Welcome to our first “Ask Us Anything” episode.
Jay and I tackle your most pressing money and business questions, including:
Q1: I need expensive prescription medication for a chronic condition. If I retire early, I’ll lose my health insurance. Help!
Q2: I’d like to invest in REITs. Are these worthwhile?
Q3: How can I build a real estate business from scratch?
Q4: Can you share time-management tips?
Q5: How should I find contractors for my rental properties?
Q6: Any suggestions on student loans?
Q7: How can I stay on top of the incredible workload that entrepreneurs/solopreneurs handle?
Q8: Can you share a few rental property investing strategies, tips or tricks?
Q9: Taxes are biting me in the @$$. How can I lower this?
Check out this episode for the answers to those questions and more!
Maria
How do I ask a financial question?
J. Money
Ask here or shoot us an email: http://affanypodcast.wpengine.com/contact
Karen
Enjoyed this Q&A format more so than some of the interviews, just love hearing you guys spread your knowledge (or keeping it real when you don’t know the answer). I have quite a few questions and topic suggestions I thought about emailing you but this seems like a good place.
First, please have the godfather – Jim Collins on your show and get into the nitty gritty of his investment strategies, he’s the man.
I have a bunch of real estate questions! Being someone from one of the more expensive areas (Portland – heard your tip about multi units Paula P – thx!) I am really interested in learning about financing when it comes to rentals. What are the rules that mortgage companies have about qualifying for rentals that are not your primary residence? What about private lending, is that a scam or a reality and how do you go about finding it? I have heard people also recommend cash out refinancing to fund more rentals, is that something you recommend? Also, cash vs leveraging – how do you balance this and what exactly is over-leveraging when it comes to rentals (since I am assuming all of your loans are being covered by rent)? When there are so many ‘real estate guru’s’ out there, how do you know who to listen to and who is full of BS? Lastly – I would like to know details on being a landlord – how much work is it actually, why use a management company (I am not afraid of late night calls and dispatching contractors myself), and the reality of owning rentals in other states (I am trying to convince my husband).
Sorry if that was a lot! 🙂 Lastly, another topic I’ve heard you guys mention briefly (especially Paula) is the Tim Ferris type of stuff like systems, outsourcing, time management, efficiency. I LOVE that stuff and would love to hear more! maybe you could even convince Tim Ferris to be on the show haha.
Thanks guys, keep up the good work! 🙂
J. Money
Glad you liked it!!
We just recorded our 2nd round of these and will plan for more to come for sure 🙂
Adding all your questions to our list and will do our best to cover!
Thanks so much for listening! We crossed 55,000 downloads today and it’s because of people like you.
SO THANK YOU!!!!
Roy Lagro @ Band of Savers
Great discussion guys. Informative as always. I would second the motion for some follow-up podcasts on rental properties.
J. Money
More is brewing, don’t worry 🙂
Jeremy
Love the show. I didn’t ask the student loan question, but thought I would ask this. My wife and I both have a pretty decent amount of student loans. We are in our late 20’s and want to build wealth as well. After paying our expenses and contributing enough to our 401K to get the match there is money left over or the “gap” as Paula puts it!
So, the question is this … With that disposable money should we accelerate our student loan payments to pay those off early or invest extra amounts of money to take advantage of time and therefore, compound interest. So, build wealth or pay off these pesky student loans?
J. Money
A great age old question indeed 🙂
And since you can’t go wrong with either route, my answer is always “which one excites you more?” with these types.
I find that I work a lot harder – and reach my goals quicker – when it’s something that really makes me happy or comfortable regardless if it’s the “financially accurate” way to go. If debt is keeping you up at night and you wish more than anything to get rid of it, then by all means jump on it! But if you’re cool with it and just trying to get the best *return* and growth for your money, then investing the cash may be better depending on your debt’s interest rate and how you’re investing this $$$ w/ its forecasted returns. (also to keep in mind that your student loan debt is a fixed *guaranteed* return right off the bat where as investing is more variable and valued over the long term for short)
Also – what are your main goals with all this stuff? Gotta pick the routes that better get you to those too, although again you can’t go wrong with either of these so long as you actually DO ONE OF THEM 🙂 OR both.
I know you were probably looking for a specific answer, but hopefully this helps you get there more…
Josh
Re: the REIT question, “are they worth investing in”? It depends on what you’re going for and your overall goals. If you’re buying into a REIT, you’re basically buying stocks. You’re buying shares of a company. So if you’re going to buy into an individual REIT company (e.g. Realty Income, HCP Inc., Digital Realty Trust Inc., or so many more) you should do your research ahead of time just like buying shares of any other individual company. The really nice thing about REITs, is that to be classified as such, the company has to pay 90% of its earning in dividends. As such, you typically have significantly higher yields than buying shares of corporations. With a REIT, you’re typically buying into commercial real estate.
All that being said, there are indeed REIT index funds for those that want to take a safer route. And everyone’s favorite index company, Vanguard, has such a fund.
https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/snapshot?FundId=0123&FundIntExt=INT
Again, in line with what I said above, this has a higher dividend yield than say, VTSMX (Vanguard’s Total Stock Market Fund). While it has a higher expense ratio than VTSMX, it’s still in line with the super slim expense ratios that Vanguard is known for.
Hope this helps!
J. Money
Thx for adding to the convo!