Real Estate Archives - Making Sense Of Cents

How This Woman In Her 30s Owns 7 Rental Homes

Last Updated: March 12, 2023 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 6 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Are you interested in learning how to start investing in rental property for beginners? Today’s interview is with Paula Pant, who in her 30s already owns seven rental homes.

You may remember Paula from when I first interviewed her a couple of years ago in How This 34 Year Old Owns 7 Rental Homes.

Today, I’ve asked her to come back and answer some more of your questions, as well as give us an update on property investing in the current environment.

Paula and her work have been featured on Oprah, MONEY, CNBC, Forbes, The Washington Post, MarketWatch, USA Today, Bloomberg Business, U.S. News, Fortune, Business Insider, Nerdwallet, The New York Times, and countless others.

Paula has been investing in real estate for over a decade. She’s been an out-of-state investor for five years. She currently has a portfolio of seven buy and hold rental properties, and recently bought a duplex in March of 2021.

In this interview, you’ll learn:

Is owning rental property profitable?
How do you know if a rental property is a good investment?
How much profit should you make on a rental property?
How do you manage rentals from another part of the country? What happens if there’s a repair needed or if a tenant moves out?
How do you deal with a bad renter? Have you had one before?
What do you think of the current real estate market? Is it too hot to get into?
What’s the best way for a person to get started with real estate investing as a beginner?

And more! This real estate investing for beginners interview is packed full of valuable information. [Read more…]

How To Save For A House – 8 Tips To Help You Save

Last Updated: March 17, 2022 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 2 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Are you thinking about buying a home? If so, then you’re probably wondering how to save for a house.

After all, the price of a home is most likely the largest amount of money that you will ever spend.

The median U.S. home value is $266,222, according to Zillow. And, there are some areas that have much higher average home prices, like four to five times more. For example, in Los Angeles, the typical home price jumps to $804,452.

The first part of saving for a house is the down payment.

But, when you’re figuring out how much to save for a house, you also need to think about incidental costs, like moving expenses, closing costs, things you need for your new home, and more.

Due to this, you’ll most likely have to save a large amount of money. And, you’re probably wondering how you’re going to do that.

To help you learn how to save money for a house, this article will first explain how to figure out the amount of money you need to save. Like I said, there’s more than just the down payment.

Plus, the amount of money you save for your down payment has a major impact on your monthly mortgage payments. This is why it’s so important to learn how to save for a house now. [Read more…]

Pay off our mortgage or not? A glimpse into a couple’s final decision

Last Updated: December 3, 2020 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 17 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Hello! Here is a guest post from Melissa Brock about her decision on whether or not to pay off her mortgage. Melissa Brock is a 12-year veteran of college admission, founder of College Money Tips and Money editor at Benzinga. She loves helping families navigate their finances and the college search process. Check out her essential timeline and checklist for the college search!

Enjoy!

My husband and I like to make excellent financial decisions. He says I’m obsessed with our finances — which is kind of true. I mean, I listen to the “Afford Anything” podcast and read every personal finance related piece of content I can get my scroll-happy finger on. I’m also the Money editor at Benzinga for my full-time job. (Okay, okay, he’s right.)

Our mortgage is a source of well… pain, for me, if you want to know the truth. All the reading I do probably contributes to that. One day, I’ll read an expert post about how so-and-so plans to invest like crazy, pay the minimum on his mortgage, then run, giggling, toward retirement (early!) and revel in the spoils of compound interest.

This person might say, “Why would you pump money into a non-liquid asset?”

And so my mind goes, “Yeah! That makes sense.” [Read more…]

A 31 Year Old’s Journey to $5,000,000 in Rental Property Value

Last Updated: October 5, 2021 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 5 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Today, I have a great article to share with you from Kyle Kroeger on how to invest in real estate. He has a goal of reaching $5,000,000 in rental property value, and is sharing his plan today.

The prospect of retiring early on real estate is highly intriguing to me. It should be for a number of people and I’ll highlight a bit more below.

For millennials, like me, we don’t have it easy. Despite the mainstream media’s thoughts, millennials have faced a Great Recession, massive student loans and a global pandemic already at a young age.

We’ve seen a lot but that can be used to our advantage for financial planning and life goals.

That’s okay if things are a bit harder for millennials financially. It’s a bit more fun when things are hard.

Here I’m ready to show you why real estate investing can be a great asset class.

Related content:

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How We Reached Financial Independence Using Airbnb & Real Estate

Last Updated: August 21, 2022 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 1 Comment

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Hello! Today, I have a great guest post from Boris and Susan. They purchased their first real estate property in 2017, and became Airbnb hosts. This was a 4-bedroom home that ended up generating them $120,000 in revenue in the first 12 months. They now host close to 10,000 guests per year across all of their properties and do all of this remotely. Below is their story, enjoy!

A foreword given the current state of the world

We wrote this post back in February to describe and share our experience using real estate and Airbnb over the past 3 years to build additional sources of (semi-passive) income. As everyone else, we had no idea that the world would change so dramatically in less than a month after that.

However, although it certainly did change – especially given that the travel and hospitality industry came to a grinding halt and caused a few heartburn-filled weeks – the fundamentals remained valid.

As we’ll discuss towards the end of the article, we’ve been able to make adjustments and pivot in a way that kept our properties occupied, covering costs, and still generating a profit (albeit a smaller one than usually).

The truth is that if we’re looking at a 3-9 months horizon, things will remain challenging and uncertain. However, this was never a short-term strategy for us, as we try to plan for the next 3-10 years and make decisions based on that sort of a timeline. But first, let’s start in the beginning.

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Here’s how it all got started as Airbnb hosts.

For many years, real estate was not really on my radar.

I was happily renting, enjoying the flexibility that it offered, and generally thought of real estate in the context of owning your own home – mainly that it limited your options and didn’t really bring too many positives, other than the hassle of maintenance and doing your own lawn every Saturday.

When I met my wife, Susan, on the other hand, she grew up with a completely different mindset.

When she was growing up in China, the common wisdom was that you should always strive to own your own place as soon as you can afford it.

When she moved to the U.S., she maintained the same viewpoint that owning real estate is a key to becoming financially secure. [Read more…]

Buying a House at Age 25 and How I Did It

Last Updated: March 29, 2021 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 5 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Hello! Today, I have a great guest post from Mama Bear Finance. She bought a house at 25, and just 8 years later, it is now fully paid off. She will share with you a story of why she bought a house at age 25 and what steps she took to get there. Her story recounts the sentiments during the previous financial crisis also known as the Great Recession. As the stock market changes in recent news, hopefully this experience could provide insights during times of financial unrest and inspiration to stay the course with your financial goals despite uncertainty.

Buying a house is by far the largest purchase for most people regardless of age. But when you buy one at the tender age of 25, it really raises some eyebrows.

“You must be rich or came from a rich family,” one might assume.

“Either that or you robbed a bank,” one might even joke.

Nope and nope.

While this became one of my major personal milestones, the beginning of homeownership gave me unspeakable anxiety.

You see, it was back in 2011 when the mortgage crisis was at full speed. [Read more…]

How Our Family of 5 Went from House Poor to Debt Free in 3 Years

Last Updated: March 29, 2021 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 28 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Hello! Today, I have a great success story that I want to share with you all. Enjoy.

I’m Renee, mom to a crazy, beautiful, blended family of 4 kids. As a practicing minimalist and debt-free enthusiast, I’ve dedicated my blog, The Fun Sized Life, to helping others learn to simplify their lives while simultaneously increasing their wealth.

I focus on helping others because just a few years ago, I had life all wrong.

Three years ago my marriage was on the rocks, I felt aimless in my career, our family life was messy, and we were officially smack dab in the middle of being crazy house poor.

We got to a point where we knew it was either cut our losses and walk away from our marriage, or take a hit and sell the house that was breaking us.

We knew what we had to do.

Related content:

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