Newbie Investor Relocated from Stamford, CT to San Antonio, TX

[Manuel Olguin]

Hello BP – I am new to BP and have listened to a number of the podcasts which is what brought me to the forums. Here’s our story (which is hopefully just the beginning).

My wife and I stumbled into owning an “investment” property last year when we purchased a townhome in Stamford, CT that we thought would be a 3-5 year stop for us. Within three months of the purchase, I was relocated to San Antonio, TX. Here are some details on the purchase in CT:

• 2 story unit with a (now awesome) basement within a small 5 unit community
• Price: $350K
• 10% Cash down
• Fees/escrow: $3K
• Net Mortgage:$312K
• Closing Fees (Legal/Title/Clerk): $3,150
• Reno costs: ~$25K upgrading basement and two bathrooms while replacing carpet in bedrooms, and removing popcorn ceilings and painting entire unit

Monthly expenses:

• Mortgage + Taxes/PMI/Ins: $2,030
• HOA: $275

We loved the place for ourselves and thinking that we were going to be there for awhile had pumped in a good amount of cash into the reno before we understood that this actually wasn’t going to be “ours” because of the relocation. In any case, we found some renters to come in at $2,350/month (1.5 yrs) term starting November ’17 and they have been good. We ended up using a realtor to post the place for rent and also to find our renters. The realtor charged us one month’s rent for that job. In hindsight that’s a lot however due to the relocation, we simply didn’t have the time to run through that process on our own.

Having not known that this was going to be a rental property for us, I understand that we made some unfortunate moves (in the purchase and the reno and lack of rental analysis). It is a really lean margin here and I have already been saving out of pocket for a reserve for the unit.

Some other items to note:

• We are absentee renters now living in SA
• No property manager is being used (calls come to me)
• We don’t have friends in the area
• We have a 1 yr. home warrantly through Select Home Warranty

All of this was done prior to me knowing about BP or rental properties in general.

I would love your thoughts on how I can maintain this rental going forward with some potential pitfalls to look out for.

My real estate goals going forward:

• Potentially buying our own place in SA (we are renting for a year)
• I'd love to get into the multifamily space and utilize the buy/hold rental method + BRRR
• Putting a 1-page plan together on my multifamily aspirations
• Networking to learn good strategies

Hobbies: bass fishing

Thanks and I look forward to creating a strong BP network!

[Steven Gillmer]

Welcome to San Antonio Manuel! It looks like if nothing ever goes wrong, you will sort of break even, although you will not be able to set aside any money for future capital expenses. The only reason I would keep that unit as a rental is if there was potential for consistent rent increases and property appreciation. If you could count on both, then in a few years you would be in better shape. If not, I would sell and move on, unless I planned on moving back someday and wanted to move back into that house.