All Forum Posts by: Ben Sears

This is an older thread but I'll throw in my thoughts since I'm currently obsessed with automating my buy and holds.

• I'm primarily marketing through our local Facebook rental page. I'm using a ManyChat bot to pre-screen tenants and collect email addresses for future contact. Applicants are screened and then sent to our website to apply through Cozy if they meet the qualifications. 
• I have a virtual assistant receiving applications and calling references. We share a Google Drive folder that she deposits all of the information into on a fillable PDF. I have instant access to see all qualified applicants. 
• I have not automated my showings but did use Calendly to schedule with some success. I'm contemplating virtual tours for our next rental. 
• Property management and bill payment is through Cozy. Automatic deposit of rent payments followed by auto draft mortgage payments with text alerts to my phone. I've been using this for 6 months flawlessly and will set all of my rentals up this way in the future.
• Maintenance is handled through Cozy. I currently receive maintenance emails and text my handyman. In the future I'm looking at setting up a dedicated maintenance email connected to Cozy which will go straight to my VA. She would call for approval on repairs over a certain dollar amount and I would continue to handle after hours calls. I don't currently have the volume to make this jump yet.
• I know there are pros and cons to automating but all of this has worked well for me because I'm managing a W2 job and a family as well as looking for investments. I always make an effort to have face to face time with my applicants before moving in because despite automating you always need a feel for people on a personal basis and a computer can't do that.

Updating this thread today a week after demo. We've had torrential downpours which have pretty much put us at a standstill since I would like to have the roof repaired prior to starting any interior work. I've been out of town but hoping that the roofer has taken advantage of at least two moderately warm, sunny days to knock the roof out. 

I did swing by and install my new ReoLink security camera. After our interesting discovery of the mystery furniture in the last house, we're hoping to at least identify any oddballs that show up on this job. I'm working on putting together a YouTube video on our experiences with this setup since there seems to be a fair amount of discussion about security on the forums. 

@Daniel A. gave you some great information above. I'll give you my experience with it and a few recommendations. I self manage all of my rentals and have a goal to completely systemize my processes so my take might be a little different than Daniel's just because of my growth goals. I try to rent my properties leveraging as much technology as possible to save myself from meeting unqualified tenants for applications and showings. 

I use Cozy to advertise, collect rent, record maintenance, etc. Cozy will post your property to Zillow, Apartments.com, and one other site. I have gotten a couple of hits off of Zillow but it's a little more time consuming since it sends individual emails for each inquiry that have to be responded to. This service is free to you and the tenants pay for background and credit checks. I don't charge an application fee because of this. You can check it out at Cozy.co

I also advertise to FB marketplace in our local rental page. I always get a ton of hits off of this but the majority are unqualified. It will absolutely fill up your messenger inbox with people asking how much the rent is despite it being posted in your ad. I have just implemented a bot function on my FB business page to automatically pre-screen tenants and direct them to my Cozy page to apply. I have not used this in it's entirety yet so I can't comment on it's effectiveness. 

Starting with my last tenant, I hired a virtual assistant off of UpWork to screen all of my applications. She took the completed applications off of Cozy, called references, checked credit, reviewed the background checks, etc according to criteria that I supplied to her. We communicated all of the data through a shared Google Drive folder and it worked incredibly well. I paid her $15/hr and was in it total about $75 to find a great tenant. I literally didn't lift a finger to find my tenant other than scheduling a showing (My VA lives in Seattle). There are a ton of posts on BP about virtual assistants and it's probably a full day of reading if you go down that rabbit hole.

There are a million ways to find tenants but my advice would be that it's much better and cheaper to have your property sit vacant for a month or two than to get a bad tenant. If you plan on having more than one property, set up your systems now and you'll be able to build on it in the future without too much difficulty! 

We figure our ARV (or after repair value) on comps in the neighborhood. I typically will first take a 30,000 foot view and search zillow or realtor.com for recently sold listings that are similar to my property. I'll then select 5-10 and take a deeper dive into tax records to see what the final sale value was. Based on bedrooms, bathrooms, etc. this should give you a decent price per square foot for your area. This is the down and dirty version of ARV. I'm sure some others will chime in with some more detailed info.

So let's hear some creative property management ideas. We self manage all of our properties (8 doors) and are always looking for ways to keep our tenants happy. I'm interested in some creative strategies that you've implemented to put your rentals above the competition. We already do the basic "text book" things such as be responsive to maintenance, communicate frequently etc. 

@Soddee R. Knight we're sitting right at 26% over 8 doors. All of the property we've purchased so far is sub-$75k needing major remodel work with the exception of the fourplex were closing on next month which is 50% occupied and needs only cosmetic work. 

@Soddee R. Knight thank you! If you don't mind me asking what's the average equity you hold in your properties? 

Thanks @Mark H. Porter and @John Teachout. I guess the issue I'm going to run into is the lack of ability to refinance. I finally have purchase money through a HELOC and a private lender which is great. I'm just wondering if my lender is now the bottleneck by not being able to allow me to refinance out as fast as I can purchase.

We're in the process of growing our portfolio over the next few years. We just closed on a 3/1 SFR and in escrow on a fourplex. We already refinanced (BRRRR) a 3/1 SFR earlier this year. We use a small community bank for each of these and the lender will refinance the second 3/1 later this year. When asking about future properties, he said that they would prefer to let our portfolio accrue some income before refinancing additional houses. My question is...how are the bigger portfolios purchasing 10,20,30 houses per year and carrying mortgages? Obviously this is lender dependent but all of our properties cash flow well and we otherwise qualify for the loans. This has become a huge pain point for us as we grow and I'd love to discover a solution to it.

Demo is 90% complete as of yesterday. We went a little extra on the kitchen and bathroom to save some labor later. The hole in our roof really did a number on the kitchen and bathroom. In the end we decided that a full gut into the crawl space was necessary. Additionally, we removed the chimney to below the roof line in preparation for our new roof. Our strategy is the fewest possible roof penetrations. This means less maintenance later for flashings and leaks. We'll be going back with a vented ridge and one plumbing vent.