All Forum Posts by: Antonio Porta

A prospective tenant applied for one of my apartments. She has listed as income "Structured Settlement (Lawsuit)" coming in for about 67% of her income, the other 33% of her income is from her actual job.  

Is there a way to find out about the result of the law suit/ settlement with out actually asking the tenant?  

Has any other landlord on here accepted a tenant where the majority of their income was from a structured settlement law suit?    My main concern here is to determine the length of the settlement because this tenant would not have enough job income to afford the apartment. I will ascertain her landlord references as well as credit and background in the next day or so I just wanted to shoot this out here to see if others had experience in dealing with structured settlement. 

Matthew,

Assessment meeting in October increases take effect in Feburary, generally.

Don't guess.

Run your numbers using the rental property calculator.

Mortgage rate if you use Colin Powers in red bank is 3.875 but may cost you a few bucks to lock in about 1-2k or assume 4.0 with no cost.

plug in taxes,  estimate repairs, estimated homenowner insurance (call an agent if you dont know it), water (call water company) if you intend on paying for it, projected rent etc.  

Based on this, look at your cash on cash return. Ask ure self, what are you comfortablr accepting, 10? 7? In the current market, in north jersey persobally I am ok accepting a minimum of 9% given that the historical stock market roi is 7%. 

Most importantly, verify the immediate area this house is in.

I have a 3 unit in garfield some areas are not that great but its 1 block from saddle brook which is a nice neigbhirhood. 

So I wouldnt judge the whole of neptune as bad, go visit spend time there get a feel for it. 

I dislike HOA.

We have a condo in Atlantic City in an older building and they raised my fee 25% for the next 12 months due to water proofing the exterior brick. 

10 years ago they built a brand new indoor pool and rasied HOA for 5 years and it DOUBLED my monthly fee.You are always at the mercy of HOA and their fees. Either you pay it or you sell.

Welcome Donald. 

Start amassing knowledge by carefully studying RE investing. The first book I read is The book on rental property investing by Brandon Turner. Specifically focus in on how to analyze a RE deal from a Cash on Cash Return. In my market in Northern NJ, specifically Bergen county, in the last 2 years intently searching the MLS exclusively, I have only found maybe a hzndful of deals that comfortably produced a Cash on cash return of 8-12%, and one of those I currently have under attorney review. Practice using the rental property tool for analyzing deals and walk through as many Open houses and see as many properties as you can to get a feel for what a property may need.

Look at your cash on cash return rather than just cash flow.

I have been analyzing MF homes for the past 2 years (looking in bergen county) and I found just 2 homes that had at least a 7-10% cash on cash return. I am in attorney review for one of those homes.

It is incredibly tough with todays market climate, but you just have to be patient and be willing to wait. We were looking for a 3 or 4 unit with at least a historical stock market ROI of about 7%. It looks as though we shld.safely expect 7% but we could get 10% if are rents are priced better/higher.

The cash flow on this property is at least 700 month could be up to 1100. If i was merely only looking at cash flow most would say this is a home run, but you must look at cash on cash return

Javier, 

I have a college rental also. 

I have a 3 bedroom 1 bath house.  I never rent separate bedrooms. I put all 3 roommates on 1 lease. I run my leases from June 1st to May 31st 2019. I send a letter to my tenants late January  asking them what their plans on for the next year. I give them until March 1st to decide on what they are going to do (renew for a year or leave).  If they don't decide to renew then you have 3 solid months to show the property. If they do want to renew, then have them sign an annual lease March 1st for the following year.  If you run your system like this you wont be in the situation you are in. 

I learned the hard way and after trial and error this system is golden for the college market! 

Hi Joe,

I have private loans and federal loans through Navient. 

While I do not advise anyone to do this, I chose to settle my private student loan in 1 lump payment by literally letting the account go unpaid for 7 months... A little background about me and why I chose this option:

My partner and I are closing on our 1st 3 unit in June (finally after searching for over 1 year The Cash on cash return on is about 9%, very hard indeed to find in a decent town in bergen county!) I chose an unconventional option but I saved about 65% of the original loan balance by negotiating with Navient coupled with a lengthy amount of time down to settling to 35% of the entire loan balance. I settled by paying them off in one lump sum, so I essentially saved 65% of the loan balance by doing so.. clearly this is detrimental to your credit thought but For me, we chose to use my partners name (we are engaged not yet married) for the mortgage of our 1st MF property which would give me a chance to re-build my credit and in 3 years time we will be ready to invest in our 2nd MF (and we will be married by then).  

I am not advising anyone to do this I just want to shed light to the fact that private student loans, NOT FEDERAL, will settle with you if you let an account go deliquent.  I hit a hard patch with little work at one point when I first stopped paying and so then after doing a ton of research into the topic I decided that saving 65% of the balance whilst a rebuild period was my best option. 

Your best option would probalby be to look into getting into a better interest rate.

Hi all, 

We have a 2 family in JC heights, until recently my family asked me to manage the property. One thing I would like to do is increase rents on long term tenants (2 bedroom tenant has been there 11 years) and the other tenant who occupies the 3 bedroom for 7 years.   2 bedrm tenant only pays $1050 when comparative market rent for a 2 bedroom in the JC heights is at least $1500 (and thats conservative, but given the apartments somewhat dated condition, I am ok with.) The 3 bedroom pays $1475, from my research I found that our unit, in its current condition can likely rent for at least $1,650.  

On one hand, I would like to renovate the inside of the apartments  and raise rents to market value. (With a 2 bedroom renovated, I would rent for around $1600 and the 3 bedroom for around $1950.) I would do 1 apartment at a time.. ie serve a notice to quit to the 2 bedroom, after they move out, renovate, then rent it out. Then after 1 is rented, I would then serve a notice to quit to the 3 bedroom, renovate, then rent it out.  I know this would maximize the amount of money we can get from the property and I am leaning toward doing this but I am facing resistance from my family because they want to keep the current headache free long term tenants; which I can understand. 

On the other hand, If my aim is to keep my current tenants, My thoughts are to increase the 2 bedroom rent to $1400 without renovating completely, I may offer to paint the apartment and throw down new carpeting in the bedrooms.  Even at that, there is no guarantee they will stay, though in their situation, if they are looking for another 2 bedroom in the area, they will NOT find a better deal than $1400.  By doing this, I realize I am leaving alot of money on the table, every year but I do get to keep a long term headache free tenant.

For the 3 bedroom, again my aim would be to keep current long term tenants so I would increase their rent an additional $150, from $1475 to $1625. Again, I will not renovate at all, but offer to paint their apartment. 

I would like to hear others thoughts on this. I am leaning toward the first option because long term, again I would be leaving alot of money on the table and ALTHOUGH it is more work up front (renovating each apartment) I do believe our long term return will be greater. 

Anthony Porta 

It is baseboard heat. Hope that answers your question