All Forum Posts by: Alecia Loveless

@Samuel Medina I started out with a SFH and a duplex both of which have no mortgage. I quickly realized that it would be better to go bigger and bought a 4-plex and a 3-plex the 3-plex needs some work.

I believe given their locations, 3 different local towns, no matter what the market does the rents will stay high and stable even if the property values fall off a little at some point.

Now that I have some experience and am building up my reserves on the existing properties I have decided to look toward larger midsize properties in the 25-50 unit range.

I would look toward 1-5 unit properties to gain experience with and then look to grow larger once you’ve grown some equity. But I feel it’s easier to have more doors under 1 roof than to have to have 8 different property managers and lose all your cash flow when your tenant moved out and it takes 1.5 months to get the property ready to rent again and move in the next tenant.

So far the only problem I have found is that my small local bank that originally worked fine with Venmo has stopped accepting their transactions so I am working with USAA Bank where I also have accounts to get the deposits transferred there. USAA is listed as a Venmo partner but it seems you have to authorize it through customer service as I haven’t been able to do it myself.

@Hadi Hidou Experian the credit score company offers their service of Credit Boost which allows for things like your electric bill and your cell phone bill and some other things you pay monthly to count toward your credit score to raise it assuming you pay these on time and can quickly boost your credit score between 10-50 points so the advertising claims. It can also lower your score if you are late with the payments.

This is one opportunity to make a quick improvement. Just a thought.

I believe there’s another company that offers this service too but I don’t remember what it is.

@Bryan Potter Hi Bryan. Sometimes you just need to do what feels right to you. I’ve seen posts from people that up and quit one day and now have 137 doors or something like that. You can partner with people. You can try some HELOCs. You could do a house hacking if you’re handy. But I wouldn’t start with a total fixer up, maybe something where you could do some flooring, painting, and get some upgrades to light fixtures if you or your wife has an eye for that and some landscaping.

You’d be amazed at how many houses in my region I could add $45,000 onto in 2 weeks just by giving the interior a neutral paint job, lovely new vinyl plank wood flooring and upscale light fixtures that an electrician can hang in 3 hours for $350 in labor. And a quick spruce up of the landscaping. Throw it back on the market and make a quick $15-20,000 after commission and closing costs and negotiation. Not bad for 2 weeks! Follow your dreams!!

@Yuki Yu I have a 4 unit building with one boiler. It works fine. As long as you do proper maintenance on it and get it cleaned every year you should have no problems with it.

I also ran a 10,000 sq ft bed and breakfast with a 30 year old boiler for 9 years (which is at least twice as big as my apartment building) and had it cleaned every year and had no problems with it.

I believe two years after I sold the building at age 41 the boiler finally got replaced because the new owner was dating a plumber who got her a new one at cost and did the installation for free.

@Adib Rahman Depending on the configuration you might be able to get a gravity pump or lift pump (not sure what it’s actually called) for the bathroom fixtures that will pump the water up to the level it needs to be at to flow into the pipes. It’s sounds to me like essentially it would kind of be on the same level and not such a great height as going from the basement to the first floor so this might work well.

If you’re still in your inspection period or can access the property try to get a plumber and a contractor in to give you an estimate.

@Noopur Bak I, myself am interested in this too down the road. I’ve looked into it a little bit but it seems like maybe you would need to find an experienced person to network with on how to value the properties you locate and potentially on how to run them long distance which is where card operations would be helpful because it would be so easy for a manager or employee to steal the cash long distance.

Perhaps you can look for a Facebook group on this. I’ve found several good ones on self storage and other subsets of property investing.

Best of luck. I’ll be following this thread!

@Greyden Piechnick I use Venmo. They didn’t charge a fee but sent a notice that they are going to start charging a fee for things such as Rent. My tenants like it.

Of course I also still have tenants sending checks under threat that if they bounce one the check sending privilege will be revoked and they will have to find another method.

@Sara Plaisted While I’ve had various real estate experience since I was 21, I’m now 45, it wasn’t until 2 years ago that I really got serious about investing as my retirement vehicle. I’m up to 10 doors and my partner helps by mowing one lawn every other week.

I’ve gotten handier as time has rolled by and certainly do as much as I can myself, painting, flooring, landscaping, but I also have a great contractor that I assist with everything. He’s a hard taskmaster and most of his workers don’t like his hours and the fact that he expects them to work hard. So if he’s working at my properties I’m right there with him.

I think the important thing if you want to be hands on is to do as much as you can correctly and outsource the rest.

@Jordan Greek With appliances, but I’ve had problems over the years with refrigerators with water hookups for water and ice makers. I’d check to see if those are common amenities at other similar buildings before buying them because they can have a tendency to leak.

You can find great scratch and dent models sometimes at big box stores. I wouldn’t recommend anything too terrible as you want it to look ok but scratches or dents that are hidden by walls or are small can be ok.