Our house on Rutherford St. was the third Detroit rental property we purchased. This one was a bit of a deviation from our first two.  Up until this point, we had focused on purchasing tenant-occupied homes including the First Buy Bungalow and The Great Greydale. The Rutherford house, however, was vacant. That said, it was seemingly rent ready, and it would be quick and easy to place a tenant. Oh how naive I was! What resulted was a very difficult time that had my wife in tears demanding that we, “sell everything”. This is why I affectionately dubbed the home “Wrecked On Rutherford”.  ..read more

My wife and I are on the brink of becoming financially free. It will have taken us, more or less, about ten years. That may seem like a long time to you. Or it may seem like not THAT long. The reality is, I’m certain that had we had a plan from the get-go we could have achieved financial freedom much quicker.  But we really didn’t know how to become financially free some 10 years ago. There was no formula, no how-to guide, and we didn’t know anyone that had done it at a young age. That’s what I’m hoping to provide you today with this post. I’m going to tell you exactly how my wife and I h ..read more

I absolutely love doing full gut renovations. I’ve done two in Detroit, one of which is currently a short-term rental. And I’m currently in the middle of doing an ADU build/addition. Granted, that’s not technically a gut renovation, but there are many similarities.  There’s simply nothing more rewarding than stripping a place down to the studs and bringing it back to life.  So why am I telling you that doing a full gut renovation is a terrible idea? For starters, they are incredibly taxing, time consuming, and draining projects. I think most people grasp this, but not nearly as much ..read more

Section 8 investing has become extremely popular lately, but most folks don’t know the first thing about how to actually buy section 8 housing.  I get it.  It’s overwhelming and the whole thing seems like a bit of a black box. In fact, when I first heard about section 8 investing many years ago, it sounded too good to be true. I didn’t know how to buy section 8 housing largely because I thought it was too complex to get started. But that all changed when I purchased one of my first Detroit rental properties. That home did a lot to demystify section 8 investing, and I’ve gone through ..read more

Turnkey real estate investing has become extremely popular. This trend has been partly driven by the need for investors to seek out-of-state markets. But it was also heavily fueled by ultra low interest rates. And while some of the air has come out of the turnkey real estate craze (more on that in the future), it’s worth understanding a few key components to this strategy. There are three big things to know when considering turnkey real estate: There is no equity Truly turnkey does not exist Your property manager is everything Some of these may seem obvious, but I assure you there are lots o ..read more

If there’s one thing I see rookie real estate investors struggle with the most, it’s choosing a market, or the best places to buy rental property. And it’s totally understandable.  There is a TON of information out there.  Everyone has an opinion on what they believe are the best places to buy rental properties, and these opinions are often extremely biased. In short, it’s intimidating and it’s easy to be pulled in all sorts of directions when choosing a real estate investing market. In this post, I’m going to provide you with a step-by-step framework for how to think through this co ..read more

Most people believe their property taxes only go up. But I’ve got good news. That doesn’t have to be the case!  In fact, if you understand the process on how to lower your property taxes, you can potentially get them reduced. And it doesn’t matter if you’re a real estate investor or a homeowner trying to improve your overall housing costs. The ability to lower property taxes is something a lot of people overlook. And in my experience, the things people overlook are often huge opportunities. I have been insanely successful in lowering my own property taxes, largely on my rental properties ..read more

The best short term rental markets are not the ones everyone was obsessing over during and shortly after COVID. But I still hear about and talk with people trying to hunt deals in these popular markets. It’s a huge mistake and, I believe it could be a disastrous real estate investing strategy. Instead, it’s important to understand the short term rental investing game has changed. While most folks are determined to try and make yesterday’s strategy work in a completely different environment, I’m thinking about it totally differently. It’s time to think outside the box if you want to do well wit ..read more

You would never think of purchasing a house without doing a home inspection, right? An inspection contingency is designed to protect buyers from issues that aren’t immediately obvious.  Or, so they say. And an inspection gives you, as the buyer, adequate time to, well… inspect the property with a professional. But what if I told you that’s really not the point of a home inspection at all? I’ve purchased over 15 houses and only one of  my offers included an inspection contingency. That may seem shocking, but there are very strong reasons to waive your home inspection. I’m going to tel ..read more

Sourcing my own off market deals has been key to my success as a real estate investor. But it didn’t happen overnight. Off market deals generally allow you to purchase property at deeply discounted prices. As a result, successfully finding these deals can greatly amplify your returns and ability to scale your real estate portfolio. It’s no wonder why so many people desperately want to source their own deals.   But if you aren’t going about finding off market deals the right way you will likely end up buying a bad deal and worse off than if you’d just bought something from the MLS. T ..read more