Real Estate Investing Puns

What’s your rationale for investing in real estate? Sometimes I go back and forth on whether to buy more properties or just invest the money in passive index funds and not even think about it. On one hand the monthly rental income is nice. However, it seems like more returns most years in the stock market than waiting for the value of a house to go up, I don’t have to deal with annoying tenants, costs to reno/repair, or closing costs to sell. I know some of these things can be written off but is the tax benefit worth it? Couldn’t one just withdraw from their brokerage account to get the same monthly income if necessary?

What’s your rationale? What am I missing here?

Hi, I’m a complete newbie. I’m curious, how much should I have saved if I’m getting into real estate investing. Like obviously the down payment but what else should I expect to have saved up before I start looking.

If I’m looking at 150k houses and plan on doing an FHA loan (house hack if I can), how much should I realistically save up? Accounting for down payment, closing costs, unexpected expenses or emergency fund, vacancy fund etc. I wanna get a ball park so I can start setting some goals.

I have lofty goals and I need someone to level with me and tell me what I should have saved so I don’t do something stupid lol.

I was looking at 150k houses and was like “well I can afford that down payment” but I know it’s going to be way way more then that before I even see a dime of any rental income so I really need someone to bring me back to reality lol.

Edit: I am also only looking at houses I would be able to afford on my income without any rental income. So other than mortgage and insurance what unexpected costs of home ownership should I keep in mind?

Here is the start of the Real Estate Investing Book List... it will continue to be updated and will eventually become a wiki entry.

Thank you u/HandyBananaMan for contributing many books to this list.

I find myself at a crossroads right now and I really can’t make a decision. I took a semester off of college to buy a rental property out of state and then ran an Airbnb business while attending classes. The house is old as hell and needs a ton of work that’s quickly surpassing not only my limited financial budget but also mental.

I just graduated and am fortunate to have landed a W2 job right away in my field. It’s fully remote so I’m staying at my rental and have no pressure to make an immediate decision. The dilemma I’m having is that I feel I should sell the property because the house needs basically a full rehab on electric, Hvac, plumbing (cast iron and asbestos pipes), lathe and plaster, asbestos siding, and the floor joists are sagging. I had a buddy come by and look everything over and thinks it’s cost somewhere in the range of $70k+. The kicker is it’s in the historic commission so they require strict adherence to not only code but also their own requirements.

The property is in a good location of an appreciating neighborhood, walking distance to downtown and a local hospital that has tons of travel nurses coming through. If it was fully updated I’d be able to cash flow around $2k after expenses. It would bring in about 4% a month.

I’m torn because I need to learn my industry and grow my W2 career but If I move back to where I’m from (which is where all the high paying jobs are) then I’m basically cutting off my ability to invest in local real estate. I also dislike the city My rental is in on a personal level but it’s great for rental investing.

I know this is a bit of a word vomit but I’m having a bit of a crisis here. Any father figures willing to lend me some wisdom?

Long time lurker, big time fan of the group. I’ll apologize in advance for heavy content, but I’m hoping today, is day 1 of my journey in real estate investing.

I’ve come to the point in my life where I’m 37, make a good living ($100k salary/$180k household, live in San Diego), but I feel as though I have zero purpose. I work at a job that doesn’t stimulate me at all. I can do it with my eyes shut most days. For more than 10 years I’ve been interested in real estate and real estate investment, but I’ve never taken the plunge. I need that to change or I’m going to drift further into depression.

Short story, one of my best friends and I, we want to start a vacation rental or short term leasing company. We would either buy the land outright and build or buy older homes and if needed, fix them up. We’re both relatively handy, but could use some more experience there. Neither of us would be responsible for the outright build of any home, but we are working on that.

My questions to all of you are:

-how should we setup our new business (llc, partnership, corp, etc)

-can I use a first-time home buyer and VA loan both in a lifetime?

-what educational resources should we get familiarized with? Are there any certifications we should focus in on? Should I go back to school?

-what other things should I research? Learn about? Factor?

Sorry for the long post! Thanks in advance.

Iam 28 years old, doctor, i work full time as a company physician and with a part time online clinic during the afternoon. My average monthly income is around 50 to 65k and i have a car loan which i will be payig for 4 more years worth 20k per month (i know, bad investment, bad decision since i bought it with only 10k dp). I have a 6 month old baby but im not married.. livong with my siblings in a owned house.. as of now, i have a total of 100k invested in a equity index fund (with 16k gain since last 2 months) and around 200k as emergency fund.. im fairly new in the world of investing and i want to know the ebst way to start or make baby steps into investing in real estate given my situation. Is it even possible as of now? Thank you

I'm currently studying population growth trends. Going just by that, Texas, Florida, and most western states seem like good bets for real estate. Of course, there are other factors such as job growth, wage growth, and laws/regulations which play a significant role in real estate return potential. I'm currently in Chicago, and I'm planning to exit my city due to the poor real estate environment (stagnant population growth, increasing property taxes, laws unfavorable towards landlords, etc). If you had the ability to move anywhere in the US to invest in real estate (specifically renting out single family homes, condos, apartments), where would you go?

Hi guys. I’m a 19 year old who has been interested in real estate investing for some time now. One of my main goals in life to have a source of income which is passive, so it gives me the freedom to travel stress free in the long run. I’m here today trying to grab some further advice, this includes, some good Australia real estate investing podcasts, YouTube channels, blogs, or just some good guides that someone can provide here. Anything will be greatly appreciated. Thank you 🙏

I am 21 years old and I live in India. I am fairly new to real estate investing. In India, the condition of real estate is slightly different. The builders are selling homes for almost 10 times the price they bought it for. So no one is really interested in buying these houses. There is a very slow depreciation of prices of homes since many years. The correction of these prices were ongoing but covid-19 stopped that from happening. So there is a very less demand of real estate while the inventory is quite a lot. On the other hand, the interest on home loans here is 8-12% which is almost tripple than other western countries. So strategies like brrrr dont really work here. One can use appreciations for gaining profit but that too is not guaranteed which is suggested by the previous trends. I am currently an engineer and my job is quite high paying. So I basically wanted to know how can I go about with real estate investing in India or any other alternatives if you can suggest.

Hello, I’m new to this Reddit but I’m very interested in investing of any sort. I currently have a custodial account under my mother to invest in the stock market as a minor and despite the pandemic, it’s still profitable. Anyway, I turn 18 next week and on my birthday I’m going to establish a line of credit and possibly an IRA. Is there something I should do to get a start in real estate investing? Anything will help whether it be books, youtubers to watch, courses to buy (I’ve never bought a course my knowledge in the stock market comes from online research alone), or just general tidbits of knowledge and advice. Anything will help. I’m looking forward to learning from the intelligent minds in this forum. Thank you so much.

From the data I’ve seen, I don’t really see it. Someone please enlighten me. I’m interested but the returns I see seem to be lower and it’s a ton of work. Leverage? Tax rules? What am I missing?

I'm not sure if I'm in the right area for this so redirection is also helpful!

I'm a 20 year old computer science student hoping to graduate the spring of 2022. My family has multiple investment/rental properties already, that I do not know much of. My dad mentioned that I should get my real estate licenses which I thought was a good idea, but I don't know why I should. I definitely want to get into investing for additional income besides my CS career after I graduate. I also thought real estate would a be a good thing to fall back on incase I can't find work in the CS field for a while.

I live in Maryland, and I watched a couple of videos of how to obtain a licenses and if I should get my license but it just seems like a bunch of jargon. Please help!

I am thinking of creating a property screening tool. So it will scrape MLS listings and perform analysis and compute cash flow, cap rate, and cash-on-cash returns. Then it will notify the user once it fines properties worth evaluating. Obviously the user will have to manually review the property before investing, but it should weed out bad investments. But it would give first time investors ideas on what a property is worth.

Would people be interested in trying it out? What features would you like to see?

Just wondering how this refinancing works:

Buyer paid $41k cash to buy a 3-unit family home today (way under market value). Buyer is doing a cash out refinance this month to get 60% of what the home is worth. Depending on what the appraisal comes back at the buyer should get a check for around $100,000 from the lender. This will cover the purchase, some cosmetic updates, and will leave buyer with money to buy another property and repeat the process. The monthly payments on the cash out refinance will be roughly $400 a month. This property will bring in $3,000 a month which still leaves buyer with well over $2,000 a month in extra passive income.

Not only did buyer essentially get a free 3 unit multi family property but the buyer is getting double their investment back this month from the refinance. The tenants will be paying off mortgage and buyer is increasing monthly passive income by $2k+ a month.

I’m a Broker/Investor here in Bend, and Central Oregon

Ive seen a few recurring posts here regarding other items. I have also answered and responded to some of the one off real estate posts and people have seemed to respond well.

Would there be any appetite to do a monthly market report/AMA for Central Oregon?

I would like to eventually invest in real estate, but currently I have no money. Before I invest, I would like to gain some experience in the real estate world. I'm willing to work for free part time. I'm currently a senior in college and plan to invest 2-3 years after I graduate once I pay off my student loans and have some funds for investing. What can I do rn, or after I graduate to gain real experience? Any advice would be much appreciated.

I work for a company that is linked to New Construction and Retrofit work. After speaking with my boss about financials, he said there was a major decline in future sold work. A number close to 50% or so... Is anyone in the commercial space seeing a similar decline? I would imagine covid having ramifications for the commercial construction industry.

Hi! I've been looking for something to invest in in real estate for quite some time but have not actually started. I know that investing in condos may seem like the good choice ---- easier to get into kasi low dp spread over 3-5 years. But at the same time, I know how hard it is to flip it.

1. Rental Fees may not be able to cover for monthly ammortization
2. High Cost (Transfer Fees, Tax, Upkeep, etc)
3. What are the chances that someone will buy it ng assume balance or straight cash given the market?

For context, im eyeing Allegra Place, a DMCI devt beside Prisma. Target Market for this is mid pa rin eh, so people won't be as liquid, similar to me. I dont want to be tied to the property, esp the forecasted monthly ammortization for it is 40k++ per month for 20 years.

With that, I always fall back to looking into house and lots or lots in general. I have inquired to a few agents (for Pampanga / Cavite area) pero the scenario is the same, the spot dp is a little to high (usually 1M+++). So, any advice on how to start or where to look for lots that hopefully have a friendlier payment term similar to the one. for condos. It's the spot cash i dont have, pero I can manage paying the ammor naman.

Thanks

I'm looking for the best crowd investing real estate application to start trading. I'd like a mobile first experience, one that has great investment opportunities, and great customer service. Minimum's don't concern me that much.

Hi guys,

I hope everyone is doing well.

I want to get started in real estate investing but I have no capital. Aside from becoming an agent, what is a good way to earn a salary while getting experience in the RE industry?

Lately I've been thinking about investing in Belgian real estate. I know how mortgages work and how to exploit them in fiscal terms, but I don't know a lot about the Belgian real estate market. I attended Finance Avenue 2020, an event on investments organised by De Tijd where I spent most of my time at the real estate booths/lectures. The main takeaways were basically these:

• Prices of real estate have increased at a faster rate than inflation. This effect is apparently more pronounced in Belgium than other European countries.
• Residential real estate is the best option to invest in as it is way more liquid than commercial real estate.
• House tenants are more consistent and thus reliable than apartment tenants.
• The next elements are important when investing in real estate:

1. Return, which consists of (1) rent, (2) capital gains and (3) fiscal optimization
2. intrinsic value
3. liquidity
4. rentability (verhuurbaarheid): a lot of really nice, new places are terrible in terms of rentability
5. value retention (apparently a problem for some commercial real estate, as some types of it might become irrelevant in the future)

• They also talked about potential net annual returns from investing in real estate. The experts at one of the lectures disagreed on a lot of things, but they did agree on one thing: a net annual return of more than 3% - 3,5% would be nearly unattainable. Now, they didn't show me their calculations or any of the numbers behind it though.
• One of the major threats to investing in real estate is potential future fiscal changes: Belgium is under an increasing level of pressure to get rid of the "kadastraal inkomen", which drastically underestimates the "onroerend inkomen" that is used as a basis for taxes. Besides, following the end of the "woonbonus", fiscal optimization for mortgages linked to real estate investments is also under pressure as people are claiming it to be an unfair advantage for real estate investors.

So, how right were these people in your opinion? And can you give me some more information/tips on investing in real estate? Suppose I'll start investing in real estate, what kind of residential real estate should I focus on? Houses? Apartments? Multi-bedroom? How large should they be? New projects or old projects? What do you guys think is attainable in terms of net annualized returns?

Sorry for the long post, I hope some people can help me out.

First, I'm glad I found this community!

About me: I make 200k and am below 24 years old in a HCOL American city. I've diligently invested ~50% of my take-home quite tax efficiently (company supports the Megabackdoor and a Roth 401k). Vaguely, I'm shooting for a 7-10MM retirement if I can keep my career momentum going. Since my situation lets me shovel 60k+/yr in Roth accounts, a substantial chunk of my investments are growing tax free.

I've considered saving for a condo/home downpayment over the next few years through a CD, but this will probably cut into my investment ratio somewhat. While home buying is a personal decision, I assume many here have also been in this spot. If you went for the property route at the expense of reduced medium-term investments, what made you go this direction?

Can someone explain to me what makes real estate investing comparable to index investing in the stock market? I ran some quick numbers and once I considered property taxes, insurance and any condo fees or property management fees and capital gains when selling, index investing appears to come out way ahead even if I had renters 100% of the time. I feel like I'm missing something as lots of people buy real estate.

Edit: spreadsheet here with the numbers to which I was referring. I found an article that talked about how the historical return on real estate in Calgary (where I live) was 4%. Historical gains for index investing in the stock market are 7%.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1X8UPoVtx8bEFZXaYbZ7zkn5rAIXD-voQMBVRrgRehfQ/edit?usp=sharing

I need advice

Real Estate investing seems like an exciting field and for the past month, I have been doing research every day on it. I've been listening to "The ABC's of Real Estate Investing" by Ken McElroy. I've been watching countless, super helpful videos on Youtube by Graham Stephan and more. (The two have very different views, but still good to know)

Anyways, our current situation is that we are both in our late 30s. Have a kid. We have a BELOW RATE mortgage on a home in CA. We won the lottery for a first time homebuyer program in our city two years ago. Instead of owing $1 million, we originally only owed $300,000 ish. Now we are around $175,000 for our mortgage.

Some caveats for being in this program: We aren't supposed to rent it out to anyone else. If we sell it, it goes back to the city and we do get money back but not, obviously the market rate.

The wife has a good job, I do not compared to her, but it's not too bad. I am working on it.

Anyways, I was very excited to tell her about what I had been learning. But later that day, she threw some cold, albeit, very rational water on my excitement.

She thinks that first of all, she might want to get a more permanent place to live first. But even if we went investment first, she said that because of our lower salaries, the things we owe each month like mortgage and so on, a bank would likely never approve us in this area. She said out of state would be even riskier even though it may be cheaper. I get that.

She also said that even though I am learning, unless I am in real estate (broker/agent) or something, there are so many little things, but important things I could miss that only people like that would know that could cost us.

She suggested that if we invest, we invest even smaller into storage units as our friend in real estate mentioned was another option to us once.

I don't want this to go on too long, but I am happy to answer any questions you guys have. Just wondering what you think? Could use some possible strategies/ideas.

Thank you in advance!

Matthew