I saw and read this article too-unfortunately I think there are/were far too many people like the author that got into REI having absolutely NO idea what they were doing and ended up becoming slumlords, and contributing to the current mess were in now.
My financial advisor did this, he bought a package of 30 props at the peak of the markets (with no RE expereince mind you) and ended up crashing and burning, having to sell all his props off, and most of them ended up being total abandoned dumps, which was unfortunate because they could have been some pretty good cashflowing assets if he had known what he was doing. I met some of his former tenants, and lets just say I hope they don’t ever meet him in a dark alley, if you catch my meaning.
He admits his mistakes now, but the damage was done.
Some of the people in the “comments” section really skewered this guy, quite vicious. I don’t think he’s a bad person, just clueless. He also comes across as very naive about the way some people live. At least he didn’t buy 30 houses like your friend!
It’s interesting that this guy, and the NYT reporter who overpaid for his personal house and got in way over his head (I posted a different article here about him) managed to attain important jobs at major media outlets but go in blindly to something like RE without doing their homework and screw themselves.
What I don’t get is buying the house sight unseen. Is that commonly done? I would at least fly out there in person for a few days.
I agree, that struck me as odd that they guy bought a property across the county without even seeing it! Then again, I’d also never let my property get as run down as the author admitted to, so maybe we’re talking apples and oranges…
You’d be surprised how many people buy investment properties sight unseen. It’s common mostly with out of state investors.