All Forum Posts by: Audrey Sommer

Thanks for all the information everyone! That really clears things up, and I'll keep that in mind as I get closer to this part of real estate investing.

Hi Nicholas,

if I invest out of state, I will probably have a property management company manage the property for me. If I invest in state, like house hack, I'd probably do it myself. I haven't made any final decisions yet. 

But it's always nice to know how it works, so regardless, you can ask the right questions, and hold your team accountable!

Thanks again,

 Thank you Amir! yes, I will! I admit, I still have a lot of reading and numbers crunching to do. I'm taking this season to dive into that, but wanted to start a conversation with those more experienced than me. Thanks again

 Hi Nicholas,

Thanks so much for the candid advice! I don't want to give up on house hacking if I don't have to. the way I currently see it, it could add more complications to our lives in a risky way. This is what I mean. Currently, my husband and I are both busy professionals. My husband doesn't have much of a commute right now, but I have a 1.5 hr commute one way south of where we live. I can't move closer to my work, because it will affect my husband's work. So, we are stuck choosing a house in the middle of the Seattle area or the north end where it's more affordable. However, if we go north end, I'd be forced to quit my job, due to the new home being too far away. The way I look at it, buying a duplex in the north end of where we live, and being forced to quit, that would put us in a very scary position financially in my opinion. If we buy a duplex in the middle of Seattle area, we'd be paying top dollar, and we may already be priced out. I'd have to investigate the prices further tbh. What do you think? Maybe you disagree.

Alternatively, we've both been to and really like Idaho. We see ourselves moving to the court de alene area in the next few years. We've considered buying a duplex in court de alene, renting it out until we are ready to move. When we move there, we could still rent out the other unit. The only catch, is that we wouldn't be house hacking to start, we'd be required to put 20% down on purchase/sale of the property. I don't know how viable this idea is yet, I still have to crunch a lot of numbers to verify if this would be worth pursuing. If we considered this option, how would that change your advice? We have a lot of friends and connections there, and have been there before. We'd still have to find real estate connections though. But we really like it there.

Thanks again, I'll check out those resources.

Hello,

What are the best ways to market a long-term rental you just bought? I'm a newbie real estate investor, and my husband and I are planning to buy our first property this year or next. Renting for all my independent life now, I've noticed rentals I've found were on certain platforms being advertised, like craigslist, apartments.com, Facebook marketplace, and landlords posting to their personal social media accounts.

However, I can't imagine these avenues being the only advertising methods, when you have something like vacancy to fill. I think you would need to diversify as much as possible to get the word out. Are there other platforms and strategies to advertise long-term rentals? Do I need to be a certified real estate agent in order to advertise my rental on the MLS, like Zillow?

Are there any marketing resources in the BiggerPockets community that I can also look at? Thanks in advance!

Hi everyone,

My husband and I are just starting out in the real estate investing game. We live in the greater Seattle area, WA, and just got pre-approved for a loan. Right now, we rent a 3-bed, 2-bath house for $1300/month in a park. It's a pretty good deal in our minds, and we are inclined to stay there because rent is so cheap. For a long time, we were saving for a house in Washington and would have ended up buying a duplex and house hack. However, because of this rent deal, we don't see a reason to leave. So, we've shifted gears for our real estate investing strategy to just purchasing a long-term rental.

After joining this group and learning a lot, and given the housing prices in the Greater Seattle area, the lower rent-to-price ratios, bad landlord-tenant laws, and the astronomical prices, we are seriously considering investing out of state. Given our newbie status, do you think it makes sense for us to invest out of state to begin?

When crunching the numbers, it seems to make more sense for our situation every time. However, if we did invest out of state, it would go against a lot of beginner best practices.

Thanks! Looking for some advice from seasoned investors.