll down the window and see what, Listen to what
Speaker 1: you hear, like smell like there, you know what if
Speaker 1: there's some plant next next door or something close by.
Speaker 1: There's all these sort of things that you don't really
Speaker 1: you definitely can't see in pictures online. Maybe train tracks
Speaker 1: and the train runs at night. Oh my gosh. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: There's just a lot of things like that you're not
Speaker 1: gonna know, and unless you're you're there in person. So
Speaker 1: if you're thinking about becoming a landlord, I mean there's
Speaker 1: a lot of due diligence involved. You gotta run the numbers,
Speaker 1: you know, you gotta make sure it hits the one
Speaker 1: percent rule or it is close and you got some
Speaker 1: reasons why you're gonna buy. You gotta make sure there's
Speaker 1: enough people that want to rent it and that it's
Speaker 1: going to be something that fits into your life. But
Speaker 1: if it does, owning rental properties is a boon for
Speaker 1: you and hopefully in the short term and in a
Speaker 1: long term. I know it's been great for me over
Speaker 1: the last eight and a half years. It's been a
Speaker 1: incredibly worthwhile pursuit and it's definitely helping me on my
Speaker 1: path to financial independence. Yeah, there's a lot of other
Speaker 1: resources out there as well. I mean, there's a lot
Speaker 1: that we're not covering, right, I mean, there's a lot sure.
Speaker 1: So there's a ton of ways that you make money
Speaker 1: from real estate. Obviously the biggest way is the month
Speaker 1: of cash flow, but you're also you're building up equity, right,
Speaker 1: so every month and when that mortgage gets paid, that
Speaker 1: equity is getting paid down and you know that's that's
Speaker 1: equity that you that you get to have. And then
Speaker 1: so you got cash flow, your monthly rents, you've got
Speaker 1: your equity, and then you've got your the tax benefits. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we didn't even get in attack. That's a whole another
Speaker 1: sort of it's a whole branch that we didn't even discuss.
Speaker 1: And so, yeah, the the benefits owning UH rental properties
Speaker 1: are myriad. There's so many if you are really really interested,
Speaker 1: Like we said at the beginning of this episode, this
Speaker 1: is a forest episode. We're getting, you know, the overview,
Speaker 1: and if you really want to get down in the weeds,
Speaker 1: will in the show notes at poor not Poor dot
Speaker 1: com will get we'll link off to some of the
Speaker 1: great resources and we know of online UH specifically, I
Speaker 1: would recommend checking out this website Bigger Pockets dot com
Speaker 1: and there's all sorts of information you can get as
Speaker 1: down into the weeds as you want on potentially on
Speaker 1: owning rental properties. Any questions you may have, they've answered
Speaker 1: on that website. So I would recommend checking that out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: i'd recommend if you want to go more of the
Speaker 1: old fashioned book route The Millionaire Real Estate Investor by
Speaker 1: by Gary Keller. And this is like like Keller, Williams Keller. Yeah,
Speaker 1: guy knows that's what's going on. So this is one
Speaker 1: of the one the books I was pointed to early on,
Speaker 1: and it's not really it reads like a textbook, but
Speaker 1: man is it rich with information. Things you wouldn't have
Speaker 1: even considered obviously are in there. And so yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of great resources out there
Speaker 1: that we recommend you check out. And if you've got
Speaker 1: more questions about rental properties and you want to reach
Speaker 1: out to Matt and I, we are available on Twitter.
Speaker 1: You can tweet us at not Poor Matt and at
Speaker 1: not Poor Joel, and we would love to talk to you,
Speaker 1: message you back, and also maybe you some of your
Speaker 1: questions on a future podcast as we delve further into
Speaker 1: real estate endeavors real estate investing, because it's definitely one
Speaker 1: of Matt and I's favorite topics to discuss. Guys. So
Speaker 1: hopefully after listening to this today, you feel that investment
Speaker 1: properties aren't something that are sort of this sort of
Speaker 1: scary unknown thing. It's I mean, it's it's really not
Speaker 1: overly complicated, and it's just a lot of folks aren't
Speaker 1: aren't talking about it. Yeah, they're so much easier than
Speaker 1: I thought they were going to be, as long as
Speaker 1: you know what you're getting into ahead of time and
Speaker 1: how much work it's gonna take, and specifically how much
Speaker 1: work that house is going to take, and how much
Speaker 1: return on investment you're getting, and you're okay with that mentally.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's a brilliant pursuit. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: So Matt, Yeah, Man, back to the beer. Let's get
Speaker 1: back to this beer. Dude, what's your take on Bearded
Speaker 1: Iris brewing scatter Brain I p A. Well, first of all,
Speaker 1: my beer is all gone, so you're still got a
Speaker 1: little bit left. You're a little drinking yours. I like
Speaker 1: this so much, man, I'm a huge fan of all
Speaker 1: these new cloudy hazy I p A s that kind
Speaker 1: of have this like the hop profile that's sort of
Speaker 1: like the sharp has a sharp flavor to it almost
Speaker 1: like this sounds weird to say it, but almost like
Speaker 1: a like a blue cheese where it it's real smooth
Speaker 1: and fresh tasting like the beer, but then that sort
Speaker 1: of the bitterness is sort of I mean, that's the
Speaker 1: best way I can describe. It just reminds me of
Speaker 1: like a blue cheese. I wonder if the listeners out
Speaker 1: there have watched the Netflix documentary Song Yeah. I was
Speaker 1: wonder if you're because, uh, if you watch that, you'll find,
Speaker 1: like Pep will describe these wines in the weirdest ways.
Speaker 1: It's about these these dudes trying to become wine Somalia's
Speaker 1: and they just it's fascinating how much things a rigorous process. Though.
Speaker 1: It's one of the most fascinating documentaries I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: But you remind me of those people because the way
Speaker 1: the way you describe things is sometimes I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's true, and I just say I just say
Speaker 1: what I smell or taste, and then that's an odd one.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna lie blue cheese. I wasn't getting that.
Speaker 1: I wasn't gonna say that, but you did. You went there.
Speaker 1: It's a good beer though, yeah, well truly so. My
Speaker 1: thoughts on this beer is I love the New England
Speaker 1: I p A style as well the hazy, um juicy
Speaker 1: I p A s you know, We've been lucky enough
Speaker 1: to have some of the ones from New England, and
Speaker 1: this is a decent shot at I say it's up
Speaker 1: there from down south, it's in my mind it's not
Speaker 1: quite as thick um and it's doesn't have that thick
Speaker 1: mouth feel some of those up there half. And it's
Speaker 1: a little too sweet, but I think so, I think
Speaker 1: it's a little too sweet. But I mean, honestly, it's
Speaker 1: it's fantastic. It's really really good beer. It's almost got
Speaker 1: like this sort of wheat profile to it. It reminds
Speaker 1: me of like a like a half of yeah, oh
Speaker 1: totally yeah, I can totally what I'm saying that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I dig it um yeah, and I love those. It's
Speaker 1: a little sweet, it's a little passion fruity, and I
Speaker 1: think one of the things you're gonna find. I'm I
Speaker 1: feel like I'm not being kind to this beer, but
Speaker 1: it's a really good beer. But I think the reason
Speaker 1: that is is because they're trying a style that the
Speaker 1: people who do it right. I mean, they're trying a
Speaker 1: very specific style, New England style I p a. S.
Speaker 1: And there's only a few people that do that, and
Speaker 1: and that's a hard standard to live up to, because
Speaker 1: the guys that are doing it well are crushing it,
Speaker 1: and you're trying to get into that down south and
Speaker 1: they're doing a great job. They're one of the best
Speaker 1: I've had in the Southeast. But I would have I
Speaker 1: would drink this all the time though, if they were,
Speaker 1: if they were just dripping it in Atlanta. Yeah, totally,
Speaker 1: come on, guys, send it down here, we'll drink it.
Speaker 1: We gotta say give it thanks to my mom. Shout
Speaker 1: out to Cheryl, Thanks Cheryl, beer mule, appreciate it, Love
Speaker 1: you mom. Yeah, so let's recap quickly, rental properties, think
Speaker 1: about getting arountal property. If you desire financial independence, multiple
Speaker 1: streams of income are one of the best ways to
Speaker 1: get there. And uh, I think we've talked about this recently, Matt.
Speaker 1: Passive income is is not a phrase that I love,
Speaker 1: but it is fitting in a lot of ways. And
Speaker 1: real estate is a great passive way of making income.
Speaker 1: Um And so if you can have a small amount
Speaker 1: of handing this to you and have the capacity to
Speaker 1: take it on and the capacity to understand what's going
Speaker 1: on in your local market, and well, yeah, you definitely
Speaker 1: need to have that willingness to learn right, because I mean,
Speaker 1: if you're if you're looking for a deal or if
Speaker 1: you're trying to find a you know, a location that's
Speaker 1: gonna that's kind of up and coming, because you're not
Speaker 1: gonna be able to find a deal unless you know,
Speaker 1: you know, you gotta be one one step ahead of
Speaker 1: a lot of folks there. So focus on a small
Speaker 1: segment of the market. Focus on right where you are locally,
Speaker 1: be an expert in that specific area where you are
Speaker 1: looking for homes. Gosh, you're so much we didn't talk about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: not not only know a specific area right at geographic location,
Speaker 1: but no even the specific ice home that you want.
Speaker 1: You want to know that, Okay, I'm looking for the
Speaker 1: three too in this neighborhood and this price range. And
Speaker 1: when you know, when if you get online and check
Speaker 1: the MLS listings every morning and just kind of see
Speaker 1: what's out there, like literally it takes thirty seconds just
Speaker 1: you click a few get to know us out there,
Speaker 1: and it might take honestly for you, six months, oh man,
Speaker 1: scouring Zillo or redfin or whatever app it is and
Speaker 1: just finding out what the flavor of the local market is.
Speaker 1: It took it took us over a year to find
Speaker 1: the house, the one too down from you guys, you know,
Speaker 1: like I mean, I was looking for a year getting
Speaker 1: to know that entire you know, neighborhood and that side
Speaker 1: of town. Before I felt like we had found a deal.
Speaker 1: And it's amazing a while where we purchased. The north
Speaker 1: side of the park is so different in the south side,
Speaker 1: like vastly different. I want to look at the house
Speaker 1: on the south side of the park that was like
Speaker 1: sixty grand just a matter of two blocks. It was yeah,
Speaker 1: and it and it made all the different, all the difference,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I wouldn't want to live here,
Speaker 1: but I'd want to live there. Become that location expert
Speaker 1: on exactly where you want to buy and still to it,
Speaker 1: stick to what you know and don't venture too far
Speaker 1: outside of that. There's a lot of real estate investing
Speaker 1: experts per se that will, you know, kind of try
Speaker 1: to convince you to go bigger, go home. I say,
Speaker 1: starts small. There's only a certain amount that you can
Speaker 1: actually know really well, and and but know that well
Speaker 1: and and then specialize in there. I completely agree. But
Speaker 1: you can do it, and there's a lot of ways
Speaker 1: to get started by a duplex by a single family home.
Speaker 1: Living it, move out, whatever it is, there's there's a
Speaker 1: lot of options. Thanks so much for listening everyone. Our
Speaker 1: home on the web is how to money dot com.
Speaker 1: Be sure to check it out. We'll have our show
Speaker 1: notes up there for you, and don't forget to hit
Speaker 1: the subscribe button on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening
Speaker 1: to this show. Until next time, Buddy, best Friends, best
Speaker 1: Friends Out.