By Paula Pant
Welcome to Invest Anywhere, our monthly series on long-distance real estate investing.
Invest Anywhere airs on the First Friday of each month and is co-hosted by Paula Pant and Suni Rao.
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In this two-part episode, we first tackle the data points needed to assess various investment locations within your city of choice.
We will […]
By Paula Pant
Chad Carson’s friends called him a “nerdjock.”
When former college football linebacker Chad Carson graduated from Clemson University, he decided to start a business. But he didn’t have any money.
He was a 235-pound athlete who attended college on a football scholarship. He graduated debt-free with $1,000 in savings from various odd jobs. He wanted to become an entrepreneur, and he knew he was starting from zero.
As Chad viewed it, starting from zero meant he had nothing to lose.
He started jogging around local neighborhoods near the university. Whenever he noticed a property in disrepair, he’d ask if it was for sale.
If he noticed a ‘For Sale by Owner’ sign in the yard, for example, he’d dial the number.
If he noticed a home with an overgrown lawn and no curtains in the windows, he’d leave a note on the door, or he’d knock on the neighbor’s doors to get the owner’s phone number.
By doing this, Chad started a real estate wholesaling business. He’d find off-market properties, enter into a sales contract with the owner, and then ‘flip’ the contract to an investor. He earned around $5,000 for each deal.
The benefit to a wholesaling business, Chad discovered, is that he could get a foothold inside the real estate industry without much access to capital. He was a recent college graduate without any official employment, so most banks weren’t interested in offering him loans. Wholesaling gave him a start in the industry.
But after awhile, he wanted to chase bigger deals. He and a business partner decided to start flipping houses themselves. They earned profits of around $20,000 to $30,000 for each deal.
While this was great, Chad wanted to transition into something that would provide a steady, stable income stream. He was running an active business; he wasn’t accumulating a portfolio of passive investments.
He and his business partner stopped flipping homes and began accumulating buy-and-hold rental properties. Today they have 90 units between the two of them.
A few years ago, Chad realized that the passive income from his investments made him financially independent. He and his wife decided to enjoy their newfound freedom by moving to Ecuador with their two children, ages 3 and 5.
They spent 17 months living in Ecuador, learning Spanish and enjoying a slower pace of life. They recently returned to the U.S. and are considering moving to either Spain or Germany — or maybe Colorado? — for their next adventure.
In today’s episode, Chad and I discuss real estate, financial independence, and international travel with children.
By Paula Pant
Nick’s parents are forced to confront earlier than anticipated retirement…and they aren’t financially prepared. Now, a bank is offering to buy a part of their mortgage or a part of their house. Is this a scam?!
Jon from Colorado is curious about after tax contributions to a Roth 401k, and would like us to talk about why we wouldn’t recommend it.
Anna is househacking, and she locked down an awesome interest rate. But, she’s still carrying PMI and is wondering if there’s a way to remove the PMI without refinancing.
Courtney from Denver is a real estate investor who wants to invest in new locations and wants tips on building out her network.
Former financial planner Joe Saul-Sehy and I tackle these four questions in today’s episode.
Enjoy!
P.S. Got a question? Leave it here.
By Paula Pant
Colleen and her husband own SEVEN paid off rental homes. Now they’re heading into retirement and disagree on what to do with some of that equity.
Kevin wants to hit FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) and believes his motivation comes from witnessing the financial trauma of the Great Recession. He’s wondering if others are motivated to reach FIRE for similar reasons.
Anonymous wants to learn more about utilizing HSA accounts and Susan wants to learn more about investing in tax liens.
My friend and former financial planner Joe Saul-Sehy joins me to answer these questions on today’s episode. Enjoy!
Do you have a question on business, money, trade-offs, financial independence strategies, travel, or investing? Leave it here and we’ll answer them in a future episode.
By Paula Pant
Welcome to Invest Anywhere, our monthly series on long-distance real estate investing.
Invest Anywhere airs on the First Friday of each month and is co-hosted by Paula Pant and Suni Rao.
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Today we tackle one of the most common questions we hear:
“Should I bother investing in real estate?”
“Is the hassle worth it?”
“What’s the upside? Is this worth my time and effort?”
“Do I really want to do this?”
“Maybe I should just stick to index funds …”
How can you methodically, systematically dig into answering this question?
In this episode, we’ll help you take a personal inventory of four factors: your time, capital, relationships, and mindset.
Time, capital and relationships are the resources at your disposal, and your mindset governs how well you’ll use those resources.
These four factors will have a major influence on your experience as a long-distance investor.
And there’s good news:
Plenty of successful investors start out with empty coffers in one or more of these arenas.
They’re strapped for cash. They’re pressed for time. They lack connections.
In this episode, we discuss how to inventory your time, cash and connections (you might have more than you think!), as well as what to do if you’re lagging in one or more of these arenas.
Enjoy!
By Paula Pant
Welcome back to the third episode in our special series, Afford Anything Presents: Invest Anywhere.
Invest Anywhere is a new monthly series that runs on the First Friday of each month. It lays out the information you need to invest in real estate at a distance.
Many of you want to invest in real estate, but you live in a high-cost-of-living area. (Ahem, California and New York). The homes in your city are prohibitively expensive, and they offer lackluster returns.
You could invest in a lower-cost area like Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Omaha or Wichita … but HOW? That sounds terrifying.
We’re here to dismantle that fear, piece by piece, by sharing our knowledge and experience.
The Invest Anywhere series is dedicated to giving you the guidance you need to make smart, confident choices about investing out-of-state.
It’s co-hosted between myself (Paula) and esteemed real estate investor Suni Rao, who’s experienced everything ranging from buy-and-hold rental investing to (accidentally) wholesaling. She’s managed short-term and long-term rentals. She’s owned houses, multi-units, and even a mobile home park.
She joins me in this episode to talk about a variety of strategies that will help you make money in real estate.
By Paula Pant
Welcome to our First Friday bonus episode.
Once a month, Afford Anything presents a special feature called Invest Anywhere, in which we teach our audience how to invest in real estate from thousands of miles away.
We kickoff today’s episode by discussing current market conditions. Yesterday the Fed raised interest rates by another 50 basis points, which means mortgages are more expensive than they’ve been in years. Additionally, jittery investors worried about an impending recession led the stock market to its worst day of the calendar year so far.
How should we interpret the current market conditions? Is this a good time to buy an investment property? We cover this in the first 20 minutes of today’s episode.
Next, we discuss 5 challenges associated with investing in long-distance real estate investing: (1) fear, (2) accountability, (3) traction, (4) stress, and (5) relationships.
We elaborate on each challenge and offer solutions.
Finally, we discuss 4 benefits to investing out-of-state: (1) competitive ability, (2) diversification, (3) returns, and (4) repeatability. We elaborate on four types of diversification: economic, strategy, business cycle, and asset based.
Enjoy!
By Paula Pant
“Burned Out in Boston” wants to reach financial independence.
But she’s not sure she can stick it out in Boston much longer.
She and her husband want to move to an area that doesn’t have many job prospects, and they want to make this leap soon, ideally before they reach FI. How do they know when it’s the right time to jump ship to their dream location?
Ingrid and her husband own two rentals. They’re torn between paying one of their rentals off or buying more properties. Which is the better route to take?
Pat is torn: should she convert her garage into an accessory dwelling unit, or use funds to buy an out-of-state rental property?
Chelsea wants to know: what should you do if your newly purchased home is an instant money pit?
Julia wants to know how to approach investing in sector-specific index funds, like utility ETFs. Should they be a small or large portion of your portfolio?
I answer these five questions in today’s episode. Enjoy!
By Paula Pant
Should a couple in New Orleans sell their single-family home and use the sale proceeds to househack into a duplex?
What do you think about turnkey investments?
What tax consequences will someone face if they transfer their property to their parents?
How do you handle tough situations related to the way some home renovation contractors treat women?
What’s the latest update on your real estate course?
I answer these five questions on today’s podcast. Here are the details.
By Paula Pant
In today’s episode, I answer two questions about financial independence and the FIRE movement, followed by four questions about rental property investing.
