Out of town landlord - Martinsburg, WV

[Robert Lasko]

Hello friends! My name is Bob Lasko and I just joined BP yesterday. I'm amazed at the depth of knowledge on this site. My wife and I fell into the real estate investment game by accident. We own a 3 bed 2 bath brand new ranch single family home in an excellent community in Martinsburg, WV, which is in the fastest growing county due to its proximity to Washington, DC and Baltimore. I was hired by the FAA as an air traffic controller in 2011 and that required us to move to Florida for a couple years. We were able to rent the house out to where we just broke even. The tenant is great! He only calls when something is wrong, pays in certified check every month, and takes care of the place! Even though we aren't cash flowing anything, we are building equity by debt payment and appreciation. Our plan is told hold onto it for another 5 years when we can sell it for a larger gain.

A few months ago, I was lucky to get transferred closer to Martinsburg. We live in a town called Bealeton, VA which is about an hour and 15 minutes from Martinsburg. I started looking in Bealeton for buy and hold deals but since we are close to DC, the prices are too high to support that type of investing. I was discouraged since I have been eager to start investing in rentals for the last five years, but wanted to be settled down before I started. Now that I am settled, I live in an area that doesn't support it. I

I have been thinking a lot about investing back in Martinsburg but the distance makes me nervous. Usually I wouldn't consider being that far from our investment, but the market there is super attractive for buy and hold. Another reason I'm considering it is because we have had zero problems in the last 3 years with our tenant in the 3 bed 2 bath rancher. When something needed to be fixed, he would call the repair man and deduct it from his rent. Also, my wife is a stay at home mommy and frequently travels an hour and 15 minutes back to Martinsburg to visit family and would be able to address any "non-emergency" problems the tenants have. Also, my wife has a few people in her family that live in Martinsburg and are contractors who have said they would take tenant "emergency" calls for me.

My goal is to have a handful of nice rentals that will be paid off when I retire at 50 (I'm 29 now). I already have a nice retirement from the government so the rentals would just be gravy money. I won't consider leaving my job to be closer to a good real estate market. I love my job, it pays too well and has too many perks for me to leave.

I'm looking for comments by people who have done this, who are doing this, or who are thinking about doing this. Please share good experiences and bad ones. Any advice is truly appreciated! Thanks!

[Robert Lasko]

Bill,

Wow, I totally forgot about this post! This was about six years ago! Anyways, to answer your question, I went ahead with buying some properties and was glad I did. I decided on buying townhouses because I could sell them rather quickly if I wanted to get out of the real estate game in the future. My first townhouse I bought off the MLS for $113,000 and rented it out for $1,300/month. Shortly after I bought a second townhouse for $110,000 from an investor and rented that out for $1,400/month. Then I bought two more foreclosures for $116,000 and $112,000 and rented those out for $1,250/month and $1,200/month respectively. At that time I was managing 5 properties (one was my wife's old house). After that, it was hard to find a good deal so I stopped buying. The market has appreciated nicely to where I sold the first TH for $145,000 by myself. I decided to sell because the neighborhood was starting to go down hill, large expenses were coming up in the near future, and I wanted to pay off my personal residence. Then I sold the 2nd TH for $175,000 by myself! Never really planned on selling it but it's never a bad idea to capture some profit. I used all the proceeds to pay off my house and now we have 3 rentals left which have appreciated nicely. To answer your question, I was super glad I did it. I made a lot of money for minimal amount of work and headache. I wish I had bought more but I was a new investor and didn't know how fast the market could appreciate. Looking back, I wouldn't have skipped the "OK" deals and kept looking for better ones because the market appreciation would have been worth it. If we ever have another downturn like we did 10 years ago, I'll be in a good position financially and have the knowledge to really take it to the next level. Until then, I'm just hammering down the mortgages on the rentals I have left and keep it on cruise control.

The Eastern panhandle is doing well.  More manufactures are moving in and creating more jobs.  However I don’t think the market will appreciate as fast as it has in the last few years.  The average income in the area just can’t support much more.  I look to see things flatten out.  Thoughts?