All Forum Posts by: Ashly B.

Personally, I wouldn't do a deal that required renting separate bedrooms to unrelated tenants with maybe the exception of student housing. I don't like dealing with individual tenants that much. Couldn't pay me enough to have to be their mediator too. Could you even enforce leases? What if tenants didn't get along and they're literally sharing common space and bathrooms? What if one is messy and the others are neat? You'd have to give them an out for personality differences. Have you looked into the eviction process? Can you evict someone from a bedroom without evicting others in the unit? Lot of what ifs that vary from traditional landlord-tenant law

Bookmarking this! Looks like they have some decent inventory but all SFR. Anyone work with a turnkey for good multi-family buys?

About as little influence as I thought. Thanks for the feedback!

Took a tenant to court for money judgement. First time I've ever done this. She didn't file an appeal or show for the hearing. It was filed this morning stating defendant owes plaintiff $X,XXX with interest plus court costs (not defined amount) and that the defendant should make arrangements to pay the plaintiff directly. That was it. How do I actually go about collecting now? Do I report back to the court when/if she pays? I don't even have her current address now that she's moved - should I send an email with the judgement with court costs added in and how she can make payments? Is there a next step after a designated amount of time or they can just not pay with no repercussions? I'm in Iowa if that's relevant. 

Thanks for the response. I absolutely would be interested in larger unit properties but they feel out of reach. I'm lost when it comes to finding partners or investors. Commercial lenders I've talked to still want 25% down just like a traditional lender on a 1-4 unit. I have about $40k to spend up front and that simply isn't enough to get me into a 5+ unit property even in a LCOL area. 

I have a 4 plex currently. It's a cash cow and I'm going to own it forever. It was a great find as purchased and after some rehab the returns are unreal. I've already conceded that I will not find something as great; however, what I'd like to do is smartly leverage the equity I've built and investing in "what I can afford" by traditional lending standards doesn't seem like a good use of the money. I just had it appraised and it came back at $220k, and I owe $95 on the traditional mortgage. I've been pre-approved by a commercial lender for a cash out refi and now I can't decide how to spend it. How do I get into bigger deals when I don't have partners/investors to work with? Good reading/resources or strategies I should be looking into?

As for your question about current strategy and timeline, I have some very specific goals around my timeline for leaving my corporate job. I have no desire to grow for the sake of growing - its about hitting a number to replace my current income and getting out of the rat race at which point in time I'll enjoy "retirement" in the sense of working on passion projects and not for a paycheck. 8 years is my target, I currently have 4 doors and I'd like to add 6-10 more.... although my door count was based on the returns I'm seeing on my fourplex - I might need 20 if each property is only going to net me $4k/mo :/

I've been looking for my next deal for over a year. I live in a mid-size growing city in a LCOL area. House prices are notoriously low here. I don't know if its the inflated market, more people discovering our little gem and causing higher demand for MFR or what I'm doing wrong, but I can't find a deal where the numbers work.

Found what I thought was a great next buy. Duplex conversion, list price $165k, minimal updates needed. But when I crunch the numbers the returns are SOOOO low. Net income of $12,250. After mortgage payments, I'm left with somewhere between $4700 and $5600/year. I just can't wrap my head around going through the hassle for that little payback but I also don't have the funds to scale up and get something larger - maybe another fourplex if I found a great deal (I've been looking! none so far) but I want enough units/profit that I can hand over the day to day management, and settling for something with an 8% cap feels counterproductive toward that goal. 

What other ways can I make my money work? Maybe I need to branch out to other parts of my state that aren't seeing as much growth in hopes of finding better returns? Frustrated and feeling stuck. Help!!

Its only unique in that there aren't a lot of multifamily properties selling in this area, and the few that are (literally 4 multifamily properties in the last 3 years) are just different - more bedrooms but lower rent, rundown/unrenovated, etc. It's an historic neighborhood originally constructed of primarily SFHs right in the center of a metro area in a beautifully maintained neighborhood. So when the appraiser branches out to find other 4 plexes, they go into neighborhoods a mile or so away that are significantly less desirable, poorly maintained and naturally bringing in less rents. 

Seems to be a large number of properties on the market in this area. Is it deteriorating? Investor selling off their portfolio? Primarily several duplexes all in the same neighborhood and at what looks to be very reasonable prices. I'm from the QC originally but less familiar with this particular neighborhood. Any insights?

What an awful situation. Were you able to get them out?

Good point. Its not a deal breaker, just always looking for ways to cut costs and improve returns.