The Road to Mailbox Money with Dusten Hendrickson

In the real estate investing, the reality is that passive income is far from passive. It takes hard work to get the right deals and find the right people to do the job. You also have to have the mental acuity to negotiate deals and handle potential setbacks. But there are things you can do to make it better and more efficient for you.

Dusten Hendrickson, founder of Mailbox Money and a real estate syndicator, shares some tips for successful real estate investing – as you’re paving the road to passive income.

1. Focus on fewer yet high-quality areas. 

It is quite difficult to manage multiple properties that are geographically scattered. It means higher management fees and if you’re self-managing, it’s going to be travel extensive and you will have to be working with different crews. Hence, clustering or having a bunch of buildings lumped together allows you to keep raising the value of each other. 

2. Encourage your contractors to bring in some money. 

Most contractors have a lot of cash and most of them don't really know where to invest. Encourage them to put some money into equity. If you’re letting them have more skin in the game for the project they're working on, they're going to take the job more seriously as opposed to hourly work with subcontractors and they don't really care about the project. 

3. Be ready to scale once you have the knowledge.

Figure out what needs to be done to grow your business. Learn more about scaling, partnerships, and the idea of syndication. 

4. Build a well-designed home.

Consider natural lights, better HVAC systems, large windows, quiet, comfort, and flow when designing and building your property. A well-designed home improves occupancy because everyone will want to live there. If you have a nice, modern, exterior, or interior, it's super easy to build buzz and market them. 

5. Do not build houses for sale. 

If you really want to build houses for sale, try to keep them for five years before selling them. You want to get the first five years for yourself, get the appreciation as well as the rent. 

6. Make sure your partners aren't exactly like you. 

If everybody is the same, you're all going to want to do the same thing and you're not going to be efficient. And so, it’s wise to have partners with whom you can play to each other’s strengths.

7. Be patient.

The more patience you have, the better you'll turn out at investing because it's a long game. 20 years from when you start is when you're almost guaranteed that you're going to be wealthy. So just wait it out.

If you want to learn more about the road to mailbox money, check out www.trustgreene.com/podcast/zen/029.