All Forum Posts by: Ali Groat

Similar to a comment above, you can find nice pockets in neighborhoods that may not have stellar reputations, which can be a much more affordable option than investing in the more trendy neighborhoods. I have house-hacked in Brighton Heights for the past year and have had a very positive experience - I feel safe there, have found great tenants, and the numbers in the area support good cashflow. Another neighborhood in the city I'd recommend is Greenfield, and if you'd consider outside city limits, Dormont and Bellevue.

Something I've discovered is that an area can feel really different after dark than during the day, so I recommend walking a neighborhood in the late evening (maybe bring a friend!) to really get a sense of whether you'll feel comfortable there.

We just placed a tenant last week. Had 35 inquiries over the 6 days our listing was up, got a qualified applicant the first day we showed it. No real noticeable change from pre-COVID turnovers for us. My thought is that fewer people are moving, but that leads to lower inventory of available rentals too, so it about evens out. Although, I'd guess that high end / luxury rentals would be harder to fill currently. Good luck!

I have a property in PA that I bought about a year ago. As part of the closing process, the seller replaced the roof entirely. The roof is now leaking in many spots. I just had someone take a look and they said the roofers were complete hacks: flashing done completely incorrectly, holes everywhere, tons of exposed nails, gutters filled with old shingles, etc. They said it looked like the roofers had never installed a roof before, and it's going to cost me a good chunk of change to fix it all. I'm not attempting to figure out if there was a warranty on the roof because I don't want the original roofers touching it again. I also don't want to delay getting it fixed since I have tenants in there and I don't want any water damage to start affecting them. I'm now trying to figure out if this is just an expensive lesson learned (I will never again let the seller make repairs), or if I have any legal recourse against the seller or the roofer they hired. Any thoughts? If numbers are helpful, the seller paid around $10k for the roof and I've been quoted about $2k for all the repairs.

@John Theriault I'm getting that answer from a lot of companies too that they're booked out for the rest of the year (even for quotes), but I didn't know about the weather event. That could explain it. I'll keep trying... Thanks for the info & the tip about Thumbtack!

@Chris Policicchio sounds exactly like our situation - slate roof with box gutters on an old triplex, and we've been struggling to get quotes. I will definitely look into Windows R Us. Thank you!

@Stefan D. thank you, I will look into them! And I've never used Thumbtack, that's a good idea.

I'm looking for a trusted roofing company in the Pittsburgh area, specifically one with experience working on slate roofs and old box gutters. Any recommendations?

@Jared Baker we use software called Wave for tracking all of our income/expenses and seeing how we're performing. It's free and is designed as a general small business accounting software, but works well for rental properties. It makes categorization of expenses easy , which helps stay organized for tax season. It also allows you to send invoices and payment confirmations - we do this for all our tenants, and they seem to appreciate the credibility it adds, as well as the fact that they have records of all their payments. Excel works too, but we figure that since free software has been designed to do all this, we might as well take advantage of it.

@Ashley Gish I graduated with $70k of student loan debt and personally felt that I would struggle to move forward financially unless the weight of my loans was off my shoulders.  I aggressively paid off my loans in 2 years and then moved forward into real estate investing. Maybe I could have invested earlier and lengthened my payoff to take advantage of better returns, but for me, my path was worth it purely from a mentality standpoint. I can't even explain how much more in control of my financial future I felt when I paid off that last loan. Once I started investing, I was at the point where I could begin to think about things like financial independence without having my loans in the back of my mind. So, I think the decision comes down to how much you feel the weight of your debt, and that's something only you can know. You could also consider refinancing or at least paying off the higher interest loans in the near term. Good luck!

Thanks very much for all the responses! This helps a lot. I will process applications as I receive them and will not hesitate to select a qualified applicant just because I have more showings scheduled. I will continue to show the unit until I get a deposit in hand.