All Forum Posts by: Brandon Kamm

Just have to be prepared to not make much money starting out. Get your license on the side while keeping your current income. You should be able to take classes at night or on weekends.

Another point, you mentioned a brokers license. Each state is different but if you were ultimately looking to start your own shop you will probably need a certain number of years of minimum experience to get a broker license. Your state real estate commission site should have all those answers.

As far as firms, interview several big and small they are all different, find a broker you like, that will go along way. A big firm may not be interested in training a newbie, but big agents may be looking for someone to "train" for a small cut. Small places may be more willing to train you.

If you are referring to search in the MLS I have always sorted by property type (Residential/duplex/,multi) and then set search criteria to price range of $1 to $20,000. I then sort by days on market and look at map view.

This gives you part of town and those that will fall in acquisition cost range. FRom there you can take a look and get info on rehab to see what you would have to be in a property for after rehad to see if it makes sense.

Hope that helps

We use an addendum signed by all involved parties. However it is a great opportunity to start with a new year leaee

What I was referring to was whenlooking at the big picture, a couple with 4 kids would have a more difficult time paying rent vs. A couple ith one kid if income were the same for each group.

Nothing extra would be needed, just another item to keep in mind.

You have shot yourself in the foot so far. I wouldn't look to make an issue as you entered without notice, and I am sure a state would have sympathy toward a tenant in that matter if she pursued it.

I would inform her you will be performing a safety inspection at a given time period and then walk through and see what is going on. It probably won't be there and following that you could perform repairs if you like.

You will need to have some sort of knowledge of the problem to pursue legal action other than " I just went in her apartment for no reason when she wasn't home without
informing her."

Perhaps send a letter to all your tenats reminding them of lease violations sort of like an informational and not accusatory letter. We send stuff like this to tenants all the time, just a monthly newsletter. Perhaps include a section on drugs and how they affect a lease.

You then aren't accusing her of anything, haven't singled her out, and hopefully she will read between the lines and understand that you "know" what's going on.

Always check your statues in your state. One thing I would consider is the demand on your property, areyou desperate to rent or do you get a lot of calls. Based on experience this situation will lead to a property having much more wear and tear when they move out. That's not always the case, but from my experience morenoften than not. May be soemthing to consider as you will have to rent again when they leave.

Also pay attention to credit and income of the adults. Much more expensive to cloth and feed four than one. The risk of falling behind in rent will be greater as there are more built in expenses for the tenant.

Interview several property managers and ask for references from them. Make sure your references have similar properties as you, sfh for example, maybe even in the same neighborhood. They should be able to give you realistic expectations on your investment

As a property manager I here this a lot from owners...why do I get charged 40 bucks here and there, can't we make the tenants fix it. Sure you can have the clause in the lease and have them be responsible. 95% of the time it won't be fixed and if it is it will be done the 'duct tape' way. Tenants are renting with the fact in mind that they dont want to pay for these things no matter what the lease says.

Many time the above mentioned supply line leak goes unreported and cAuses severe damage when unattended for months. Then it must be fixed after the tenant leaves.

I understand many owners get upset withbthe fact that they get maintenance charges, but when your rental unit may be 30-50-80 years old and has been worked over many times you can't expect to go 12 months without a maintenance issue. This is a great reason why maintenance needs to seriously be factored into acquisition as opposed to the $50 a month budget that I see often.

Holding the tenant responsible will save you a buck today but cost you five next week.

One of the biggest mistakes I believe people have made is thinking I have to buy xxx houses this year. I am amazed at the number of investors that call us saying that. People have always asked me how many properties I plan on buying in a certain period of time. There is no set answer if there are no deals to be found there aren't properties that need to be bought, if five deals that fit your criteria happen to pop up in a short period of time you need to be able to act on all. It may seem like a lot of work at once, but if you are buying good deals it will work out in the long run even when doing multiple ones at once.

Jon,

Great point in your first post. I read some of the initial post then skimmed. So many investors neglected to factor in vacancy loss, maintenance, eviction, tenants etc etc that their deals went south quick in the last few years.

Just found it interesting that this example omitted nearly all expenses that wold affect cash flow.

I realize that this may have been just a hypothetical scenario but those are very important points for an investor looking to be educated to consider.