Welcome to the ADPI Saves One Life Blog Series

As part of our commitment to reaching veterans facing PTSD and addiction issues, we are hosting a blog series for vets during and after treatment to share their stories. Our hope is that these stories will help veterans express themselves in a therapeutic way, connect veterans within the community with others who are or have walked through the same experiences, and reach the greater public in a truthful and meaningful way.

Many of these stories will be anonymous. Many of these stories will be intense. They are truthful, they are gritty, and they are hard. They are a real reflection of life as an American soldier, for better or for worse. They are also a beacon of hope and a call to reach out to your fellow humans and create community. If you would like to contribute or connect please feel free to reach out to ADPI Helps HERE.  

We also support the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans. Join us!

...

Anatomy of a Multi-Family Deal: 55 Unit Breakdown

In a previous blog, How I House Hacked Into Multifamily, I announced that we’re under contract on a 55-unit multifamily (MF) deal in Spartanburg, SC. A few have asked about the process of purchasing multifamily properties from beginning to end, so here’s my path from beginning to present. I’ll note that a few months ago, I teamed up with a like-minded partner that I met through a forum similar to ADPI, and it’s been extremely beneficial. Multifamily begins and ends as a TEAM SPORT!

Commitment 

Up front, a key step in the process is actually committing to make MF investing work. I will retire in 2021 and am not making any other plans for a j-o-b afterwards.  No plan B, just this. I also put some money where my mouth is and took $25k out of my financial freedom account and bought in to a mentoring program through the Michael Blank network. Finally, to get the ultimate partner on...

How To BRRRR Your Way to Financial Freedom

by Kevin Brenner, Capt, USAF

Bro, Do You Even BRRRR?

By now I’m sure most of you have heard the term BRRRR which stands for Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat.  Famously coined by BiggerPockets’ Brandon Turner a few years back, the strategy itself has been around forever.  Remember, buy low and sell high. It’s kind of like that, except in this case, the end buyer is actually the bank.  

Investors from all walks of life love to BRRRR because it offers a lot of flexibility, as opposed to standard fix and flip or buy and hold deals, and a significant marketplace competitive advantage (more on this in another blog).   Like most real estate investing (REI) strategies, a profitable BRRRR hinges on the After Repair Value (ARV) and your Estimated Rehab Costs (ERC). If you can master evaluating these figures, then you are one step ahead of your competition and well on your way to some solid...

Why Your House Is An Investment

by Travis Cripps

Whether you are commonly reading financial blog posts or catching the occasional Grant Cardone video, you have probably heard the debate about home ownership.   Some, like Warren Buffett, think buying with a 30-year mortgage can be an attractive option for many American families. Others, such as Grant Cardone, think buying your personal residence, especially a single family home, is a ridiculous proposition.  Why is there such widespread disagreement? Who is right?

Like all things, it depends!

But let's dive deeper into this and why I think your home is an investment.

To begin, let's determine what an investment is. Merriam-Webster defines investment as, " the outlay of money usually for income or profit." The definition of profit is, "a valuable return," or "net income usually for a given period of time." To state that another way, using money in a meaningful way to increase NET...

How I House-Hacked Into Multifamily

Investing Strategies for Military Families

There are a lot of good strategies that work well for military families. VA house-hacking is on the top of most people’s lists – and was on mine too. For some people, hacking into a few investments is enough; but many active duty members are driven with a big, burning “why” that leads them into bigger and better investments. [Feel free to share your "why" in Start the Spark] In my case, my "why" led me from house-hacking to 55-units in Spartanburg, SC, and will soon have many more. Along the way, I hope to highlight some of the benefits of multifamily investments.

I hacked into my first investment property before house-hacking was even a thing. While I was a young Devil Dog stationed in Okinawa, I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I know, cliché, right? I figured it would be difficult to invest from Japan (I now realize this is a limiting belief), so we decided to wait until...

Why Cash Flow?

To cash flow or to appreciate? This is the million-dollar question of rental property investing. And one that has been examined, debated, and studied six ways to Sunday. These two different schools of thought on how to make money on rental properties have often been argued as a matter of preference. At ADPI, however, we’ve got our own reasons why one is better than the other, and we’re here to tell you about them.

First, though, here’s a quick introduction to each of these money-making options:

Cash Flow  

If you’re getting into the rental property market, you’re in it to make money, right?! Well, let’s hope so.

One of the most popular ways to do that is by collecting monthly rent from tenants that exceeds the property’s monthly expenses. This leftover profit is called cash flow. Though cash flow on a single property averages a couple hundred per month, most investors have more than one...

WHY YOU SHOULD FIRE YOURSELF AND HIRE A PROPERTY MANAGER...AND HOW TO DO IT

Kevin Brenner, Capt, USAF

Just Fire Yourself All Ready

Well, you’ve reached the top.  You spent months, maybe even years, educating yourself about all the wealth-building power of REI.  You’ve spent late nights scouring online forums and reading every REI book you could get your hands on.  You’ve asked all the right questions to all the right people at all the right meetups. And finally, you were rewarded with the ever elusive opportunity that all true investors chase - the Deal.  Because you are educated in the ways of the Deal, you instantly recognized its value and wrapped it up under contract.  After spending weeks working with lenders, lawyers, title companies, and real estate agents, you finally closed.  Now what? Well, that’s easy - it’s about time you got yourself fired.

I Don’t Need A Property Manager, I’m Handy...

Before...

Christine is a proud Army wife and Momma who covers a range of personal finance topics at Her Money Moves

This is a true life, it happened to me, precautionary tale. I want to share my Tidewater story with future home sellers as well as buyers. Tidewater is happening more often in the current market than ever before. I want more people to become aware of the possibility of a Tidewater situation, in case it happens to them. My husband and I have purchased and sold a handful of homes during his military career. We’ve used both conventional and VA loans to mortgage our houses. In this example, we were the seller and the buyer was shopping with a VA loan.

Until a few weeks ago, I had never heard of the term, “Tidewater” as it relates to real estate. I was pretty familiar with both VA and conventional appraisal processes, but I never thought too hard about it. Every appraisal for each house we had ever purchased came in at the contract price or slightly above it....

Rich Dad Poor Dad To The Rescue!

I pulled into my favorite dirt parking spot at Daffin Park.  Ray and some of the others were already ahead of me setting up the net, the music, and cracking some fresh beers.  Geez, Ray’s truck is obnoxious, I think to myself. It’s one of those Dually Chevy F5000s - I don’t know what it’s called.  Doesn’t matter.

It’s a Friday in mid-March, so the weather in Savannah is just perfect for some beach volleyball. After a few games, we head to the park benches to relax and catch our breath.  Ray mentions to me that he closed on another home and I asked him jokingly, “How many houses do you need, man?” At that point, he had purchased 4 single family homes - one of which he was living in with 4 roommates (aka House Hacking). The others had tenants in them already, but I didn’t quite understand why.  

I also couldn’t understand how Ray could be frolicking around on a beach...