All Forum Posts by: Alecia Loveless

@Andrew Simms I don’t remember what it was because it was about 12 years ago but I got waterproof/spill proof bed bug repellent mattress pad covers for my bed and breakfast and never in 11 years had a bug problem or a stain on any of my mattresses.

@Jacob Stokes To speak to the sellers side, you never know their motivation until you start making an offer. I sold an “oversized” property for my area, 8br 8.5ba in November after being on the market about 500 days. It had been a B&B but with covid the desire for such properties has fallen considerably. My first offer came in on day 312 at $100,000 under asking with a list of 10 contingencies that would have cost me an additional $35,000 in repairs, expenses and a no compete clause even though I own the building next door and plan to Airbnb a room out of it.

I turned it down.

I dropped the price. A second family came along and fell in love with it as a vacation home. We agreed upon a price that was $45,000 less than the original price, only $20,000 less than the new list price. The only contingency was I had to remove 2 underground oil tanks which cost me $6,500. For both.

I would have taken the $100,000 less if it hadn’t been for the 10 contingencies one of which included a personal guarantee that the new owners could make their mortgage payments. Now I couldn’t guarantee this any more than I can fly!

So you see if may not be about the money at all.

@Evan Dieffenbach I recommend paying about half of the $15,000 and keeping the rest for now as an emergency fund until you’re up and running making money at your job. Then I’d put the rest towards the debt and pay off the debt first.

My base salary is only $15.30 an hour but with overtime, savings and excellent credit (800+) I’ve been able to knock it out of the park recently with a mortgage I never thought I’d qualify for. $200,000.

But first I paid down $11,800 worth of credit card debt. Now the only thing I use my credit card for is purchases for supplies I need for the rental units and I pay them off the next month before any interest is ever due.

@Yenika Mac Hi. The first thing is try to relax. You have options. If you choose to keep the house for now you can always sell it later. Any improvements you make to it will only increase the sale value down the road.

Depending on how handy you are towards making the actual repairs yourself or if you have some money to afford contractors, may be the next thing you need to think about. If you can’t do either of these things then it won’t do you much good to keep the house unless it’s worth a whole lot more repaired and you can find a partner to bring in some working capital.

If you can separate your emotional attachment from this family home and think more about it from a business standpoint you may get a better idea of how much profit you’ll be left with if you sell now versus how much time and effort and money you will have to put into it to get it rent ready. You may realize it’s just better to take the current profit and apply it towards another house, and you may realize you want this house.

Best of luck!!

@Chuck Gerchow I just read they’re opening up 25 billion more in aid for landlords of non paying renters. If the tenant will sign off on it the landlord can apply for up to 12 months of back rent and going forward too I believe. Also utilities. It becomes available January 26. You can call 211 or 311 or your local housing agency to find out more according to what I read. Or even your representatives.

I live in a small New England community, there's probably 10,000 people within a 15 mile radius of my town. With about a 3-4 day notice you can find a decent apartment, probably a month for a really nice apartment as many owners have turned their units into STR.

Tonight in Facebook I saw a post regarding an old mill building close to one of my rentals that has been bought apparently and is going to be turned into 100 apartments during its phase 1 renovation. The post didn’t mention further phases but I’m assuming maybe some retail or commercial.

We don’t really have any “luxury” units up here but my units are top quality and I know some other investors do top of the line renovations too. The larger apartment complexes with 20+ units are all just average. The Facebook post didn’t indicate what these units would be but our economy likely wouldn’t support 100 expensive units when the average wage is about $14 an hour.

I’m curious if the investors out there would keep buying small multi family properties in this town knowing this development was coming online in the next two years, or look to a market in a different town, there’s a couple in the area.

I’ve got some leads in another town supported by another economy about 30 minutes away, or I could even look further.

Thanks for your thoughts!

@Doryle Baltazar If you want college but don’t have access to scholarships or other means of paid for tuition I would strongly recommend community college for the first two years to get in as many of your requirements at the cheapest price possible so you will have the least amount of debt. Then I would transfer to an affordable in state school. This way you will graduate with a degree that you can focus on getting a high GPA while obtaining it at the least amount of debt. I would also house hack if possible so someone else is paying for your living expenses.

And yes you can make a good living off of real estate. I am! I’ve bought low and held and sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars of profit, reinvested, have many properties now, continue to buy more, have a solid cash flow from real estate, keep a fairly stress-free W-2 job to increase my income and my ability to obtain financing and keep up my standard of living.

While it’s not a particularly high paying job it provides me with an employer matched retirement account, health insurance, and I get to give back to the community through it.

@Jesse Cote I am a bit further north in the Whites in the Littleton area. A good percentage of the SFH market and even some of the 2-10 unit MFHs have been converted into STRs. It is now a lot more difficult to find decent LTRs as a tenant.

There is definitely a market for that type of property either STR or LTR but you need to develop your network and be ready to move quickly.

With the STRs in my area we’re close to two ski mountains in winter but you can drive to about 4 more in 45 minutes, then hiking and four or five golf courses in summer if you are good at marketing, foliage and again hiking in fall, and spring is mostly a bust.

There’s always tax free shopping, Conway is a 45 minute drive with all the outlet shops, Canada is 45 minutes once the border re-opens and we’re a day trip to much of Vermont and Maine.

@Brandon Coutts I’ve sat on planning, zoning and select board in my town and I’d recommend hiring someone to help. Compared to the cost of the project it will be money well spent.

@Sean Wilkinson Most of my tenants are on month to month terms now. While it is occasionally harder to land my number one pick for a tenant that way, when the prospective tenants want the great quality housing I provide they are willing to go month to month.