All Forum Posts by: Brian Volland

The best tip I've gotten is to identify what the owner wants if they are potentially interested in selling. mainly, do they need the lump sum of money right now, would they prefer payments, do they only need a bit of the money now but would be okay with payments? Those factors change your purchase strategy and can dramatically alter what your cashflow would look like. It also depends on whether you are looking for long-term B&H or fix and flip or wholesale. Obviously your plan for the property changes what you can accept in terms of pricing. Cap rates across the valley are compressed and I really don't see that as changing anytime soon.

I do not do wholesaling, however, I know a few wholesalers in the area. The general consensus is that wholesaling is a crowded group right now and the deals are getting a lot narrower on the margins. Most folks are getting to the point that $5k is good deal or they are flipping it themselves, although still at smaller margins. Construction hasn't picked up much here so SFR homes are becoming a more limited resource.

@Angeil Ousley, AZREIA is where I got pointed to the most when I moved here 5 months ago. It's good for networking. If you are looking more for an education system, there are lots of meet ups run by various gurus and "systems". The meet ups also tend to have more wholesalers and folks trying to get in to wholesaling. Just go to these and network with as many folks as you can.

I have not heard of them, sorry. I have gotten recommendations for Hull, Holiday, and Holiday as well as Williams, Zinman, and Parham. I have not worked with either yet but they both come from folks I trust to have sound judgement.

I'm honestly a bit surprised that only one person has an accountant that they'd be willing to refer. 

Are y'all not happy with your accountants or is more of a concern that they'd become bogged down taking on another client?

I am looking for referrals for an accountant with experience in real estate investment taxes, business entity creation, tax planning, and tax preparation. I would prefer someone in the West Valley or Phoenix proper but if your guy is that good, I'm okay with driving out to the east side. CPA/CMA is a plus but not required.

Thank you in advance for any referrals you provide.

@Bob Okenwa,

I am looking for all existing properties, not just ones that are currently for sale. If loopnet has that capability, I am not aware of it. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Hey folks. So I'm trying to find a source of information that will allow me to identify the addresses of specific property types in my area. In my case, this is the Phoenix area. What I'm trying to do is find property addresses based on whether they are a duplex, triplex, quad, or commercial but I need those categories to be separate; so duplexes only, triplexes only, etc. 

I know ListSource can provide that kind of information but I didn't know if there are any other sources or public records that I could be searching to find this information. Keep in mind that I only need the property address, not any of the owner information (although it wouldn't hurt). Thanks in advance.

Can you be more specific on location? Some PMs only work the East Valley, or West Valley, or Phoenix proper. If you don't have a location yet, Renters Warehouse will cover the greater Phoenix area but I haven't dealt with them yet. 

@Peter Tverdov As far as I weighting the items, I tried to imagine the "perfect" tenant and add those positive qualifiers to the list. For credit, rental history, and employment it is was easy to capture since they are easily quantifiable and, therefore, lend themselves easily to creating a grading scale. For the rest, I determined that using a +10 as the "standard" would allow me to have "minor" +5 items (niceties but not must haves or terribly impactful), "average" items (a good tenant should probably have), "above average items" (it'd be really nice if an applicant had this), and "excellent" (holy crap, I can't believe someone meets this qualification)

For the negative qualifiers, I wanted them to hurt but no immediately disqualify an applicant. Since I already knew what i was using as a standard for positive qualifiers, I simply doubled it. There are any number of things that could go in this category, but I tried to focus on what I've seen in a bad tenant before. Having not been a landlord, I had to draw on folks I've known over the years and what I've read here. I'm sure this list will grow and change within the first year of screening applicants.  -10 items are situational. I can see how someone might have a bad month and overdraw, or move and their child support falls behind. It happens to a lot of folks. It's not a terrible hit, but it could still be indicative of having financial issues. -5, things i don't want but as socially acceptable. Call them pet peeves if you will. I honestly don't care if they smoke or not, but I know some smokers WILL smoke in the house/apt and because of that risk, they get a ding. 

I may actually be implementing the sliding security deposit mentioned by Matt to tie in with these. I'm just trying to use this as a way to remove the risk first by making the applicant less likely to be the "most qualified".

@Kathleen Leary, thank you for the feedback! 

The employment qualifier is to weed out folks with no income. If they can show me that they were transferred and will have income on company letterhead, awesome. But i am not going to rent to someone who cannot show they they will be able to pay in the long run.

The bank account qualifier is because we have a lot of construction/handyman type jobs here that pay well but are not steady. They're on a job by job basis. I'd rather take a hit disqualifying everyone paid under the table or with unsteady income than assume I'm losing someone fantastic because they for some reason don't like banks.