All Forum Posts by: Carolyn Helmle

My only recommendation is that you do your due diligence when evaluating prospective tenants.  Do every possible check and find out the kind of people you are dealing with. My husband and I had a house in a C, or maybe a D neighborhood for 19 years and had the same tenant family for 17 of those years.  Yes, they had issues with paying the rent on time, but eventually got caught up.  Man was a truck driver and occasionally out of work.  We tried to be patient.  They never maintained the yard but neither did any of the neighbors so it wasn't a problem.  He actually fixed a couple of problems in the house and only asked to be reimbursed for the parts.  It was a profitable situation for many years, while we were waiting for the house to appreciate so it could be sold.

Yes, I was working full time when I purchased my first rental.

Yes, there could be expenses associated with weed control, or fines levied with failure to keep the weeds down.  There might also be the fire hazard due to weeds or having brush and trees close to your house, which might affect the cost of your fire insurance.  It might also be a safety hazard, since thieves often like to access through areas that are sheltered by brush or trees  because there is a lower risk of being spotted by neighbors.  This might impact the insurance rates for tenants or yourself when the home is vacant. Just considerations that occurred to me, some from experience.

I'm not a realtor, but I do know that Zillow.com and Trulia.com are good places to look for getting a good idea about what the prices are in your area.  

Welcome to BP. I'm a long time CA investor. At one time I had 5 properties here in the valley. I'm down to 3 in CA now. My most recent purchase is out of state from a wholesaler that handles a large selection of properties from 40K to 60K all in. He has 12 yrs experience and has a great team that handles everything. It has worked out well for me because the homes cost a lot less than here in CA. I'm just saying, its a slow go here because prices are so high. Good luck to you.

Carolyn grab our last FLIP deal of 2016 and start 2017 off right!!! With Inventory shrinking fast these are not a dime a dozen so if you want this contact me back right away. Purchase for only $119,900 ALL IN....Re-sale $180,000. Got from an Estate...must be able close immediately Carolyn do you want this one? Lana If interested, contact me at (209)208-8210 Happy New Year!

I have 4 properties and none are in an LLC. I do have an umbrella policy. I've been a landlord for the better part of 38 years and no problems. Anyone else have any input? Have you considered owning property out of state? I work for a wholesaler and have bought property from him myself. He sells quality rentals in Pennsylvania. The cash prices are 40K to 60K all in. He has contractors, realtors and management companies in place to handle everything. You can keep and rent them or flip them. He's been in the business for 12 years and sold over 2,000 homes. I'm one of his project managers. If you are interested in "no hassle" text notifications about homes he has then text your cell number to (209)208-8210 and I'll put you on our "no hassle" contact list.