All Forum Posts by: Benson Gee

@Benson Gee look through the current lease that the tenant is on. Once the lease expires, if the tenant would like to stay have them submit an application and perform a background check to make sure they meet your criteria. You'll need to establish what this criteria is. Generally: Income is 3X rent, no past evictions, minimum credit score, positive feedback from past landlords, no violent convictions, smoking/non smoking, pets/no pets etc. Then get the tenant on your lease with your own policies.

References for PM, see how many units they manage, how long they've been doing, do they own their own properties, etc. A tip is to call the PM and act as a prospective tenant, see how they handle this and how organized they are. This shows a lot for how effective the PM is. Find investors in the area your investing in and make some connections. 

@Benson Gee  Get references for the PM, find out all of the fees they charge to both tenants and landlords, how long it takes for rent to be deposited to your account and the rules on repairs (at what $ amount do they have to ask you).

If the house you are buying is currently rented, get a copy of the lease, security deposits, rental history (ie have tenants been paying on time), how long have they been there.

@Daniel J Dominguez

I don't know about Houston men. I've been looking at the MLS (with and agent) and 99% of the "cheap" properties are in "not good" areas since Huston is 80% not good areas. The "good" areas are way saturated and whatever is left is very expensive and will never meet the 1% rule of thumb, not even close. And the appreciation, even though not a big player for me (long term rental) I see is actually declining (slowly). And there are soooo little multi-family homes. Not to mention the oil and Gas is so volatile (I'm an engineer in the industry) that you really can't rely on that (for long term rentals).

Thoughts? 

All areas are great depending on what you are looking for?

criteria/budget/return expected/hold time, etc

@Daniel J Dominguez I am glad you added in RealWealthNetwork.com as Kathy has a wealth of information - both online and on her podcasts!

Texas hands down. All 4 major cities are in the top 35 cities to live in the US. There are 3 major components to buying rental property. Affordability, Job growth and population growth. I prefer Houston TX heres why;

As of 2019 Houston has the #1 market for job creation in the US.

Houston remains on the lower end compared to other major cities with a median home price between $175-223K and Median rent between $995-1500

In the Top 10% for cities with the highest appreciation in the US. depending on what area between 4.42-7.21% (Houston) vs 3.37% (USA)

As of 2018 Houston is #14 for cities with fastest growth and migration from other US cities

As of 2019 Houston is #30 out of 125 cities for best places to live in the US

Sources:

neighborhoodscout.com

realestate.usnews.com

realwealthnetwork.com

har.com

Wallethub.com

census.gov

The other big one is El Paso, you can probably get the best returns there or in Houston, Austin is really just California lite and San Antonio and DFW are good middle ground.  Keep in mind when comparing to CA that both property taxes and insurance will be a lot more expensive even for a cheaper property.