All Forum Posts by: Ben Staples

@Account Closed appreciate the insight.  One follow up question, I've used city-data.com to understand population growth rates.  However, lets say I'm looking at a city with multiple zipcodes, I see large variance between zipcodes in the same city.  

1. Do you think its accurate?

2. Any other sources I could use to verify this?

Welcome to BP John!

Good luck with your real estate education!

Thank you all for your comments.  To @Rob Belandand @Bryan O.'s points though, if you do stay out of it, take no action, and it escalates to become criminal, are you at legal risk?  And I know this is more a question for an attorney, but I figured I'd ask.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N93hMTBPRbc (Warning, there is strong language in this video)

My friend recently showed me this video of a situation between two tenants in what looks like an apartment complex. One claims the upstairs neighbor has been stomping around, while the other claims the downstairs neighbor has been playing music too loud. I feel like this is a very common situation where people living in relatively close quarters don't mesh well and would like to hear your thoughts:

Situation 1: The upstairs neighbor (The one that recorded this video) comes to you to complain. What actions or next steps do you take after watching this video?

Situation 2: The upstairs neighbor comes to complain, but did not record the encounter. How would your actions or next steps change?

Lastly, are there materials you can use, or changes in the way you design floor plans to reduce neighbor noise in small multi families or apartment buildings?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2015/08/02/uber-reduces-capital-concentration-and-increases-the-number-of-capitalists/

I thought this article was an interesting one and wanted to share. Tim Worstall writes about the deep impact that Uber, and improvements to the sharing economy have made to many peoples lives. He makes the distinction between a consumption good: something that you purchase to consume yourself, into a capital good: something that you purchase that provides you the ability to generate income.

Immediately, and I cannot be the only one, this made me think of Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter. As soon as I started listening to the podcasts and realized that almost every single guest stated this was their favorite book, I had to read it. Kiyosaki and Lechter talk about the difference between an Asset in the traditional sense, and an asset that is actually an asset. One of these will provide income, one of them will take it away. For most people, their car is a traditional asset that only serves to take hard earned income away through its purchase price and maintenance with no form of repayment.

In this way, most people think of homes as consumption goods, not capital goods like real estate investors do. Recent innovations in the tech space like Airbnb have brought the same empowerment of capital goods to everyday people for their living spaces.

The impact of technology is amazing, and I can't wait to see what comes next.

Let me know what you think, or if you found this as interesting as I did.

http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2015/08/17/americans-are-now-renting-6-years-before-buying-their-first-home-study-finds/

Home ownership is at a staggering 48 year low where just 63.4% of the US population actually owns homes according to the above article. It seems like the American dream is truly changing! People are waiting longer to settle down, get married, have kids, and of course buy a home. According to this article, the median age for first time home buyers is now 33 years old, up significantly from past generations.

One of the most interesting points I saw in this article was the shift in desires of the rental population. Now that people know they will be renting for longer than previously expected, the general population is searching for amenities more similar to those if they actually purchased a home, and are willing to spend for it.

Overall, I am excited to see such a shift in the rental market, and can't wait to see where it brings us.

What do you think?

Hi Everyone,

This is my first ever forum post!

My short story: I had my first ever "Vacancy" and successfully filled it in one week! I put vacancy in quotes because I don't actually own the property; I am renting.

A little about me: I am two years out of college and renting in the Boston area. I had a curiosity about real estate all throughout high school and into college, but never took the time to look into it. Now that I'm out of college, I've been reading as much as I can, learning as much as I can, and am now searching for cash flowing multifamily (2-3 unit) properties to either house hack, or invest in. So far, no luck, but I believe with enough determination I will eventually be able to find a property. Until then, I will continue to rent.

Currently, I live in a duplex with a roommate from college, and my landlords living above us. It is a well-kept, beautiful property, and my landlords are a late 70s couple with a focus on enjoying life. Last month, my current roommate told me he was moving to New York to live with his girlfriend. PSH.

He has been a great roommate, and I was really bummed. What I was also down about was the prospect of giving up this immaculate apartment and great landlords. I had a decision to make: either look for a new place to live or try to find a roommate.

Option 1: Look for a new roommate I know, and stay at my current apartment: I asked college friends, posted on facebook, asked people at my J.O.B. and unfortunately had no luck. I wanted to get moving and find a solution fast, so I moved on to option 2.

Option 2: Look for a new place to live with people I know: I asked around, had a few soft leads. Eventually I went to check out a place, and while I believe I could get along with the people there, the quality of the apartment was a definite downgrade. There were reductions in amenities, space, and overall upkeep of the property that I couldn't overlook. PLUS, moving is a huge pain in the butt.

Option 3: Finding a Stranger: With a focus on a buy and hold strategy, I have read many tenant screening postings including **The Ultimate Guide to Screening Tenants** and decided to use this challenge as an opportunity to test what I was reading. I've used Craigslist maybe twice before this. I sold a few things, and have had no weird interactions to date. That being said, I've heard stories of the craigslist killer, and other nightmares, so I definitely had my guard up.

So I began on this quest. I took pictures of the apartment with my landlords permission, focusing on the exterior of the house for the cover shot, and turning on as many lights as possible inside to keep things bright. While I do photography on the side, I decided to use my iphone for simplicity and its wide angle. I looked at competitive ads, and tried to replicate what they were doing well, and improve on their weaknesses.

Within the first hours I got about six responses. I decided to use a trello board as a mini CRM for this experiment. For those of you familiar with trello, I created a few lists;

• "Email Lead" when an email comes in,
• "Questionnaire sent" when I emailed them my pre-screener,
• "Physical Visit" when they passed my prescreen and I scheduled an in person visit,
• "Awaiting Application" I gave an application to everyone that came to a physical visit
• "Application Received" When I received their application
• "Background check" when they passed the application review and were sent a background check request
• "To Landlords" when they passed the background check and now needed to be reviewed by the decision makers
• "To Deny" for anyone that did not meet criteria

If anyone wants to see what this trello board looks like, let me know

For the background check, I used the SmartMove program recommended in the ultimate guide to tenant screening and it worked very well. It was very convenient, and allowed the applicant pay the background check fee directly through the system.

Overall this experience was great, and I believe I have found an awesome new roommate. He moves in September so I won't know for sure until then. Hopefully he doesn't murder me.

A few things this has taught me

• Keeping a property well maintained is definitely enough to stop a tenant (me) from moving
• Paying for those extra finishing touches seems to not only command higher rents, but also get a higher quality of applicants (and I hope tenants)
• I very tightly scheduled individual showings. If I was looking for a pure tenant, and not a roommate, I would have definitely used a group showing approach, but because I wanted the chance to meet these people and find out if they were killers, I also needed to get to know them
• Finding a new roommate/tenant was an enjoyable experience. Maybe I have a future in property management…

Let me know if you have any feedback, comments, or questions

Thanks for the reply Steve.  He's been there for about two years.  I'll see if he can provide proof.

Great that makes sense.  Thanks Gilbert.

Hi All,

I'm new to the game and have a question.  I understand the rule of verifying that the potential tenant's monthly income is 3X the monthly rent.  A potential tenant seems like a nice guy, his application looks good, and when he mentioned he was in sales, I thought nothing of it.  I get his application, and it turns out his base salery is no where near the needed amount, but he says he makes mostly commission.  My questions:

 - Should I deny him because his base salary is too low?

 - Is there any way I can verify his commission?  I'm assuming I could ask him for past pay stubs, but is there any way to guarantee his sales performance in the future?

 - Any other ideas?  

I have other options, just wanted to know as I've never come across this.

Thanks

Ben