All Forum Posts by: Carl Fordyce

Hello all

Im from NY and currently have units in NY I'm looking to grow  my portfolio   At the suggestion of a friend who's Currently in the CT market I've been looking at  buying in the CT market for buy and hold.  I had a really good conversation with a bigger pockets number who's also A PM  from  the area.  I'm  trying to get some additional feedback as to what are the best cities in Hartford county CT for buy and hold investing.

I am currently looking at East Hartford, New Britain, Manchester,  and Bristol.

Any suggestions as far as cities 

Thanks ahead of time for your suggestions and feedback 

I own a few units in the capital region/tri-city area .  The contactor that I use does great work but is becoming more and more unreliable I’m having a hard time of get a hold of him on the phone  I pretty much have to communicate with him via text unless I called him from another number that’s not mine does anyone have a recommendation for a good all purpose contractor that works in that capital region area 

I'm Trying to get some advice from the BP community as to what's the best way to do a valuation of a small multifamily building 've been considering buying a 6 unit multi family I currently have 7 units  that are all In the single family category I'm use to using the comp method for 1-4 units but being that the building is only 6 units would you advise using the comp method or the cap rate method to do a valuation of the building 

The building is in a C class area that's improving. In regards to changing the criteria I will talk to the PM about their criteria because it's their criteria that their using during the screening. I regards to using credit scores  it's a toss up because I know a few people mentioned using a credit score but I feel  that might not be the best indicator. For example I use to have horrible credit but now it's good if I was a landlord lord that used Credit scores I wouldn't of qualified as my own tenant if it was a few years ago  

No they don't use credit score they use previous landlord references and they want income to be 3x the asked rent and 2 year work history 

Need some advice bigger pocket community about how to handle my vacancy problem .

 So Here is my situation I got 7 units Between 2 buildings the 1st I bought last year was a 4 unit and was 50% occupied When I bought it I fixed it up and With the assistance of A property management company that I was using we were able to fill the vacancies really quickly every time somebody moved out of that 1st Building We were able to find someone really quickly  I bought my 2nd building which was a 3 unit A year later and this time using the same property management as the  the 1st Building  the 2nd Building Is in a better area of townWhere rents a higher and prices are Rising I closed on the 2nd building at the the end of April I had to do some Repairs and started to show the 1st apartment in June for rent we've had multiple showings and multiple applications and none of the Applicants seem to qualify as far as passing the screening I've lowered the Rent in hope of causing a buzz and be able to get more applicants to hopefully find the right One As  of now I still have 3 vacant units in this building I feel like I'm at a crossroads because I don't wanna flip this building I wanna keep it and at the same time I have a really good relationship with the owner of the PM Company as a new investor hes helped me tremendously but as of August if it's not rented I will have 90 days Vacancy For this entire building I've consider looking at other Pm's but I don't want to jump the gun Any advice on how I should tackle this issue

I'm currently own a fourplex rental I like to have at least 25-30% equity base on the ARV. I'm looking at a five and six unit to purchase for buy and hold, with small multifamily like these what's the best way to figure out ARV, is it using the cap rate method or using sold comps to estimate the price per unit?

I currently have 4 rental units and I'm looking to grow my rental portfolio and in order to do that  I'm looking at other financing options. I have a few friends and family members that expressed interest in possibly doing some private money lending to future deals. does anyone have any ideas that they wouldn't mind sharing on some ways to structure a private money deal for a buy and hold purchase in which it makes sense for the private money investor and myself without having to give away a equity position in the property.

@AlanG

Is there a particular version of QuickBooks  that does this as you mentioned or any   version would do?

i just bought my first rental its a 4-plex building I've been racking my brain on finding the best method for tracking my monthly income to expenses on a per unit basis. I've looked at things on BP but everything is broken down on a per property basis.  i figured its good to track it on a per unit basis that way i can see  how each unit performs from a income to expense basis as well as the whole building.

1: Is this an effective way of tracking the income to expenses for a 4-plex building?  and if so does anyone know of any good Apps of spreadsheets that they wouldn't mind sharing?

thanks