Real Estate In Your Twenties

For years, I tried to do everything alone in my business. As a house flipper, I would find properties, arrange financing, tile bathrooms, clean old refrigerators, install carpet and do almost every other task needed to make a profit.

I struggled — a lot. But when I started hiring out more and more tasks, I began making more and more money.

Of course, you’ve heard that a million times. But knowing and doing are two different things, aren’t they? Yes, hiring someone else is obvious. But being able to afford that someone is not so easy. After all, you’re probably thinking: “I can’t afford to hire my first employee! I hardly make any money!”

I was there, too. I get it. But here’s my simple answer to that: You can’t afford NOT to. Here’s why.

How an employee will change your business

What is your time worth? If I offered you $10 to stop what you are doing and sit in a dark room for an hour, would you do it? How about for $100? How about $1,000? At some point, I’m going to cross the threshold of what your time is worth, where you’d be making more money sitting in that room than you’d make outside of it.

Of course, that number is different for each person, but let me say something you may find shocking: Every single day, you are making that one-hour trade for just $10. Sometimes for far less.

“No way!” you might insist. But first answer these questions:

• Do you check your own email?
• Do you check your Facebook?
• Do you schedule appointments and meetings?
• Do you handle tech support?

If you are doing these tasks, you are essentially working for just a few dollars per hour, because this is what it would cost for someone else to do the task for you. Perhaps these tasks are not as bad as sitting in a dark room, but the results are the same: Your real work is not getting done. The real, life-changing work that’s going to propel your business forward is sitting there on the back burner.

Related: #AskBP 058: How Do You Decide Whether to Hire Someone or Do It Yourself?

That’s how an employee will change your life. By outsourcing those simple tasks, you’ll enable yourself to work on only the things that matter, the $1,000- and $10,000-per-hour tasks that you — and you alone — can do. You’ll have the same number of hours in a day as Dr. Oz, Bill Gates, Taylor Swift and Oprah. How do they accomplish so much more? They work only on their $10,000- (or $100,000)-per-hour tasks, while you’re working on your $10-per-hour ones.

Okay, so now you are convinced about needing that new employee. But you still can’t afford to hire one, right? Here are four steps to getting there.

1. Sacrifice for the moment.

How badly do you really want success? If hiring an employee can help turn your struggling/small business into something greater, you will need to sacrifice to make it happen — at least in the beginning.

When my business couldn’t afford an assistant for me, I paid for this addition out of my own pocket, trimming my monthly expenses to make it happen. You can do the same! Make a budget and stick to it. Stop eating out for a few months. Work extra hours to make more income. Hustle.

(click to continue reading on BiggerPockets)

P.S. looking for hard money loans in California? Be sure to check out my friends over at northcoastfinancialinc.com. They have very competitive rates, can fund within a week and specialize in fix and flip loans and other hard money loans.

I’m not sure I had ever been that scared in my life…

…and it all started with a simple LLC!

Despite being a letter from the government, it was clear as could be: I was being charged a nearly $10,000 penalty from the IRS.

What was I going to do? I didn’t even have $10,000!?

And why was I being charged this?

After several panicked hours of research, I finally realized why I was being hit with this fee:

Because I was stupid.

OK, being stupid isn’t technically the reason why I was being charged $10,000.

Maybe “over zealous” is a better term — and it’s a simple mistake anyone could make.

Including you.

It Started With An LLC…

Here’s the deal:

When I first started investing in real estate, I heard a lot about LLCs.

I needed one, right? At least, that’s what I thought.

I had just purchased a triplex with some good friends of mine, so of course, we wanted to becool “official.”

So I went to my Secretary of State’s website and paid the $300 or so for an LLC. I printed out the documents, made a nice file folder for it, and put it in my file cabinet.

Related: 5 Reasons I Do NOT Invest in Real Estate Using An LLC

Now I was official, right?

(In reality, because I never transferred the property into the LLC, the LLC wasn’t doing anything. I assumed I would get the property transferred in soon, but never had the time. Besides, the “Due on Sale Clause” made it a little sticky if I wanted to transfer the property into an LLC anyway. More on that here.)

So the LLC was formed, and the LLC just sat there.

Maybe a mistake — but definitely not a $10,000 mistake. Sure, I wasted $300 on an LLC that I didn’t use.

But the real problem didn’t start until tax time.

The Fateful Mistake

A year later, I started working on my taxes.

Back then, I did all my own taxes using a popular online tax planning software, which was relatively cheap and easy to use.

Because my LLC had absolutely no activity (due to me never transferring the property into it), it didn’t make a profit. So, total taxes owed on that LLC would be $0, of course.

So I just ignored it.

I mean, the IRS wouldn’t care if I mentioned it on the taxes because it made no money, right?

WRONG.

Here’s the problem: The IRS requires that every non-single member LLC (in other words, any LLC that you have that is not you alone or you with your spouse) must file a business tax return (Form 1065) every year — even if the LLC makes no money.

(click to continue reading on BiggerPockets)

P.S. looking for hard money loans in California? Be sure to check out my friends over at northcoastfinancialinc.com. They have very competitive rates, can fund within a week and specialize in fix and flip loans and other hard money loans.

Have you ever received a nice, handwritten letter from a friend or family member?

Of course you have!

My guess is that you DIDN’T throw it away without reading it.

Am I right?

People don’t throw away handwritten notes or letters without reading them first.

This is why when investors use direct mail marketing to get leads from motivated sellers, handwritten letters generally have a much higher response rate.

In other words, more people call you, wanting to sell you their house!

But I’m guessing you don’t have time to handwrite hundreds or even thousands of letters. You’d spend all your time writing and forget what your spouse looks like.

Bad idea.

Instead, many investors (myself included) turn to “handwritten font.”

What is Handwritten Font?

Handwritten font is exactly what it sounds like: computer font that looks just like handwriting.

I’m sure you’ve seen examples before, as your computer gives you a lot of options.

But let’s be honest: Most of them look terrible.

Just because the font is slanted a little doesn’t mean it looks handwritten.

Of course, you could find some good free fonts online through websites like FontSquirrel.com, but even those can look fake.

Instead, what I do is turn MY OWN HANDWRITING into a computerized font that I can use in Microsoft Word, Photoshop, or other programs on my computer.

Related: The Simple Reason Most Direct Mail Campaigns Fail to Produce Leads

Yes — that means you can TYPE, and it will look just like you wrote it by hand!

Pretty snazzy, huh?

So, how do you create handwritten font?

Here’s how.

How to Create Handwritten Font For Free

Step One: Head to www.MyScriptFont.com and download the template PDF.

(click to continue reading on BiggerPockets)

P.S. looking for hard money loans in California? Be sure to check out my friends over at northcoastfinancialinc.com. They have very competitive rates, can fund within a week and specialize in fix and flip loans and other hard money loans.

Sometimes a team can accomplish far more than a group of lone individuals. For example, cyclists in the Tour de France take turns riding at the front of their group, decreasing the wind for those behind them. Wolves hunt in packs to take down animals 20 times their size. And for those of us who were children of the ’90s, we all rememberDucks Fly Together.

This brings up another team that can accomplish amazing things — not a team of people, but a team of benefits which, when combined, can help you achieve your greatest financial goals. Specifically, I want to talk about real estate.

I’m a real estate investor, and I firmly believe that real estate is the best traditional investment on Planet Earth today. However, just because you buy a piece of real estate doesn’t mean you’re going to make money.

As I explain in The Book on Rental Property Investing, big wealth is built through real estate investing by capitalizing on something I call “the four wealth generators of real estate.” Alone, each of these benefits can help you make more money, but together they’ll make you rich.

1. Cash flow

Cash flow is the extra profit left over after all of the expenses have been paid on a property. For example, if my rental property produced $2,000 in income and my expenses came to $1,700, my cash flow would be $300 that month.

Related: One Simple Habit the Vast Majority of Wealthy People Practice Every Single Day

Now, I know a lot of you are saying, “Three hundred dollars is not going to make me a millionaire.”

Probably not. But remember, we are just talking about one of the wealth generators. There are still three more to go!

Additionally, that $300 might be from just one property. If I owned ten similar units with the same cash flow, that’s $3,000 per month. If I owned 100 units, that’s $30,000 per month. This cash flow can go a long way toward helping you quit your job — or helping you save for a future big purchase, or retire wealthier.

(click to continue reading on BiggerPockets)

P.S. looking for hard money loans in California? Be sure to check out my friends over at northcoastfinancialinc.com. They have very competitive rates, can fund within a week and specialize in fix and flip loans and other hard money loans.

Despite what you might think, I was not born knowing how to invest in real estate.

I know, I know. Shocking, right?

Of course, no one knows how to invest in real estate innately! They must learn.

Now, if you’ve been around the real estate investing industry for any length of time, no doubt you’ve heard the term “mentor” before.

No, I’m not talking about some paid coach or guru course.

I’m talking about real-life, local individuals who can help a new investor on their journey toward success.

A mentor can show you what’s working for them, what is not working for them, share the lessons and mistakes they’ve made, make introductions to others in the real estate market, and provide real-time feedback.

Having a mentor can truly be life-changing — and today I want to introduce you to one of mine.

Kyle is an airline pilot who started investing in real estate almost by accident. Over the years, he’s acquired a number of properties and made a lot of money from real estate.

In this video interview (with Mp3 version and text transcripts as well!), Kyle and I talk about how he got started (almost on accident!), how he transitioned from flipping to rental properties, and why he decided to help out a young, dumb kid named Brandon. 

If you are a fan of the BiggerPockets Podcast, I think you’ll love this interview and will learn a lot.

So without further ado, here’s my interview with Kyle:

(click to continue reading on BiggerPockets)

P.S. looking for hard money loans in California? Be sure to check out my friends over at northcoastfinancialinc.com. They have very competitive rates, can fund within a week and specialize in fix and flip loans and other hard money loans.