All Forum Posts by: Mitch Dowler

What is your exit strategy? What do you plan to do with this apartment complex to force value and increase rents so that if you want to sell it off in five years you can do so at a handsome profit. Analyze the property and budget for the improvements needed to make it a much more valuable property than what it is now.

I was asked for such a thing on a buy and hold purchase. This came about because the investor the lender was selling the note to was nervous for some reason. I refused to produce the letter but offered to talk with the investor. My credit history and bank account balances spoke for themselves. I think these requests come about when the investor is new or inexperienced and a person has several LLC's and separate bank accounts associated with each. It seems that the investor didn't really get it that they were all run as separate businesses with firewalls between them.

Simon Black is about to have a conference in Medellin will you be there too?

Awesome! Now you can refinance it and buy two or three more investments!

The tenant finally realized the phone lines are behind some wall plate blanks so they just need to terminate to RJ11 jacks and all is well. In over 10 years no one has wanted to use the old phone lines :)

FYI both cable and DSL are shared bandwidth back to the first router owned by the provider company but cable is much faster as the coax media is capable of carrying much more bandwidth and the phone lines are very old and have had side taps installed and removed many times.

When I was still using fax in my real estate business I used efax and received them all by email.

I am thankful for all the responses out there! BP folks are so friendly and great about sharing information.

I have a duplex building I purchased in 2005. It is a pristine building that I update between every tenant and most of my tenants stay two years or more. I have a you lower twenties couple I recently rented to and the young woman is asking for phone lines for DSL. I don't recall anyone installing an old style phone line since I have owned the building. Everyone has always had high speed internet through Comcast or a satellite company. I have not had a phone line in my home since the second half of the 1990's. I really didn't think anyone installed them anymore and I work in the telecom industry and I am a grandfather with three grandkids and another on the way.

Is this a new retro fashion statement to have an old fashioned phone line and DSL? I advertised it stating high speed internet was available but never claimed low speed internet was available. Really an old phone line? Is it just me trying to comprehend this? Will she ask for a place to stable a horse next?

I see the Open House as tool dependent on online marketing. I was receiving a huge response on my high quality in-demand rental unit. Rather than drive back and forth showing several prospective tenants I placed the open house date and 4 hour window in my on-line advertisements.

Then prospects show up and those with interest can ask me questions. If they are true prospects and likely qualified I give them my one page flier for the property the includes the Cozy link and the QR code. The prospect can scan the the QR and it takes them directly to the Cozy tenant application on their smart phone where they can apply, be credit and criminal background screened, and set up ACH payment for the security deposit and first month's rent if they qualify.

I prefer getting my units leased out in a few hours using this method than by driving back and forth for one showing at a time.

My time is money!

I'm one of those people that likes to be prepared. I maintain insurance policies on my home and all my rental properties. I keep a policy on my personal vehicles and even have uninsured motorist protection. I keep health, dental, and optical insurance on my family. I have life insurance. I have a Legal Shield membership and I purchase audit protection for my tax returns.
It would be very uncharacteristic of me and irresponsible to not also protect my family, my person and my civil rights by being a responsibly armed Citizen.

I just had a call in response to by ad for one of my properties. I am retired Army and a disabled veteran myself but I was not familiar with this program. I had mixed results with the one Section 8 tenant I have and part of the problems are with the local government management of Sect. 8 such as making late rent payments and acting as if it were a privilege for me to be involved in the program and their refusal to acknowledge or return calls.

This VASH program may be more promising. I have lots of choices for fully qualified tenants such as military and civilians with great jobs and credit so I have had reluctance to try programs where the tenants may be more needy of my management, cause property damage, of problems for my other tenants.

All the cash flow from my existing properties stays in the bank account for each LLC. It is used to cover any repairs, vacancies, etc up to the amount needed for reserves. Until recently it just sits there until enough accumulates to fund the next turn-key investment. Recently I started investing in Realty Shares as a way to put those funds to work. I look for the shorter term deals no longer than 24 months. This helps increase the positive cash flow and build the cash needed for the next investment faster.

I could using it for hard money loans or equity deals as well. Equity deals in multifamily seem especially attractive. I'm curious about what other BP members has done to keep those smaller funds like $35 and below working for them instead of malfunctioning in place?