All Forum Posts by: Satha Palani

@Michael R. Exactly what i told my wife. Sadly you can't tell these things for sure until they move in .

The house rents for $1550/mo. A young professional making 3X that could easily rent a decent 1br for between $800 and $1000 in the city i am in; without the hassle of having roommates. 

My guess is these girls will be making  anywhere between 25K and 35K  / year. If i were to apply the 3X rule to them individually that would disqualify them.

Interesting perspectives. Thank you. I think I will schedule a  showing and have all 3 of them come over so that I can talk to all of them. My wife seem to think renting to a group of girls may me better vs. boys.

In terms of income, should i be looking for each of them to make at least 3X their porting of the rent? In this case that would be the equivalent of one months rent

Thanks,

satha

Hi,

I put my house on market Thursday and got a ton of interests. I have been doing my research on BP for sometime now and have been following some best practices.

I am asking all prospects to fill out a pre-screen survey prior to scheduling a viewing. Got a few back, and a couple of those are for 3 or more young professionals who want to share the house.

In this case, would all of them be on the lease such that they would be responsible for the rent jointly and individually? Would I assume that each contributed to the security deposit equally? Does the above apply to non married couples as well (boy / girlfriend, engaged etc.)?

If it were you, would you ask for more by way of security deposit in this case?

Also, any thoughts on renting to groups of young professionals? Assuming you had your pick of tenants, where would this group fall?

Thank you,

satha

Thank you all for the perspectives. I have decided to rent it out and focus on the duplex for now. Which means, i will soon be introduced to the joys of being a landlord :)

I am reading up on it and wanted to see what your opinion was about keeping my personal contact details separate form the rental side of things.

In other words; should I:

1. get a DBA

2. rent a P.O Box

3. get a separate cell phone (google voice)

thanks,

satha

Thank you all for the comments. 

@Matt Jones That was my thought initially , my leaning towards keeping it is driven by the fact that the market in my areas is really heating up and If after a year I decided I did not want to live in the duplex, I would either have to rent or shell out more ( capital and interest) to buy a comparable.

I have a conventional on the property, owner financing is not an option.

Thank you

Hi,

In a dilemma on whether i should sell or rent my current residence out and was hoping to get some thoughts from the experts.

I bought the SFH i live in 2 years ago. My total investment at the time was $50K, 20% plus closing and other costs. I recently purchased a duplex (closing next week) that I will have to move into for at least a year. The numbers on the duplex are solid. However i am conflicted on whether to sell the current house.

The mortgage on it is $1.1K and i can rent it out for $1.5K with the tenant paying all utilities. The way i see it, i will make about 4K on the house annually, which is an 8% return on my cash investment while accruing capital appreciation. 

Alternatively, if i sell it i could make a a small (15K) profit and reinvest the 65K in another rental property. 

Am i being foolish in leaning towards keeping it?

thanks,

satha  

Do the houses need work? If so try using a FHA 203K loan. If you use the standard variety, you should be able to get away with 3.5% down. You have to be an owner occupant though (looks like that is your plan). Some additional upfront cost and PMI for the life of the loan. But if it is a good deal, so it and refi latter

I did not go through with that deal. Long story short the house was not even worth it as a shell. I had grossly overbid and abandoned the deal as soon as i could. 

For some reason Fannie refused to revise the price down even after they know how bad the house really was. The insist that you not give them any documents.

You did the right thing by offering the price of the land. Best of luck.

Thank you all for the great advice. I spoke to my agent today and she has reached out to the LA to get us in touch with the folks who winterized the place. Apparently they charge a reasonable fee.  

Hi,

My offer on a REO duplex just got accepted. I have 10 days to inspect and decide if i want to proceed. The house is currently winterized and the contract states that i am responsible for re-winterizing if I de-winterize it to inspect. Both kitchens and bathrooms will need to be totally remodeled. There may be additional water connections in the basement. Any advice on whether I should de-winterize and inspect? How much would it typically cost to de-winterize and re-winterize?