REI Lifestyle Blog | A Real Estate Investors Finances

It's finally time to get this on paper for the first time ever! Of course I have various spreadsheets and apps talking about my expenses, assets, and my goals for increasing one while minimizing the other(honestly could go either way), but putting out a list to the universe of what needs done to break the ceiling on a 7 figure net worth is totally different.  Obviously this awesome idea comes from  J. Money over at Budgets are $exy and his Millionaire Club . We're all wannabes just out here getting it done. From the looks of it though, several have crossed that threshold and I'm looking to follow closely behind! In order for me, Ryan, to become a Millionaire, I pledge to do the following (each year): Start contributing to my 401k - My company currently does an automatic match of 3% so I don't have to contribute any minimums. I'm not currently contributing due to limited funds and my drive to purchase real estate at a young age. I'm slowly realizing putting all o...

So you want to get into Real Estate Investing, but don't know where to begin? You see everybody talking about the bigger margins online and you really want to get in on that, like really. You start researching around about the different expenses you have to deal with, how to do a market analysis to figure out where and how to buy. Things get overwhelming pretty quick, believe me I know!  Enter the Property Management company (PM). You find out they pretty much take care of everything! No more worrying about tenants, or getting up in the middle of the night to fix pipes! It all sounds good and dandy at first, but wait....how much does a service like this cost. You scour the web looking at different sources, start calling around and finally get someone on the phone who knows what they're talking about. You hear the dreaded numbers..10% of gross rent, or in some cases $100 minimum.  Btw if anybody tried to charge you a "minimum" maintenance fee, then walk away while you...

I was different during my time in service. At 19 years old my peers were barely starting college, lived with their parents and joined to pay for college. Not sure exactly why, but I wanted a Career. Classic case of the board game Life if you ask me.  Early on it was pretty easy to tell that college wasn't going to be the best choice for me. I just felt uneasy about sitting down the school counselors to sign my life away on a bunch of loan papers and government assistance. I didn't want the pressure of those loans hanging over my head for the next 10 years not knowing how I was going to get them paid off. I knew I was a hard worker and could go far in Tech if I was given the opportunity.  This put me in a very different boat than my peers. Again, I wanted a career that I knew I would be good in and take me very far in life. I was not confused about my life, nor did I want to spend 4-8 years in college "figuring it out" while I racked up debt every year. I got myself my...

    How does a bank think I'm going to come up with money for a down payment if I'm there asking for a loan??  This idea always confused me when I was buying my first home, simply because I didn't know how money worked. I didn't realize how appraisals happened, asset valuations, and market fluctuations affected a banks decision to lend to you.  Now we'll get into the weeds of why big Banks act this way to help us understand how it can be beneficial to both sides.  What is LTV? Banks like to make sure their money is secure when they lend it out. They go through extensive long term processes to make sure the person receiving the loan is serious about the situation and won't try to make off with their money.  A major thing banks do to ensure this, for homes specifically, and various business ventures is only loan a certain amount of the Assets value, or Loan To Value(LTV) . That way if you ever end up upside down on your house or business the bank can take tha...

Today is going to be a great day, because any day is a great day when you're taking steps to eliminate debt. Whatever those steps may be and mean to you. We're diving into my personal take on Dave Ramsey's methods and the debt snowball .  I've heard about these methods for as long as I can remember since I've started talking to a wide variety of people about money everybody recommends taking a look at Dave Ramsey. I always recall saying "who's Dave Ramsey?", "Why is everybody SO obsessed with Dave Ramsey?". His name kept coming up over and over again, basically a household icon at this point. I had to get to the bottom of this. Who is Dave Ramsey? This man is a very dynamic individual. He started in real estate investing and lost it all . During the 80's a popular method for building wealth was selling ownership in overleveraged properties to people looking for a tax haven. Eventually the government caught up and adjusted the tax code . T...

The other day Home Warranty plans jumped back on my radar. I was going over my savings plan for some of the major repairs around my house and my 10 year timeline with a friend. "You should just get a Home Warranty and save the headache". I'm a reasonable guy so combined with my previous knowledge and studies I took a deep dive into Home Warranties to find out if they're really worth it. The Savings The idea behind a home warranty is that you pay money in over time and whenever issues come up with your appliances or home the warranty should just cover it and everybody is happy. On top of paying $50 per month on average for a plan you're also expected to cover the first $75-$100 of each repair that's made depending on the service you use.  Home warranty companies will always force you to try to repair something multiple times before they'll let you file a claim for a replacement. My HVAC guy charges $89 to visit my property. You pay the first $75 and the hom...

Today we're going to tackle the mystery of getting your EXPECTED expenses under control a little bit better. With anything this is a constant ongoing battle, that takes at least some of your focus a couple times a month. Want to buy a new iPhone, but don't casually have $2,000 laying around? Need new tires on your car, but not sure how to come up with $800 overnight?  These are issues I fought with for years and continue to fight to stay on top of. They're not necessarily emergencies, but I feel like I'm loading up the credit cards I just paid down! We're taking a second look at how to take care of that little bit of extra money you have each paycheck. The Envelope System Most people know about this simple system we used as kids to organize our money into things we wanted to do vs things we needed to do, like paying bills or saving up for our starter car. That idea should easily transition into adulthood, but doesn't always translate well. With different emerge...