All Forum Posts by: Bonnie Low

 I think Henry did a great job summarizing it. All of these factors are going on right now. There's been so much interest in real estate investing and the success stories on podcasts and in books - most of which were achieved over the last decade - give people the real estate "bug" and they often over pay either because they don't know how to run the numbers or because they're just so anxious to get in. I also see a lot of people buying banking on two things: appreciation and future lower interest rates. And less often talked about but definitely happening is people buying because they (probably correctly) assume it's only going to get more expensive to buy in the future. FOMO. 

I do want to give a nod to @Matthew Gentile for bringing this up and acknowledging it. It's refreshing to hear a Realtor say "what the heck are people doing??" because so often it's the Realtor who is pushing a "cash cow" either disingenuously or because they just don't know how to run the numbers. 

 You're welcome!

@Haley Brown can you help Melissa with this?

Hi, Haley - glad you've found bigger pockets. Sounds like you're doing great with the MTR strategy in DFW. I'm curious, were you already operating these units as MTR before Dallas enacted the STR restrictions or did you pivot STRs to MTRs because of it?

 Honestly, I hate posting on social media. I'm just bad at it but I know it's important to drive more direct bookings.

 Hey Joseph - it sounds like you're already off to a great start! House hacking is so smart and you absolutely can offer your room for rent as well. Your lender doesn't care where you sleep ; ) You are technically supposed to use your home as your primary residence for a defined amount of time according to the terms of your loan. However, circumstances change and people do sometimes end up using it for something other than their primary. As for rent collection, bookkeeping, etc I recommend you go through some online demos of different products to see what works best for you. I used several before I landed on Baselane. For me, it's a great blend of banking, bookkeeping and tenant management software. It's quick to set up, has a very intuitive interface and has a lot of flexibility. It was designed specifically for real estate investors BY real estate investors, which is one of the things that differentiates it from other banking and bookkeeping platforms and why I think it serves its purpose so well. It's also free and considering how much other programs are charging, this is a huge plus. Check it out!

I've used Avail in the past, but switched to Baselane last year. I did like some features of Avail as far as using it for developing the lease and collecting rent but that left me with too many other functions I had to handle elsewhere. And not being able to issue the deposit refund via Avail was the final straw for me. With Baselane I have the ability to do everything from initial vetting of the tenant to drawing up the lease to collecting rent (and issuing deposit refunds!), plus all of the banking and bookkeeping features. It's much, much easier to have all of this available in one place. And it's helping me keep my transactions organized so I'm prepared for tax season. That alone was the biggest improvement for my business practices and allowed me to take all of my bookkeeping in-house and eliminate the expense I was shelling out for a bookkeeper.

Congrats - Columbus is a great market! It is totally feasible for you to self manage, even if you're just getting started. In fact, BP just released a new book on self managing written by Grace Gudenkauf and Amelia McGee from the Women Invest In Real Estate (WIIRE) podcast. I recommend you start by reading that. There are a lot of options out there for your tech stack. I've used a lot of different programs, but currently I'm using Baselane for banking, bookkeeping and rent collection along with their partner Rocket Lawyer for lease creation and another partner, TransUnion, for background checks. I love that with Baselane you can access all of these through your dashboard. It's very streamlined. Whatever program you choose, you'll want to run a credit check, criminal background check and eviction check. The tenant pays for it (~$40) and the report comes to your inbox. Make sure you use a state-specific lease so that you are incorporating any specific regulations and disclosures relevant to the state you're doing business in. Don't forget to verify income, too. Most people provide recent paystubs and/or a letter from their company HR department verifying their current employment and monthly take home pay.

 Yes, I highly recommend you check out Baselane! I love it because it's made by real estate investors FOR real estate investors so you get everything you need to manage your property finances and nothing you don't need. I wish it would have been around years ago when we started investing. I used to use Quickbooks but it's clunky and overkill IMO. Even our bookkeeper was impressed with Baselane and she's the one who used to maintain QB for us! I am using it to manage finances for my long term rentals, midterm and one short term rental so it's very compatible with most portfolios. It's very intuitive and has key functions that I really needed like the ability to quickly categorize transactions into categories that sync with your Schedule E for tax time, the ability to set up accounts for each property and sub accounts for specific things related to each property. I love the virtual credit card option as well, which makes tracking expenses so much easier. These are just some of the great features Baselane offers. I recommend you attend a free product demo webinar so you can see if it's right for you.

Thanks for that explanation @Jeremy Torres!