All Forum Posts by: Alecia Loveless

@Scott K. In my experience what’s left at the end of the lease is left and a bonus for the next tenant.

I’ve never had a tenant have the expectation that I was going to pay them for it upon move out.

I was at a RE meetup a few weeks ago and the host was a mortgage broker. She was telling me about a grant and loan program she had in her arsenal of products for at least $15,000 towards down payment and closing costs and an additional $15,000 if you lived in 1 of 2 counties that are considered economically underserved. 

I have not had an opportunity to try to get these grants yet myself, but did just hear that these sorts of programs exist. Which I didn't know about previously. 

My first deal with a mortgage was scary at about $160K. Now that I'm more than 10 deals in and over $1.5M in debt adding more no longer scares me as long as the deal makes sense. 

Your first debt will always be scary no matter whether it's $100K or $400K. 

I'm currently averaging about a 3.5% CoC return and my financial advisor thinks I'm stupid because he's more used to seeing 20% CoC.

I think you can do better than a 0.6% return. My advice is to keep looking for a better deal. 

I've house hacked for almost 30 years. It's a super way to obtain rentals and having your housing costs significantly reduced. 

If you can continue to live at home after high school either for free or at a discounted rate then I would work hard and save up for my first down payment. 

Once you've saved the down payment you can decide if you want to keep living with your parents (assuming they'll let you) and just buy your first rental, or if you're ready to fly the nest and do a house hack. 

One of the best strategies is to buy a new house hack every 12-18 months and build your portfolio while moving from property to property. If you do this you can utilize the 3.5-5% down payment.  

I lived amongst my tenants for my first 24 years which you could do with a SFH or rent out additional rooms in a small multi as well as renting the other units

I always consider the property taxes in my underwriting of a deal. 

I don't usually factor in the tax rate on its own but consider the comprehensive whole based on which markets I am finding deals in. 

I would be sure you're looking at the overall market for appreciation, growth, and rentability. 

if you choose the Texas market be sure to look at the taxes for the last 3-5 years and not just the current one because many municipalities have seen overall tax bills double in the past 3-5 years due to needed infrastructure improvements and no real property value increases or increased rents. 

Mortgages are generally a fairly cheap form of money. 

if you have personal debt I would pay that down first. 

in my opinion it makes little sense to pay something down ahead of time just to refinance it. 

If you're currently cash flowing I'd put the money somewhere like a HYSA while you build up enough to buy your next property. That way it remains easily liquid and accessible as opposed to paying down a mortgage where you are tied up until you can refinance and your rate is dependent on market fluctuations. 

@Kosh Vokter All of my insurance policies have gone up this much in the past 2 years. Not to mention the companies getting much more strict about what they will insure. I’m in an area that’s relatively immune to natural disasters.

Unfortunately right now this seems to be the cost of doing business.

@William C. We do our best to handle these types of problems ourselves without involving insurance.

If they have renters insurance I would go after that.

Handling these types of situations yourself can be much cheaper and save you the possibility of being canceled by your insurance company.

@Robert Spiegel We don’t usually charge the tenants if we have the property cleaned. We feel it’s a cost of doing business.

If the house hadn’t already been in good condition and it required extra cleaning or something special or specific that might be a different situation.

@Neetu Patil Depending on the market there may or may not be a high demand for ADUs.

I just listened to a podcast by David Greene formerly of Biggerpockets and he said he has moved to Oklahoma and kept looking at houses thinking he could build ADUs at them before he discovered that there was no call for it in his new market. He said the tenant pool there wants a single family home with a big yard all to themselves.

So besides all the permitting make sure there’s actually a demand for renting ADUs before you waste your money.