SFH Rental in Orlando, FL

[Jeffrey M Rauen]

Investment Info:

Single-family residence buy & hold investment in Orlando.

Purchase price: $298,000
Cash invested: $29,000

Initially bought as a primary residence. After a while I started renting out spare bedrooms once I learned about the power of real estate investing, and eventually moved out to get it fully booked. Renting each room out individually definitely opens the door to more cash flow, but is not without it's issues!!! I've learned a lot about tenant screening and plan to hold this for a while, since it proves to achieve good cash flow with this model. Proximity to Disney, Universal, and SeaWorld help a lot with minimizing vacancy.

What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

Initially purchased as a primary residence, but when I decided to downsize to minimize my liabilities I realized I could keep this property and cash flow it with the right business plan.

How did you finance this deal?

I bought this property with a 0% down VA loan. When I get to the 80% LTV mark, I plan to look at refinancing to a conventional loan and freeing up my limited VA loan limits to leverage the power of it in the future with house hacking or live in (long term) flipping.

How did you add value to the deal?

I found a few ways to upgrade the look and feel of this place on basically a shoe string budget when I was just getting started. I covered the cheap counters with contact paper to look like high end marble (~$100), framed the mirrors with trim (~$10 per mirror), upgraded old carpet to vinyl plank (

Lessons learned? Challenges?

Tenant screening is key if you're going to have multiple people living together. More than that, though, is the advertising plan. Fair housing laws aren't something that I want to mess with, and after a day of having a post on facebook marketplace I took it down and was REALLY glad no one could make the required deposit. I became very selective about my marketing plan, and offered a rooom for a very competitive price. So far, it's worked out really well for me. However, only time will tell....

Did you work with any real estate professionals (agents, lenders, etc.) that you'd recommend to others?

Kevin Boudreaux - Best broker ever. Seriously, trust me.

[Jeffrey M Rauen]

@Fareed R. I do the same stuff that everyone else does with those points. Credit score, criminal report (no violant crimes or drugs), income verification (3x rent), and eviction history (zero). I also request an interview with the existing tenants before kicking off the background checks. That opens up a can of worms with fair housing laws, but also gives me a chance to make sure everyone gets along and POTENTIALLY convince prospective tenants they wouldn't be comfortable so they chose not to pursue an application.

My other way of preventing tensions between renters is to target my advertising. I've had a lot of success so far with offering rent credit for leads from the existing tenants. If that doesn't works, I post on specific Facebook boards that are tailored to the same types of people who I rent to now (mostly Disney employees)