All Forum Posts by: Alvin Sylvain

Quote from @Susan H.:

After receiving email about this new service, I posted a note in a FB group for landlords. Someone from the Zillow group (also a member) responded with this:

 OK, this post is a little over 4 years old now. I was wondering if mayhaps there is any update?

I would suppose that Zillow ought to be better at filtering out flakes, wanna-be's and crooks simply by virtue that the prospective tenant needs to have already paid a fee to Zillow in order to apply. I expect there are more flakes and crooks looking for a free application, such as through Facebook or Craigslist, who would usually try to avoid shelling out any up-front money.

I could be wrong of course.

David Greene has a book through Bigger Pockets on this very topic. "Long Distance Real-Estate Investing."

The long and the short of what I've gleaned from reading some parts of it is the following: You need to establish a good, reliable, on-site team.

Probably start with a local agent (local to where you want to invest, duh!) From there, you'll need good contractors for whatever rehab you'll need to do, repairs and maintenance, etc. Then you'll need a good property manager, who has access to good maintenance people, coz you're not gonna want to fly out there to fix toilets yourself.

If the numbers work out, and you can rely on your team, there shouldn't be any unmanageable difficulties.

I don't know your situation, but I've always considered that my keeping excellent credit would mean that it should never be difficult to get 10's of 1000's of dollars of near-instant credit using a regular credit line or a credit card. I know some people use the credit card as their first resort. It might be better as a last resort. I'm thinking, make your plans and try to have enough money to do what you know is going to be needed. But plans often go awry, "Stuff Happens," and it should be good to still have a nice fat credit card to fall back on in case of emergencies.

Also echoing what @Scott E. just said. If you have access to hard money, use it. Yes, hard money is expensive. I think that's why they call it "hard", coz if it was cheap, it would be "easy." But if that expensive money helps you complete the deal and sell at a profit, it's worth it.

 Everything is negotiable, plain and simple. Make a counter-offer and see what happens from there.

I suggest you contact those other AirBnb places and ask them what they needed to do to navigate the red tape.

Yes. Always try to keep to inflation, or a little under, because stuff happens. You might one day really need to raise the rent (unanticipated repairs, unanticipated code change enforcement, etc.), and if you hadn't already been doing that on a regular schedule, you'll suddenly be the Bad Guy (cue the Villain Theme dun dun duuuun!).

Obviously, if it's a choice between keeping a good tenant and raising the rent, keeping a good tenant should take priority, so you don't have to keep up strictly with inflation, e.g. it doesn't need to be 5 or 7 or 20% or whatever. But yes, raise it every 12 or 18 months, at least by the price of a cup of coffee, just so that it will be expected.

Another aspect is trapping the tenant in an under-market rent. I've heard of this happening, like the rent is never raised for whatever reason, then 20 years later they're paying a third of market or some such. Yes, a good tenant stays, but the tenant doesn't necessarily want to stay for whatever reason, but the rents everywhere else is three times as much. They're trapped!

Then later on you need to sell the place. So guess what's going to happen? The rent is going going go up by at least three times as much, and the tenant will be extremely unhappy. A percentage raise is bad enough, but a jump from the market rate of 20 years ago to today's rate is heart stopping.

So again, yes, raise the rent. You don't have to raise it to market, but you have to raise it. It's better for everybody in the long term.

Originally posted by @Andrew Merritt:

I have a couple of duplexes and a four unit that I've had for 3 or 4 years now and I'm looking at doing cash out refinances on them.  I've spoken with conventional lenders and portfolio lenders to get some good options.  I can pull out significant equity while still cashflowing them.  

I was gung ho on refinancing them immediately b/c I can see interest rates going higher very soon but I just listened to David Greene on a BP podcast that made me reconsider.  He suggested that if I don't have anything to purchase right now, it might be better to wait.  I don't have anything to purchase at the moment so maybe it's better to wait until I do.

However, I want to have enough cash available if something does come up and I want to make sure I lock in a low interest rate for the next 30 years while I still can.

What are your thoughts?  I'm in the Charleston, SC market if that makes a difference.

 My completely non-expert and normally useless thoughts are that if you can lower your current debt service amount, then there is no reason NOT to refinance. Never-mind getting cash out, that's icing on the cake. The cake is reducing expenditures to increase cash flow over the long term.

The only thing to worry about with having extra cash laying around is the temptation to spend it on "necessities." (honest! I really really NEED that Big Screen TV!! The Rams are playing this week-end!)

Originally posted by @Brad Jacobson:

Great question @Alicia Marks! I have two immediate thoughts:

 

In other words, don't wait to buy real estate, buy real estate and wait!

Dude that is some of the best advice EVER!!

Just to be clear, your title, "Tired of all the winning", is that being sarcastic or did you misspell "whining"?