I pocketed $581.50 every month!
Current monthly numbers (After moving out)
Rent income: $1050
Mortgage/taxes/insurance: $590
Property Manager: $73.50
Money left for repairs/me: $386.50
I keep $200 a month to budget for Repairs/Cap Ex estimations.
This property makes me $186.50 every month now that I have moved out!
Using these numbers, you can see that I was able to recoup the cash I purchased this duplex with in the first five months of collecting my left-over housing allowance!
Let that resonate with you real quickly!
I moved out of my apartment and bought a duplex for less than $3,000. I got all of that money back in less than a year and I have been getting paid a little over $2,200 a year for keeping the duplex! I’m sure you can appreciate how happy this eye-opening experience made me, and why I want to spread the word!
Related:Leveraged Inflation Fighters in Real Estate
The Big Four!
These are the four ways that Real Estate helps build your wealth, find more about them here!
Cash-flow
The amount of money in your pocket each month after all expenses have been paid is called cash-flow. I use this money to invest in my next real estate ventures and grow our portfolio exponentially.
Depreciation
Depreciation is a tax write off used to cover costs associated with aging buildings and structures. This write off, and many others, are great benefits of real estate investing. Every year I get better at tax-planning in order to increase our return and minimize the money paid in taxes.
Amortization
Amortization is debt payoff. The way mortgages are paid off is set up to pay more interest in the beginning and less interest towards the end of the loan. None of that matters though because your tenants are paying your mortgage. Every month we build around $1000 in equity between our properties and none of that equity is paid for by us!
Appreciation
I think of appreciation as a bonus in order to avoid planning for it in my purchases. There is never a guarantee that your real estate will appreciate in value. There are a lot of reasons for market fluctuations but we can take educated guesses. I never buy property hoping for appreciation. I buy for cash-flow in order to protect me against a market crash, but appreciation is a welcome bonus!
The Cost of Taking Action
The cost of taking action and buying my first real estate deal is that I am always looking for better deals now! Taking action is the single best thing you can do for yourself in any action in life. I wish that I had taken action sooner to learn about investing, Real Estate, and the FHA-hack!
Don’t be afraid to start researching and investing. I promise you’ll be pleasantly surprised!
Conclusion
Getting involved in real estate is the best financial decision I have ever made! We recently closed on a 10-unit apartment complex for $10,900 out of pocket, and earn over $1,000 every month for owning it! With a little creativity it doesn’t have to be expensive to start Real Estate Investing!
I hope that you’ll pick up a book or two and learn about how to hack your living situation! Swing by our website and take a look at some of our other posts about investing and personal development. It is time we stop worrying about how little we get paid, in order to start learning how to turn it into wealth for the ages!
This article has been republished with permission from Modest Money.