All Forum Posts by: Anton Ivanov

@Connie Chan

I've heard good things about Cozy, although I don't use it myself.

Just a word of caution from somebody who has 30+ out of state properties - I would strongly advice against self-managing. Sure, it may work for 1-2 properties in A+ areas, but if your properties are more management intensive, it will be difficult.

Who will show prospective tenants the property? Who will be on-suite to coordinate/inspect maintenance/repairs done? Who will do walk-through inspections?

Managing real estate requires on-suite presence, which can't really be replaced by a software application. My guess is you'll end up needing a realtor, friend or family member to do some of this works anyway, that's why I would recommend a property manager.

I've never heard of property managers refusing to manage 1 property. You just need to keep looking.

@Garrath Robinson

Well you're on BiggerPockets, which is undoubtedly one of the best resources/websites, especially for education and networking. Much on here is free, so you've got nothing to loose.

As far as other software applications, you probably didn't get many responses because you're not being specific. Some investors use Excel and that's it. Some use dozens of different apps/websites to help them acquire/manage their properties. I would spend some time figuring out what your goals are, what exactly you're trying to achieve and what tools would help you. Then you can actually start looking at something specific.

@Kevin Melson

It can be used, but they don't give you the option to implement a detailed rent roll, where you can enter the rent/square footage/layout per unit. So you'll have to tally up all of the rents and expenses yourself before plugging them in.

There are other online calculators that are more customizable for multi-family property analysis.

@Aaron L.

Not at all!

@Rashida Sigmond

I definitely don't think it's a waste of time, as long as you take the time to personalize the letters and research the local prices so your offers look compelling.

@Lee Ripma

Thanks for the heads up - I've never heard of that app before, I'll have to check them out next time I'm doing this.

@Mike D'Arrigo @Antoine Martel

Thanks!

@Ndy Onyido

There are few good deals in KC on the MLS from what I've seen. You'll have to source off-market properties.

@Account Closed

Sure, I'll send you a pm.

@Aaron L.

Just to clarify, I wasn't making full-price offers. They were about 20-25% below market values. The properties also were value-add and needed about $5k in mostly cosmetic rehab to achieve market rents. I'm not doing the rehab work all together - I do it one unit at a time, as they become vacant.

But to answer your question about down payment cash - I have a high income and a high savings rate. My personal savings are the primary driver of my portfolio growth. These were also not my first properties, I've been investing in real estate for a few years.

Here is a link to where I did a longer write-up of my real estate growth if you're interested.

@Mike Arlington

I did call about 5 people directly instead of sending the letters for those I quickly found the phone numbers when running this campaign. So I wouldn't call myself a cold calling expert.

One thing that helped me is essentially using the printed letter as the phone script and working off that. The first few calls may not go as great as you like, but you should get more confident the more you do them.