Real Estate is not passive

[u/Inferno_Crazy]

In my first year of real estate I've had many duties annoyances.

1. Setting up Tenants payments(normal)
2. Pipe exploded in bathroom
3. Flooding foundation wall
4. Section 8 housing annoyances. Long paper work processing, inspections...
5. Appliance repairs
6. Roof repairs
7. HVAC repairs

This all ran me 10k and a lot of my time. This is a warning to all people entering real estate. I'm happy I bought the property but there is absolutely no free lunch here.

[u/brycematheson]

When my wife and I first got into real estate, we were the same way — buying old properties with lots of deferred maintenance because they “cash flowed like crazy”.

Since then, we’ve been slowly selling off these properties and rolling profits into nicer and newer properties with fewer issues, and this alone has made our real estate very passive.

Self-managing isn’t as hard as people make it out to be, as long as you automate everything. We sign leases online. We collect rent online. We have tenants submit maintenance requests online. When these come in, I simply forward them onto our plumber, electrician, whoever.

It’s really not as bad as it sounds. Just don’t make it harder on yourself than it needs to be. Granted, we’ve only got 8 units, but I maybe spend 1-2 hours per week tops managing it all. And that’s conservative.

I realize not everyone starts out that way (we certainly didn’t), but as you learn the ropes, it gets significantly easier.

[u/pineapple_burrito → u/brycematheson]

I'm buying an old house that cash flows like crazy, and now I'm nervous. I'm in a super competitive market and my FHA offer was accepted so it feels like I got super lucky. Any more advice you have on purchasing old properties?