All Forum Posts by: Amer Mallah

I never did resolve this. The path here in Maryland is to file a claim against her, but that means finding a current address. One of these days I hope to get around to it before the statute of limitations expires.

Due diligence on the HOA is really important. If they don't know how to manage HOA fees, your investment could be put at risk in the form of surprise special assessments that are a result of bad management. I think of an HOA/Condo Board as a contractor you can't fire later. Make sure up front that they're the right fit for your investment.

Taking advantage of people's misfortune is not the way I do business.

Zillow mostly goes by room count and square footage, and then uses the local $/sq ft to calculate. Zillow has no idea if you just did a $200k renovation or if it's structural unsound. There maybe some naive candidates out there, but I think it's easily explained.

I think you can be sympathetic to their health issues but it's kind of irrelevant to moving out/paying rent. Plenty of people aren't physically able to move their furniture themselves but they figure it out. They can pay movers/ask friends/family. You're not asking that they single-handedly move out, just that they pay the rent if they occupy your property. They are exploiting your sympathy to medical issues you because it's working - all that should get them is leniency, but not months of free housing.

My dad & I are trying to get involved in some flipping in Chicago. We have a condo in Edgewater on the lake, with a unit facing the lake. 

In the past year, I've seen two other units purchased for 100k-140k, rehab and sold for 270k-280k 7-9 months later. There are two more on the market in the 280-310 range. The building just had an enormous assessment which was for a rehab of the entire exterior of the building (including balconies), and the dynamics of that are what I think is driving people out and creating an opportunity for flippers.

We'd like to be on the flipper side of this - but need some advice and mentoring on how to do this properly. I've been listening to the BiggerPockets podcast for months, so I know this is a great community for guidance. My big challenge right now is funding the rehab - I'd like to borrow the money, do the flip and repay, but not sure how to get started in Chicago. Any help would be appreciated!

Hi - I live in Maryland, if that's relevant. My property manager vanished with a month of my tenant's rent and the security deposit. They won't return calls, email addresses are unresponsive, cell phones go unanswered. Has anyone recovered their money in this situation, and if so - how?

Hi, I'm looking for some other opinions on this situation we (my wife and I) have found ourselves in.

We discovered BiggerPockets just under a year ago and have been steadily listening to every podcast. We were inspired to rent our first home instead of sell it. 

So, it has taken us a long time to get this point, but we decided start with a Property Management company. The one we found was very professional, seemed to have experience in the area. They met us at the property, had a bunch of suggestions and ideas, we had already spent a big sum before we even spoke to them in renovations preparing for rental and hit our budget and asked them to start the search.

They found a tenant who was willing to move in. The tenant asked for a 10% rent reduction for the first year in exchange for handling some of the unfinished work, which is fine for us, (it would still be cash flow positive). On the lease signing day, the PM company said the tenant didn't show up, which we just viewed as an opportunity to continue to work on the house and no big deal.

Then, we get a call out of the blue directly from the potential tenant who made a really strong case about how they'd be a great tenant, how much they loved the property and wanted to be there long term - it was close to many excellent public schools (walking distance to a great K-5), but they really had a huge problem with the responsiveness and communication of the Property Manager and felt that they blew the deal by not showing up at other agreed upon times and just general flakiness.

The thing is, this is our first rental and we don't know what to expect from the Property Management company, but the criticism on the responsiveness and availability does ring true for us, many emails have gone unanswered (we've had better luck on the phone). Maybe I'm expecting too much in terms of response to emails, ideally I'd like to see all emails answered in less than one business day, but my expectation could be too high and I just don't know. That being said, the PM did do their job of screening and finding a tenant. 

On one hand, I think it's a salvageable situation. The PM should obviously be motivated to do a good job and I'm sure will work to resolve any issues, if not, then they would lose our business. The tenant and us, as the owners, have a longer term stake in it - am I looking at it incorrectly?

I don't just want to jump to any conclusions. I'd love to hear some more experienced buy and hold people weigh in on this. 

Thank you guys!

Thanks for the response!

The area is great - it's a nice little SFH within walking distance to a fantastic public school, it's a great neighborhood, if the house was bigger, we'd stay there ourselves.

Goal wise, to be honest, I'm not sure yet, I am obviously just starting out and I hope to refine this over time. Initially, I am attracted to the idea of having a portfolio of property assets and investing time/resources into them to yield a regular return, which is how I view rental income.

Can I ask - do you think my analysis is complete enough? Are there any gaps that I am not considering in the way I should be approaching this?

I just moved into a new home and was debating renting or selling the home I just moved out of. 

I have $41k in equity in a home I think I can sell for $319k. My loan is at 3.125%, this puts my PITI at around $1100. Most of that is deductible, and in my bracket that is around $300 in deductions per month, so my cost is $800/month.

Looking around my neighborhood, it seems like I could get $2k/month in rent. If I estimate 25% of rent for CapEx+vacancies+PM+repairs, then that leaves $1500/month, for a net profit of $700/month.

Selling after let's say 6% of realtor's fees would put me at $21k in net cash

The math says that the break even point would be ~2.5 years (I guess I am assuming that interest in re-investing the proceeds from the sale would equal the appreciation of the property + additional revenue from rent increases)

Since I already own it, I have no DP or closing costs and 2.5 years seems like a short amount of time. 

It seems like renting makes much better financial sense. However, being a newbie, I feel like I've left out something or am not considering something obvious.. possibly tax related? My math is wrong? I am being too optimistic with my projections? Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you!