All Forum Posts by: Adam Martin

@Kristina Heimstaedt Thanks!  I come from a commercial background, so that's probably why I thought of it. But I like your idea! 

I've got a great house with really incredible tenants.  They pay early, treat the house as though they own it, etc.  They mentioned about wanting to re-up their currently lease by signing a long-term lease.  I think this is a great idea, as it doesn't force me to have to look tenants again, but I'm worried about how do I ensure that the rent I'm charging stays with market rent.  Does anyone have any experience with this?  The only thing I can think of is writing in a rent bump of $X/year, but I don't want to short myself in the long run.

Has anyone ever owned a buildable lot of land and instead of selling it to a builder, created some kind of partnership with a builder where you provide the land and they provide the building expertise and you somehow split expenses and then split profits when you sell the new home?  I have an opportunity to purchase a lot for a decent price, all things considered, and I'm trying to wrap my head around how I can make money by building a new home and selling that house as opposed to just flipping the lot to a developer.  

So I agreed to a binding deal last Sunday on what would be my first investment property.  It's a single family home in the neighborhood I've lived in for the past 4 years, and knowing what I know about the real estate market, I think it's a pretty good deal.  I've got the home inspection coming up on Friday, which I'm hoping will reveal a lot about the condition of the house.  Walking through on my visit, I could tell there will be some work to be done (new windows, foundation work, some cosmetic stuff, etc.).  I plan on doing some of the lighter work myself, but I'll be hiring a contractor to do the bigger things like window replacement and foundation work.  My question is, "how's the best way to pay a contractor?".  I haven't settled on a contractor yet, but you always hear those contractor horror stories about paying them a sizable amount up front, then you never hear from them again and they're nowhere to be found. I was hoping the BG Community would have some advice on how to not become one of these stories...

Hey BP Community,

I'm going to view my first potential rental property in about an hour.  I was hoping to reach out and see what are common expense categories you've run into as a LL?  I want to make sure there's not something very obvious I'm missing that will result in me getting into a bad deal that I thought was a good deal.  So far, I've got the following categories

*Mortgage

*Insurance

*Taxes

*Repairs & Maintenance (7%)

*CapEx (7%)

*Vacancy (10%)

*Prop Mgmt (8%) - not planning on using one, but figured I'd include it as a 'worst case scenario'.

It would be tenant paid utilities, and there are no HOA fees in this neighborhood.

I feel like my list of expenses is really short.  What am I missing/forgetting?

Thanks for the insight, @Mark OGara!

So I've begun looking in my areas for homes that aren't listed for sale, but through looking at the tax records I can see the owner doesn't live at the address.  My plan is to write a letter to the owners introducing myself and basically inquiring whether or not they're interested in selling.  Does anyone have any pointers for writing something like this?  Do I be as direct as possible and let them know I'm beginning a real estate business and I was wondering if they'd be interested in selling their house, or try to build some kind of rapport with a total stranger?  Any advice would be great.

Just getting started learning more about residential real estate investing.  Does anyone have any tips when it comes to doing an initial underwriting of a deal to see if it makes sense?  Or maybe even a basic template to help me better understand the financials of a deal?