Need strategic advice

[Jean Paul Rousseau]

In a previous forum « bad start in rental experience » I described the problems I encountered with the two properties I bought in Atlanta.

Today I have a new property manager that evicted the tenant in Riverdale; the cost of repairs will be around 2 k$. The house is proposed for rent but is not rented yet.

On the Stone mountain property the court decided an eviction of the tenant 1/15, but she is still there and I have no rent. I will have to pay a lot of charges : insurances, utilities, taxes and maybe some rehab. cost on this second house.

I am living in France and those houses were bought through a Georgia Corp. whose stockholders are my children. I lent money to the corp. to buy those houses and the corp. is supposed to reimburse me 5% of what I lended every year (to get my money back in 20 years if I am still alive...).The problem is that the corp. is of course unable to give me back money for now ; it’s not that much for me but it is for my children who carry that debt (declared to the french tax administration). Those house were bought for 80 k$ each.

Now I need some advice

I am able to inject 15 k$ now from my own money to keep things running and I may be able to get around 120 k$ in may for a new investment.

My strategy today is not to perform a new investment before I have new tenants in my two houses because I don’t want to add another problem. One may think, if a good opportunity arise in may, I should take it to reduce the burden, but I don’t presently favor this solution which seems to risky. Selling the two housing may also be an alternative if I can get my 80 k$ x 2 Back.

Has someone any suggestion ?

@Tom Yung  

@Joshua Dorkin 

@Cal C.  @Rick baggenstoss

[Tom Yung]

@Jean Paul Rousseau

The recommendation below is straightly based on my limited experience in out of country investment. Please take it as my thoughts only.

MORE IS NOT BETTER

The biggest issue with out of state is property management. The second biggest issue with that is us "The investors". 

We;the investors, depends too much on the property managers to make decision for us, most of us think we can leave all things in the manager's hand.

1) I recommend knowing the market,how much can you rent out the space for, do you need to reduce rent to fill renters from February to April. the key word is to find out all this yourself first & give direction to your PM & asked for their advice. Find out all the rentals around your two properties, looked at pictures & time on market. This gives you a general idea how the market is doing.

2) repair cost - learn the rehab business. Check out the material cost on web sites like Home Depot. Compare that to your estimate from the PM & decide on what grade of improvement to your property. Sometimes a 10% more on cost will make your unit more durable. Like replace carpet with laminate flooring in heavy traffic area. PM will not make this kind of suggestion to you, you have to make the decision to PM, so they can go from your request.

3) Connect with locals - they can provide you so much insights & experience that we; out of country will never know by driving around in 2 or 3 days in a new place. 

@Rick Baggenstoss  & @Cal C are both excellent candidates. Rick has gave me so much advice on different areas that helps me so much in deciding where to invest next.

I will strongly advise not to purchase any further out of country investment property; unless you can put in time to study the LOCAL market that you invested in