All Forum Posts by: Bridget Pasternak

@Zachary Sumskoy

Hi, I live in Sarasota and my husband and I are hunting for our first purchase. Nice to (virtually) meet you both!

@Jonathan R McLaughlin thanks, I’m glad to hear you think similarly!

@Chris Davidson thanks so much for your response! Nice to have it confirmed by someone who knows better than me that I’m on the right track!

Hi everyone. I am currently looking at my first deal. In my market it seems like everything gets snapped up the day it goes on the market and sometimes above asking price.

I found a condo that I am interested in. It’s currently rented with a tenant who would like to stay on after the lease is up on 4/30. This part seems attractive to me as long as the tenant’s rent is not too low and they have a good history of timely payments. The tenant won’t allow anyone in to see the unit until an offer is in place.

My realtor called the listing agent to find out more. The owner lives out of state and thinks the market here is “hot” and has priced it based on what he thinks it should go for (comps are showing quite a bit lower). My realtor said this is probably not a great idea for my first property but I think it could be great since others have been turned off by this.

What do you all think about the idea of learning more about the tenant situation and then making an offer (at a reasonable price considering comps) with an inspection and appraisal clause? I feel like there’s not tremendous risk in that. I can see the carpeting needs to be replaced and the kitchen/bathroom could be upgraded but I like the idea that I won’t have to do that until the tenant moves out at a later date. If anything really bad comes out of the inspection, I can back out.

Hi all. Working through analyzing some properties for my first deal. A few properties have caught my eye. They are condos close to the hospital and major commercial area. The situation is that after the crash, a lot of owners in this complex (and many in the area) got foreclosed on and the banks did not pay the HOA fees so no maintenance was done. Now that the market has stabilized, the owners voted to raise the HOA fees for a period of time in order to do the necessary maintenance that was neglected. Right now the monthly fee is quite high (to avoid a special assessment). There are a few units available and some have been sitting out there for a while. I'm assuming people are scared of the HOA fee. When I look at them, I could squeeze out a tiny cash flow as they are now, but I envision that after the maintenance is complete and the HOA fee goes back down to a reasonable level, we will see prices rise and buyers show interest in this complex again. Then I will make a nice cash flow and probably some appreciation. What are your thoughts on this? Am I missing something? Do you think this is a good or bad idea for my first property?

@Bob Prisco Thanks for the info and welcome to Florida!

Thanks for the info!  This is pretty similar to what I was planning, so it’s good to hear I’m not out of line 

Thank you for the advice Aaron, Dmitriy, and John.  Those are great tips!  Looking forward to learning more and connecting with other people in my area!

Hi everyone, I'm working out details to do my first deal here in Sarasota, FL. I've got money saved in reserves and I'm analyzing cash flow for several different properties. Here is my question- when I am calculating all the variable costs that go into cashflow (repairs, vacancy, CapEx), should I be planning to add those amounts to my reserves every month once I have a tenant (if nothing goes wrong and I don't have to spend that money) or do I just maintain a certain reserve balance and consider the rest of it to be profit once I have a solid reserve balance?