All Forum Posts by: Alex Lien

Looking forward to this one Adam, all registered for the 14th and ready to get back in person!  If any wholesalers/investors would like to connect beforehand feel free to reach out and see you then.

Read an interesting article about ways to cut costs when it comes to rehabbing a house.  Was curious on if anyone in the country has utilized these tips and if they've paid off/worked out the way you were hoping.  Personally not a huge fan of the painters tape accent wall and fake brick but the other tips seem to be great ideas and bring a lot of nice features into a house that I feel a lot of flippers miss out on.

Article is attached here for those that would like to read it.

https://www.realtor.com/advice...

Thanks

Wow I appreciate the insight Patricia!  Was mainly trying to get some information on what strategies people could pursue with mobile homes and what makes the most sense.  I have a 7 unit mobile home park under contract and I'm debating if I want to keep it or sell it off.  Cashflows great and has the potential to be used as a commercial lot for a store front or gas station so could end up making a good amount of money for the land once sold in 3-5 years time.

Thanks for the feedback.

What types of strategies do people pursue for mobile home rentals in North Carolina?  Rent out just the land and have basically no maintenance expenses or put mobile homes on the lot and rent that out for a slightly higher number to increase the cashflow at the cost of dealing with maintenance and larger overhead?

Wondering if anyone has had experience in dealing with these types of rentals.

Thanks

Look forward to seeing everyone there!

Major supply chain issues due to covid at the moment is causing everything to go up in price, especially appliances and construction materials.  All the businesses being shut down for weeks caused them to use up their excess inventory and now that those companies are working again they aren't able to keep up with the demand and have no extra inventory to offset it .  Hopefully during the winter months when things start to die down a little bit it will allow them to catch up and prices should come down slightly.  

Start off with house hacking (Buying a multifamily and living in one of the units), this will allow you to have others paying your mortgage and will get rid of one of the largest monthly expenses you're going to most likely have (Will save you anywhere from $700-1500 each month, depending on what amount you borrow).  All that money you're not spending on the mortgage is money that should be saved to buy the next property and it will start adding up quickly due to the decrease in expenses (Put this money into safe short term investments while it builds up so that when you're ready to go its there and theres most likely not going to be a loss.. CD's, bonds, etc).

No one is going to be able to tell you what works best for you but both rentals and flips are good options, one is just a much slower process than the other, but flips have more risks involved in my opinion.

You're off to a great start especially at a young age, just keep saving and building your network. While others around you are probably spending money likes its going out of style on things they really don't need, you're making the right choice and will be better off later on.

Good luck. 

A gas leak isn't a huge deal unless it is a very strong odor of gas and is making its way around the whole house.  It sounds like you're smelling it in the basement only so it's most likely a small leak at one of the connections.  If the gas pipe is exposed I'd say it shouldn't take someone more than an hour or 2 to find it and tighten/change the connections.  If it's hidden then it may be a bit more tedious.

Have an HVAC guy certified in gas lines come out and he'll be able to see what connection it's leaking at by putting a mixture on the connections and looking for bubbling.  Then get a credit for what he says the work will be.

I didn't allow pets in my rentals and would have to turn away tons of very qualified tenants just because they had a pet.  I would take it case by case if you did want to consider allowing pets. Do they have a Dog? Cat? Chinchilla?  Cats and small animals are generally less of a concern to me but an 8-week old puppy or a high energy husky may turn me away from a tenant since I know there's most likely going to be damage/stains.  Definitely charge a non-refundable pet deposit and pet rent since the majority will be willing to pay that no questions asked.

The sad truth is there's a good chance that a tenant will just end up sneaking a pet in, the place will get trashed because of that pet and you won't have any extra security deposit/monthly rent to cover those damages. I say that with experience and the tenants that did this ended up ruining most of the wood floors/carpet, wall corners were chewed up, a large area of grass was dead since they allowed their new puppy to run freely regardless of if they were home or not. 

Ended up changing the requirements and found a responsible pet owner who took care of the property and the pet did very minimal/if any damage which worked out well.