All Forum Posts by: Andrew Briggs

@Taylor Burns Cool, appreciate the insight!

Curios.  What type of criteria are you using for your property search?  Absentee owners?  Out of state owners?  How many leads does $50 buy you?

Yes I concur with James' recommendation to invest in a multiplex.  You could take it a step further and live in one of the units while renting out the others.  This would effectively eliminate or reduce your mortgage payment.  I think Brandon Turner calls this strategy "house hacking...".  A great way to accelerate your path to wealth.  Good luck!!

Hi, I lived and worked in CT growing up for over 20 years.  It's a pretty place to live, however I don't feel that the state's economy is poised to grow that much when compared to other states.  For one, the cost of living is very high.  Also, it seems more jobs are leaving vs. coming into the state.  The one exception here is if her property is located on the "gold coast".  This is the area close enough to New York City (i.e., Stamford, Danbury, Fairfield) where people will live in these CT towns but commute for work to NYC.  In my opinion, these towns will always retain their value and be in high demand.  If her property is elsewhere in CT, I would cash out and invest in property closer to wherever she's moving to...  Why?  Here are some more reasons: 1.  Tenant-landlord rights and laws.  I know MA. has laws in place that heavily favor the tenant at the expense of the landlord.  I don't know about the laws in CT. but it may be safe to assume they are similar to MA.  I currently live in TX. where the laws seem to better empower the landlord to handle evictions and other tenant issues as they arise.  This is a BIG deal and shouldn't be overlooked.  2.  Your mom's property is at a high price point, i.e., $650k.  How much are you expecting to charge in rent, 10%?  There's a much greater portion of the population able to pay $1-2k/month in rent vs. $4-6k/month.  If it were me, I would be more interested in a greater % cash flow relative to the property's value.  In TX, it's completely reasonable to get 10% of the property's value in rent.  In many parts of the Midwest, I'm assuming the same holds true. 3. Property Management.  I prefer to live close to my property.  Keeping the house in CT. while moving to another part of the country would necessitate a property manager.  It would also mean that you couldn't easily check up on the property.  Ultimately, I would recommend cashing out of the CT. home and putting the equity into one or multiple, high quality rentals in the town in which she is moving.  I hope this proves helpful.  Andy

Thanks, appreciate the feedback!

Hi, I'm having a dishwasher installed this week as part of my tenant's lease renewal. Is it recommended that I also have a disposal installed? Or is it okay to run the dishwasher, in general, without a disposal? Appreciate the insight. Andy

All, thank you for your insight!

TD Ameritrade has a solid offer for new accounts that open with a minimum of 25K.  They give you a $100 bonus, plus free trades for the first 60 days.  You can park your $ there, get the free bonus, and either "turn on the drip" investing by leveraging one of their conservative, fee free funds that steadily accrue interest/dividends while protecting you from market down turn.  Or, you can take some of that $ and actively invest it into equities.  I'm actually doing this right now...

My opinion here.  The stock market is set to have a MAJOR CORRECTION in the very near future.  There are major bubbles happening right now where valuation is not backed up by the price of the stock i.e., new burgeoning marijuana market in Canada/U.S. is a prime example.  We have had 10 years of solid stock market growth, leaning on the principle of the "natural ebb and flow of markets" it follows that a short term correction is eminent.  A major correction in the stock market can have a domino effect on real estate.  So...

I would say patience (which is REALLY HARD FOR ME TO DO!!) is key right now; park your cash into a stable investment (I prefer $ market funds) and don't over expose yourself to the stock market.

My 2 cents... hopefully this helps.

My tenant has been with me for 3 years.  He's single, he pays regularly and he is not "high maintenance."  In fact, I've had very little maintenance requests from him.  Sometimes he pays late, but that is very infrequent.  Maybe 3 times this has happened.  Also he's a landscaper so his yard is pretty cluttered with his business stuff, i.e., equipment, plants, etc.  So...

Yesterday I had my termite guy do an annual inspection.  We went inside the house and saw that my tenant now has 2 dogs in the property.  My lease clearly states only 1 pet, AND I'm supposed to be charging pet rent for that one dog but I've waived it up until this point.  On top of this, it appears that there is bedding for a 2nd person in the house.  This is a one person lease in a 600 sq ft cabin.  Looks like my tenant has someone else living him.  Lastly, the house is dingy.  Dirty, needs some major cleaning on the inside.

I'm happy with collecting passive income and having a steady paying tenant.  In prior years I've had to do major rehab, spent a lot of time and $ on this property.  This year has been relatively "quite" and I'm enjoying it.  I'm starting to recoup my initial investment.

So what would you do?  Confront the situation?  Enforce the lease?  Leave it alone?

Hi,

I wanted to get some feedback on a maintenance topic.  Last year I had pex plumbing installed under one of my rent houses.  The G.C. who installed it was not a certified plumber.  Fast forward 6 months I had a plumbing company come to the house for an unrelated issue, gas leak detection.  They saw the pex and said that the shark bite fasteners used to assemble the pex were not to code and not reliable.  They claim that when it gets cold the shark bite fasteners could "loosen" causing the pex to leak.  They offered to redo the pex with the official pex fasteners.  After several calls back to them, they never followed up with a quote...  

It's been a year now and we've gotten through one winter without any leaks or issues with the Shark Bite.  Does anybody else have experience with this?  Would you redo the pex or leave 'as is'?

Appreciate the insight.

Andy