Rookie Reply: House Hacking 101!

Ashley:
Welcome to the Real Estate Rookie podcast, where every week, three times a week, we bring you the inspiration, motivation, and stories you need to kickstart your investing journey. My name is Ashley Care and today I am joined by Noah Bacon. You actually might recognize him because of an episode he does on YouTube called How I Started, and this is going to be aired on the Rookie podcast also. But let’s give a big welcome to Noah.

Noah:
Hey Ashley, thank you so much for having me today. It’s great to see you again.

Ashley:
Yeah, so just in case the audience hasn’t listened to how I started episode that we aired on the Rookie Channel, tell our audience a little bit about it and about you.

Noah:
Yeah, absolutely. So we host over on the Real Estate Rookie YouTube channel, how I started, and it’s exactly in the title of the show. So what we do is interview first time or even aspiring real estate investors on how they got started on their first property, their second property, and typically there’ll be about five to 10 years down the road now today, and we speed up and see where they’re at. But it’s a really great show for the audience to get to know how people have done it in maybe 20, 22, 20 23, or how people were thinking about doing it back in 2000 when they first got started. So it’s been an honor to be hosting a show where I get to talk to many investors that come from so many unique experiences and different backgrounds. And like you said, working at BiggerPockets, I’ve had the luxury of having those interactions every day. I used to be the community manager and now I’m a digital content specialist, so you’ll see me on podcasts, on downloads and guides, maybe even bootcamps and a lot more of our media offerings at BiggerPockets. So excited to be here with you today.

Ashley:
And then what about your investing experience? Tell us a little bit about that background.

Noah:
Yeah, absolutely. So I started house hacking in 2021. I bought a condo with a couple extra bedrooms and rented out those extra rooms, cashflow a couple hundred dollars extra per month, and then saved extremely frugally for about 11 and a half months and purchased my second house hack and did exactly the same thing. It was a rinse and repeat. I bought a town home, rent it out to two extra bedrooms and was pretty much breakeven. So speed up to today, me and my girlfriend have moved back to Pennsylvania, which is my hometown, and we’ve converted both of those properties into long-term rentals and are going to continue this house hacking journey looking for a small multifamily property up next.

Ashley:
Well Noah, since you are a house hacking expert, I thought today we could go through the BiggerPockets forums and pick out some questions that have to do with house hacking. So before we get into the episode today, we’re going to be talking about how much house hacking can actually improve your cashflow if you need an LLC to house hack and what property types work best for doing a house hack. So Noah, let’s go into the house hacking forums here and let’s see, do one of these questions kind of stick out to you?

Noah:
Yeah, let’s see. I’m over on the house hacking forum as you said, and I see a question here from That’s pretty good. Let me read it to you and then we can give Ryan our thoughts. So Ryan says, hi everyone. My wife and I would love to move to a better house with a bigger yard in five-ish years. I want to find out if real estate investment can get us there. I think we need to make 3000 a month more than we do now. We have about 50,000 saved up to invest right now. Is it a reasonable goal to get around $3,000 a month of cashflow in five years with rental properties? Another strategy we might also implement would be house hacking that house to reduce how much cashflow we would need. So Ashley, in five years, do you think $3,000 is a reasonable number? And I know house hacking is definitely an exciting avenue that you can take to get there.

Ashley:
Yeah, so I think it is reasonable, especially if you are house hacking because part of that 3000 can be what you’re saving in your living costs. So right now, if you’re paying a thousand dollars per month in rent and you’re able to eliminate that cost because you’re house hacking and somebody else is paying your mortgage, you’re already a third of the way there to that $3,000 per month in cashflow over five years. So Noah, what about you? How much cashflow have you been able to generate since 2021 based off of the house hacks you have done?

Noah:
Yeah, no, it’s a great question. I think the 3000, it’s absolutely achievable. I maybe have gone a little bit slower and a more expensive market. There’s going to be a lot of assumptions where this market is of course. So I was in Colorado Springs and home values were a little bit too expensive for me to look at a multifamily and looking at a bigger single family home. The numbers didn’t really make sense. So I looked at condos and town homes since the price point was a little bit lower, and when I was living in the property, I was actually making about $200 a month, and when I moved out I was cashflowing closer to 500. So if you look at his goal here of 3000, that would tell me $500 a month on a long-term rental after moving out, you would only need six properties. And of course in five years, that is a pretty high mark to achieve. But with house hacking, you can definitely, like you said, Ashley, after property number one, can he be close to a thousand dollars if he’s in a different market? Like I said, I’m in an expensive market and it was 500 a month. So I don’t think this is unreasonable and absolutely you can do it.

Ashley:
And what would it have cost if you would’ve went and rented a very similar apartment or room that you were living in? So how much money were you saving by house hacking too for your living expenses?

Noah:
That’s another great question. It was honestly, my intro into real estate was that renting was more expensive than actually owning and having a mortgage. Of course, having the down payment, like Ryan says here, with 50,000 already saved up, he’ll probably be looking at those two options. What is cheaper right now? Is it renting or is it going and buying and house hacking? And for me, at the time, it was funny, I was a single guy, I had my dog, so I had pet fees, the pet rent and all that to increase my monthly. But when I was looking, it was close to around $1,500 a month for a studio, one bed apartment, and my mortgage at the time was actually $1,300. So for me, it was much cheaper to be living in the property. And when I rented out the two rooms, it actually brought money in for me monthly. So I think you can analyze this deal in two ways when you’re living in the property and then when you actually move out of it and when you move out of it, you’re going to see the numbers certainly inflate a little bit in your favor.

Ashley:
And I think if we look at the house hacking strategy versus he stays in his primary now or maybe a rental now, but then buys investment properties, in my opinion, I think it is way easier to scale a portfolio of house hacks because you’re able to put less money down on each property where if you are just going the standard route, you’re not doing any creative financing, you’re just going and buying investment properties, you’re going to most likely have to put 20 to 25% down on that property, which may take you longer to save up that amount, which means it would be longer until you could actually buy that next investment property With house hacking, if it’s going to be your primary residence, you’re going to have to put three and a half percent, 5% down to purchase that property. And then you live there for one year and then you go and you buy the next property and you rent that last one out. And so his goal within five years, and you had said in your market he would need to buy six properties. Well, if he did one every year in five years, he would be pretty close to that with cash flowing $500 per month with five properties. So I definitely think house hacking is a quicker way to actually achieve that goal he’s trying to make here too.

Noah:
Absolutely, and I think the thing that we’re not even talking about is the amount of equity that he’ll build over the time. So yeah, it could take him five houses in five years, but let’s say he has a really, really great market appreciation over three years and it takes him two properties to get there and he actually refinances the first one to get a better cashflow position. He’s in property number two, moves out, refinances gets a better cashflow position, and now he may only need two or three properties instead of five. So this goal with house hacking makes it sound a lot more achievable than saving 20% to put a hundred thousand dollars down on a $500,000 property. That’s going to take you a lot more time than using an owner occupancy loan.

Ashley:
And to kind of add onto that is PMI. So if you’re putting three and a half percent down, 5% down, you are going to be paying PMI on your property, the mortgage insurance, and until you get that 20% in equity. But if you’re living there for a year, and especially if you’re going to be adding value to the property while you’re living there, you could go back to the bank and say, my property has improved. I have more equity because I value and get that PMI removed. So Noah, did you have PMI on any of your properties? I’ve never actually had it.

Noah:
Yeah, I actually, I currently have it on both properties. So I bought my first house in 21, bought my second house in 22, and I haven’t done many dramatic rehab improvements on the property. I’ve ripped out flooring put in vinyl, I’ve installed a door to make it a three bedroom instead of a two bedroom to one of the houses. But I actually still carry that PMI today. And on my first property it was currently still is $98 a month, and then on my second property it’s about $68 a month. So to me, it’s not a major thing that I need to get off the plate, but when I do refinance in the next two to three years, it is something I’m certainly looking for the future toward is about a hundred, $150 of extra cashflow that’s just completely unrecognized. So

Ashley:
And think too, if you’re going after this goal of five or six properties in the next five years, you take a hundred dollars from each property, that can be your last $500 and you only need five properties to get to that. So we’re going to take a really short ad break here and when we come back we’re actually going to find out the best way to get pre-approved for a house hack. So stay tuned. Okay, thank you guys so much for checking out our show sponsors. Welcome back. We are with Noah. And Noah, do you see another house hacking question that you want to take a look at?

Noah:
Yeah, absolutely. So I see one here, it sticks out to me. It’s from William. So William says, I have an LLC that I’m trying to utilize for my investments. I’m just starting out and want a house hack through small multifamilies. Is it difficult to get an FHA loan through an LLC? Have you guys faced any similar situations or any words of advice?

Ashley:
Oh, this is a good one. So this is such a great debate and I recently did a video on YouTube, do you need an LLC? And it has performed so well because this is such a question that is frequently asked by rookie investors. So I think first of all, here’s the first sentence sticks out to me. I have an LLC that I’m trying to utilize for my investments. My first question would be is this LLC just one you created that you want to buy with that there’s nothing owned in the LLC right now, nothing happening with it, or is this already an established LLC that you already have some other kind of asset in it or some other kind of business involved with it? So the first thing is is that I wouldn’t go and create an LLC unless you already have a property in mind because you can purchase your property or get it under contract and then create the LLC.

Ashley:
That’s what I would recommend. Instead of taking the time paying for an LLC, paying the fees for an LLC, you’re still going to have to pay a filing fee every year. You’re still going to have to pay a CPA to file a tax return every year. So I would wait until you actually have a property under contract. And what I do on my contracts is I will put and or assign As so that when I have a property under purchase, I can change the name that is on the contract. So if I decide I want it to be in Malloy LLC, then that property I can go ahead and change the contract before closing so that the deed is actually in that LLC instead of whatever I initially put. So you can always do that so that when you create your LLC, it’s ready. Then the other thing too is do you have another LLC that has some kind of active business in it or whatever it may be.

Ashley:
I would not mix that with my investment property. I would keep that completely separate. Any active income you have going on, keep that LLC there and then create a new LLC if that’s what you want for your investment property. And then so the next question is, I’m just starting out and I want to house hack. So getting an FHA loan through an LLC, I have never seen this done or heard of this being done because an FHA is meant to be your primary residence where they’re most likely going to want your personal name on it because an LLC is a business entity and the point of that FHA loan is for it to be your personal asset and not to be at a business entity or an investment property. So Noah, do you have any take on that of what you’ve seen with FHA loans and having an LLC?

Noah:
No, and I think you absolutely hit the nail on the head. I think this is a really common confusion that a lot of aspiring or even first time investors make is that I need to have an LLC to be a business to collect rental income. And that’s not the case when it is on the financing and loan side of things. As you stated, when it’s an FHA, even a conventional loan, you’re buying a primary residence as an individual. So me, Noah Bacon or you Ashley Care, we’re going to buy that property for primary residence intention and then it comes after when we convert them into rental producing income properties that they’re going to need a business entity for some of those other benefits that come down the road. But I think for William’s sake here being an aspiring or first time investor, it’s going to be get in in your name and then how can you creatively turn that property into a business entity than using an LLC.

Noah:
But I think it’s going to be more appropriate for an experienced investor than it would be for a first time investor. And an interesting thing that I’ve used if the worry here for William is of course keeping my name anonymous, trying to limit any liability of course is one of the main benefits of having an LLC. Another thing to explore would potentially be an umbrella policy, and that’s what my insurance provider actually what a lot of finance professionals recommended to me when I was getting started out, I wasn’t able to buy properties with A LLC in a business entity, buy them in my own name, but I can increase my coverage on the property. Let’s say somebody slips and falls outside of one of my rentals. Now with this umbrella policy, it’s going to take a lot more for them to come in and potentially impact my personal assets because they had a slip and fall on my rental property. So definitely some intricacies there that are going to be a little bit easier for the rookie to understand than an LLC, but I would definitely speak with your insurance agent and definitely your lender when you’re getting started out right away.

Ashley:
Yeah, because the point of most reason that people get an LLC is because they want that liability protection. They don’t want to be sued. They don’t want people to come after their personal assets. So first of all, if you don’t have anything to lose, maybe you rent, you don’t even own a property, you don’t own a car, or maybe your car is underwater, you owe more than what it’s worth, you don’t have any assets, then you don’t really need to worry about that liability protection because no attorney is going to take the time to sue you if they have nothing that they can actually get from you to sue you. But the difference between an LLC and an umbrella policy is that an LLC protects you so that they can only sue the LLC. Okay, so the LLC would have to pay out with the umbrella policy.

Ashley:
This doesn’t protect you personally. The person could still come after your personal assets because the house is in your personal name, this investment property. But the difference is with an umbrella policy gives you protection by giving you more money to spend to protect yourself. So if you look at your landlord policy or homeowner’s policy, it’ll say we’ll pay up to $500,000 in liability. Somebody sues you and Noah’s example because you slipped and fell. What an umbrella policy does, it gives you more coverage on top of that homeowner’s or landlord policy. So if you have that $500,000 and your attorneys that the insurance company hires for you, they use that all up trying to defend you. Then that $1 million or whatever type of coverage you get on top of it that will kick in and say, okay, now we have another million dollars to defend you.

Ashley:
Or in most cases to actually settle and just pay the person off and be done with it because it’s actually cheaper than going to court. That is how an umbrella policy actually protects you. It gives you more money for somebody to sue you with so that they can settle with you or they can defend you in your case too. So definitely great advice Noah, is if you are going in your personal name to get that umbrella policy will help you sleep at night and it’s not that expensive. Do you know offhand how much you pay for your umbrella policy each year?

Noah:
Yeah, so each year I want to say it was about $350. It only came out to around $30 a month, but you hit a perfect point that I totally missed on. I got this policy when I had my second property, so I actually had assets then to protect when it was just my first property house hacking. I didn’t have an umbrella, but when I had two properties and actually my car at the time, all three of those assets were under the umbrella. Basically I was paying $30 a month for the umbrella, but it also increases the coverage on all of those other accounts. So my homeowner’s insurance policies, they stayed about the same. They were roughly 50 to $70 a month. Nothing to sweat about too much, but actually my auto policy went from about 180 to about $270 a month because the coverage on that is now increased as well. So they potentially can’t come after my car if that settlement or lawsuit was over the $1 million umbrella, for example.

Ashley:
And don’t just jump into forming an LLC without having all your ducks in a row as to what it actually entails and if you actually need one. I think Noah gave a great example of how you can actually buy real estate as investments and not need to have an LLC because being able to get better financing if your personal name is on it definitely is a thing, you’re most likely going to get a better interest rate, better terms on your loan because it is you as the personal guarantor taking the loan out and not an LLC.

Noah:
I was just going to ask as a follow-up, should William have any concerns in the future then if he does get this property in a primary residence in his name in about five years, let’s say he wants to put it into an LLC, do you have any idea of what those steps are like? Does he have to refinance, talk to his lender? Does he have risk of getting a new rate that’s going to be a higher rate than what he’s locked in at?

Ashley:
Yeah, so great question Noah, and this is also all over the BiggerPockets forums of how to do this. Can you do this? So the first thing is to read your mortgage documents. What does the do on sale clause actually state? So you see all the time now that people are doing some creative financing where they’re actually taking over other people’s mortgages doing these sub two deals and then just deeding the property to themselves, which if you read some mortgage documents, they say if you sell the property, your mortgage is due in full, you have to pay it. Then there are some clauses that say if you switch the owner of the LLC as long, it is the same ownership percentage. They don’t care and it’s not due on sale. So for example, this would be if Noah bought a property in his personal name and then he curated the LLC called bacon sizzle LLC, and he was the 100% owner of that LLC, they would not call it the due on sale clause because he was still 100% owner and he would just do a quick claim deed.

Ashley:
So that’s actually what I did on several of my properties. I bought them in my personal name, I did a quick claim deed a couple years later, put them into an LLC, and I still kept all the same financing, the same loans on it. So you have to be prepared, you have to look at what your loan documents say. There are definitely investors who take that risk of changing it. There is the kind of argument that lenders aren’t in the business of foreclosing on your property and selling properties that as long as you keep paying, nobody will care. But I have no data to actually back that up. So you definitely are taking a risk by transferring the LLC or the property into analysis out of your name and keeping your financing in place. So have some kind of backup plan if your loan is called, if you do decide to do that, but also make sure that you’re not committing any kind of mortgage fraud or going against your mortgage just to do your due diligence, maybe consult an attorney.

Ashley:
I had an attorney do this for me. So just a word of advice, but it is done and has been done successfully. So I had a couple line of credits open because I did have this fear that they were going to call my loons due when that happened. And I was like, okay, worst case scenario, I go and use my line of credits, I pay it off, or I can go and refinance and I put ’em into different lending, all these different things. So make sure you do have kind of an exit strategy if your loan is called, if you do make that switch. Okay, so we’re going to take a quick break. Before we do that though, if you guys love talking about real estate, just like we do, go to the BiggerPockets forums and leave a question, answer some questions, but also if you really like these episodes, make sure to hit the follow button on your podcast app or wherever you’re listening. Okay, so we’ll be right back after this break. And in our next question we’re going to discuss the best property type if you’re actually looking to house hack. Okay, so we are back. And Noah, what is the last question you want to pick out of the BiggerPockets forums?

Noah:
Yeah, so I think I found another interesting one here from Sam. Sam says, hello everyone. I’m looking into house hacking and wanted to hear some opinions on house hacking a duplex versus a single family home. It seems like a duplex is a better option as far as numbers wise and having multiple units to be rented out once I move out of the property. But with duplexes being so hard to find in my market, should I settle for a single family to house hack? This is a great question and I can talk to this firsthand because I was also priced out of multifamily properties in my local,

Ashley:
No, take it away.

Noah:
So I think it’s an absolutely great, great way to think about it. If I can’t have this, can I have another option? And with house hacking, there’s a lot of different nuances that comes with it. I think traditionally when the term was first coined, everybody was looking for those small multifamily property. But we’re in a market to today where affordability is certainly a concern for a lot of home buyers and they’re looking at a lot of different options, and house hacking is still holding true to today. Me firsthand in 2021, I was priced out of small multifamilies, a single family house that actually it didn’t make any sense to be house hacking for me with the numbers that I was getting for rooms. So I actually looked at a condo and a townhouse, and that’s what I have in my portfolio today. So it actually did make sense for me.

Noah:
I was cashflowing on both properties while I was living in them and moving out. They actually do cashflow for a small multifamily property. The cheapest fourplex in my local market was about $600,000. So margins were really tight when it came to putting 5% to three and a half percent down on a loan. You obviously have PMI, you have a lot of other costs as just holding that. Carrying cost is pretty massive. So I think when you look at single family homes, there’s a lot of pros and cons with it. Like I said, the biggest pro is going to be that it’s a lower price point. You have the potential for cashflow if you’re running out in multiple rooms, but a con is that you’re going to be giving up a lot of your privacy. If you do a multifamily property, you’re obviously in your own unit in a bigger box where there’s three other units of walls separating everybody.

Noah:
But when you’re in a single family home, you’re sharing a kitchen, you’re sharing a laundry room potentially in your house as opposed to small multi where you’d be having a unit or a laundry unit in your own unit or having a laundry room that you’d share yard upkeep. So it’s really going to give a lot less privacy options, but it can offer a lot more cashflow options. So I know a lot of investors that are in high price markets like myself when I was in Colorado Springs, Danielle Daley, who works at BiggerPockets will actually be on the rookie panel with me who Ashley will be moderating at B Pecon. She looks for five, six bedroom houses that she’s actually still making cashflow numbers on in a really expensive market in Denver. So I think if the price point’s not there for you and there’s not a lot of inventory in a certain asset class, you can still find massive success in single family homes. And I know a lot of people that are still doing that today.

Ashley:
We just recently put out an episode with Christian and Shannon and it was episode 444 actually, so if you guys want to go and check that out. But what they did, and this was specific to student housing, but they would take single family properties and they would add bedrooms to them and add bathrooms. So they looked for houses with unfinished basements so they could add value by finishing the basements, by adding bedrooms and bathrooms there, attic spaces, finishing off attic spaces and putting bedrooms in. And they did this in Seattle, Washington, and they talked about the permit, even though I’ve invested in Seattle and the permit process can be horrible, they said it wasn’t that bad because you’re really just putting up rooms for the bedrooms. And then if they did bathrooms, it wasn’t a lot, it was just plumbing and a little electric, but they would look at these properties and go into ’em.

Ashley:
And one example they gave was a house listed as a two bedroom, one bath, but it had a lot of square footage and a lot of unfinished square footage. And so they I think made it into an eight bed, three bath, maybe even. It was nine bed, three bath. So they were really optimizing every single room in that property. And maybe it’s different for college students where they don’t care that there is nine people living in one house. But that’s also a great way is looking at listings, looking at properties and looking at from a different perspective. Who uses their dining room? I never use my dining room, turn that dining room into another bedroom, add a closet into there, or get a rack that they can hang clothes on, whatever it may be. And you can add value by making more rooms into the property too.

Noah:
Yeah, I love your point about the basement conversion. I did that on my second property where it was an unfinished basement that we moved into and we rented out the top half of the house and it was the ultimate privacy that you can possibly get. Another thing that we actually saw, we were driving around Virginia Beach where my girlfriend Erin is from and on a typical two car garage door, it was funny, you saw two bi-fold doors that opened up and you’re like, there’s clearly somebody living in that garage. And to me, that homeowner likely was an investor that was smart and realized I have about 700 square feet of garage space here that is going to be a rental producing income space for me. So there’s a lot of different options and you can even potentially short-term rentals in spaces too and do that hybrid house hack there. So I don’t think I have a recommended door count for you. If you’re in a local market and you see that you can get $500 a door, that would be great. If you have a mortgage for $2,000, four doors, you get offset right away, five doors, you’re cash flowing 500 a month. So I think the numbers are going to be really specific on the market, but it’s going to be pretty easy to know how many doors you need to meet your monthly expenses.

Ashley:
And Noah, where do you go to find tenants for rent by the room? So how did you fill your houses instead? Zillow at least maybe there’s just not a lot in my market, but where we list our units, there’s not really any buy the rooms listed at

Noah:
All. It’s funny you mentioned Zillow because I was actually on Zillow yesterday and they now have a rent by room option. Oh

Ashley:
Really? Oh, cool.

Noah:
Yeah, and I did not have that three years ago, and I wish I did because that is where I get all my tenants for traditional long-term rentals, when it comes to house hacking rent by room, you’re going to have to dig a little bit harder. I found the most success on Facebook marketplace and Facebook groups in the local community and local markets. So like I said, I was in Colorado Springs, I must have joined about five to six different housing Facebook groups on there, different Craigslist groups, different forum threads that were specifically looking for people that are renters looking for houses in Colorado Springs. So me as a landlord, I would put a little bit of personal information about myself. Hey, I’m a single male looking for two roommates to live in my house. I know that there’s a debate obviously back and forth. Do you want to keep anonymity being the landlord?

Noah:
Do you want to keep or do you want to put it out there? And I essentially just put it out there. I think it was really easy for me to have a relationship with my tenants that way, but you can easily do that post and say, Hey, I’m Noah, I’m looking for two roommates. And keep your landlord responsibilities completely anonymous. You can have a property manager making the decisions that you’re ultimately running that company, but it’s going to be pretty easy for you to, I mean, pretty easy if you’re able to put your personal information out there. I found a lot of hobbies of interest that we had that during our tenancy, we were able to not only have a good relationship as friends, but it helped us then have no days of helped me have no taste of vacancy moving into my next property and taking them with me. So I think being able to relate to your tenant, you’re obviously going to be one of their roommates if you’re doing a single family house hack. So as much as you’re willing to share with them is only going to benefit you in the long run, in my opinion.

Ashley:
Well, Noah, thank you so much for joining us today for this rookie reply. It was great to get your expertise on house hacking. Can you let everyone know again where they can find your series, how I got started on YouTube?

Noah:
Yeah, absolutely. If you head over to the BiggerPockets Real Estate Rookie YouTube channel, you can find my series, how I started on there. We’ll be putting episodes out every Tuesday, sharing stories on how investors got their first property. So look forward to sharing many other stories with you moving forward.

Ashley:
And if you are interested in sharing your story and how you got started, you can reach out to Noah Bacon on BiggerPockets. Just search his name to find his profile and send him a message. If you want to get involved in the community like all these other real estate investors, go to ww.biggerpockets.com/forums. Thank you guys so much for listening. Don’t forget to follow this podcast on your favorite podcast platform, and if you’re watching on YouTube, make sure you are subscribed so you get all the updates and notifications when we release new episodes. Thank you so much for joining us. I’m Ashley and he’s Noah, and we’ll see you guys next time on the Real Estate Rookie podcast.

Tony:
This bigger podcast, podcast is produced by Daniel Zarate, edited by Exodus Media Copywriting by Calico Content.

Ashley:
I’m Ashley. He’s Tony, and you have been listening to Real Estate

Tony:
Rookie. And if you want your questions answered on the show, go to biggerpockets.com/reply.