Any of you drivers out there without property?

A couple things to think about.

I have a friend who since highschool has been buying and selling houses - now he's in his 60's he is thinking about getting into trucking ... go figure.

He rents some houses out (I think it is 20 or 25 now but it was 40 at one time).

Well his trick was to hire a company to manage the units he rented out. He just paid them to deal with the BS.

Now I talked to him a couple weeks back, he called me to ask about trucking. He said he was thinking that he would just live in the truck for a few years and I told him many do but there is a problem with it.

YOU CAN'T claim per diem without a residence.

His solutuion is to just use one of the houses as his address he has and have the mail forwarded to the management company.

 

I would think 20-25 rentals would net a pretty darn good income. Is trucking something he just always had a passion for and wanted to try?

 

Surprisingly it makes him an average amount of money, what he did was to put money back into the buying part of it to flip the houses and that's where the money is made as he puts it.

The trucking thing is to keep busy, he gets bored sitting around, which is funny, he is the most active person I have ever known.

 

I'm a homeless bum trucker. Just kidding I stay wherever I'm welcomed. My permanent residence is at My parents house...stop by once a month to say hi...but like to spend my time in southern california for the most part. I have family in southern cali...central cali..etc...

I do not pay rent, live in a truck because I'm otr. Recently drove off the lot with a new 2015 honda that Is parked at the company terminal in southern california. So basically my bills are
-New car payment
-Car insurance\health insurance
-verizon wireless
-food duh
I'm saving my money because one of these days I'm going to say ## this I quit to trucking. But it's not all that bad really. I run team and get a load to California at least once a week....when that load takes me to california I'll hop in my new car and regain my sanity for whatever hours I have to spare till the next load.

But I saw trucking as the perfect opportunity to save my money like a mad man considering I was in the right position...no kids,no felonies, no wife, no bills, no serious health conditions. One of these days going to buy a nice piece of property and take it eazy

When I do take home time, I'm welcomed by a lot of family\friends to stay at their house, or just get a hotel

 

Must just be a apartment?, as rent on house is usually alot more then a mortgage payment.

 

I really wish I did this while I was still on a W2 paycheck. Once I started my business, banks won't touch me. Gotta wait 2 years, then provide tax returns. Credit was great too, and I had good credit history. I would have qualified for a nice $100k plus duplex, and been living on a renter paid mortgage right now, had I realized all this sooner.

Oh well, live and learn. Now I'm saving up, and by 2 years time I'll have a huge down payment to throw at something.

 

I would rent a place. This is easy to say but if you are paying a mortgage... what happens when there is not anyone who wants to rent this. Then you are far from home and have a mortgage to pay on top of everything else. Rentals with mortgages do not always have people in them paying rent. Then that payment falls on your shoulders and you have to come up with the money.

On top of all this you will have to interview "quality renters" and like it was said above, people who rent, all of them do not take care of things as if it were their own. So you say, property manager fees on top of mortgage, on top of paying for repairs and keeping place looking right, on top of being 1000s of miles away at any given time. On top of when a lease is up setting up a new one over and over and over again IF people are interested when vacant. This is work enough while you're in the same city. It's a nightmare and needless at that when you're miles away trucking.

 

This is why you hire an agency to take care of it. If you don't have a tenant they don't get paid. So they fill it up for you quick. They'll also clean up after the previous tenants and take care of the property.

You're still paying for it all, but that's pretty much it.

Its hardly a get rich quick scheme, at best you're looking at a net income of 500$/month with a duplex. Single family home will be less in most cases. Buying and renting homes helps us primarily with taxes, but as long as both units are filled then it can help you through a job slump too.

 

so instead of just renting a place that cuts all this extra work out. He buys a house, hires a agency and property manager which will dip into his profits, plus he will have to make sure they are worth their price and that they are working while he is miles away trucking? Seems like a hassle and nightmare to me if things go bad.

buying a house for tax write offs just for the purpose of a write off is silly. Buying a house worth thousands to save a few hundred dollars to the government is not good business. Now if he buys a house, that's great but not for tax write offs.

like I said he should rent so he doesn't have the hassle of doing all this extra work and for what?

 

It's extra work sure, but if it was easy...well you know the rest of that.

Like I said, it isn't a get rich quick thing.

As for taxes, first time home buyer credit, depreciation, cost of upkeep and labor (includes everything you spent on the house), mortgage interest and payments as well as far more are all tax factors for anyone. That'll add up to more than a few hundred dollars.

Buying a house, for any reason, becomes an investment.

Is it worth the risk for owning or renting? If you've got the patience to weed through the paperwork and understand how that industry works, I say absolutely. It's a long-term benefit with a short-term risk.

If you want to buy and then leave it all alone for someone else to handle 100%, you're going to be sorely disappointed at your yield. Buy, rent through an agency, keep the house until it's paid, and then sell when you retire.

If if you're a fiscally responsible person, over the course of 15+ years this type of investment can and often does pay itself off plus more. It's not a guaranteed income or profit, but done right you'll come out on top even in a loss.

By no means is this a short-term investment.