All Forum Posts by: Bonnie Low

@Jerry Lucker - I see you're a flipper/rehabber. Are you doing any rehabs on the mobiles you own? If so, what's the typical age of your units and average cost of upgrades to get them rentable?

@Rocky V how does insurance compare to, say, SFH insurance for non-owner occupied? Curious what you're paying for homeowners insurance on your mobiles?

@Steve G. - I like this suggestion. The lot rent and occupant requirements of the MHP associations have always seemed like a barrier to me. Yes, the units lose their value and aren't as durable and financing is difficult if not impossible for older units. That said, there's a real need for affordable housing and some nice used units available fairly inexpensively. I'm curious if you've looked further into the cost of developing a piece of land for MH pads (i.e., electric, sewer, water hookups and permits?)

@Brian Ploszay good advice!

Thanks so much @Cherie Ganesh! This is really insightful. I've heard similar about Memphis - it can change dramatically even within the same block. Really must have boots on the ground who knows the area from what I can tell. 

@Cherie Ganesh - have you ever used the Neighborhood filter on Realtor.com? You can overlay the crime rate, noise, flooding and some other filters over the neighborhood you're looking at to see how it ranks. I'm wondering how accurate that is because I'm using it to look at places I'm not familiar with. It would take someone who really knows the neighborhoods, like yourself, to be able to gauge the accuracy so I'm just wondering if you've ever used it before?

Hit and miss. Go to your local REIA and see which wholesalers show up there. Ask other investors at the REIA who they've had success with and who they haven't.

Interest rates are at historic lows, but they're going up. I would use this opportunity to re-fi at the very least to get you into a lower interest rate while you still can. If you're thinking you're going to want to pick up an additional property in the next year or so and don't otherwise have the cash on hand for a down payment or to pay cash for a deal, it could be a good time to do a cash out re-fi so you have that cash available when you need it. Given the market uncertainty, though, I would be wary of increasing my monthly mortgage too much (which can happen with a cash out re-fi because you're essentially borrowing more) since it sounds like your renters are just barely covering the existing mortgage. You may not be able to count on rents going up to keep pace with your new mortgage payment. As for a HELOC, someone mentioned that you only pay on it if you use it and that's true. It's like having $ you can call on if you need it and the time to establish it is when the value of your property is still high and you have equity. If values drop, so does your equity so the amount you can use can diminish. Also, if you're thinking about getting it but not using it unless you want to  or need to, double check whether there's a period of inactivity after which the lender will close a HELOC loan. 

Buy another rental. The rental is an asset and presumably will appreciate whereas the car is only going to depreciate. The rental gives you write offs. The car payment is relatively low and so is your interest rate on it so let that ride (pardon the pun) leveraging the bank's money you borrowed for the car loan and put your $ to work for you in another rental.

I actually really, really appreciate wholesalers. They basically do the work I don't want to do. I don't have the time or the desire to search out off market deals and I know the successful wholesalers invest quite a lot into developing the personal relationships it often takes to get their foot in the door with a potential seller. Since we invest both locally and out of state, one of the first relationships we seek to establish when looking OOS is to find a good wholesaler who knows the market and can be the boots on the ground.