All Forum Posts by: Chris DeTreville

Antwan,

I'd love to speak to you about Columbia.  Please feel free to message me and maybe we can hop on a phone call one day soon.  I have a client in San Francisco that grew up here that may be a good connection for you as well.  

I'd be down- lunch is best. 

Kim,

8-10% is typical in this area.

 We are the capital city but also very much a college town..that ordinance is in place to control party houses with college students. 

In Columbia there is a city ordinance that states no more than 3 unrelated people can live in a single dwelling.  Management companies usually stick to that ordinance, but from what I can tell most owner/landlords do not care and there is really no way for the city to know.  However, they are proposing major changes in Columbia regarding rentals.  http://www.thestate.com/news/local/article36699174.html

That being said, there are variances for student housing where that ordinance does not apply.   I am unsure however how this variance is determined. 

I see you are in NC, here in SC obviously we have had a ton of rain the last month and high humidity.  Add to the fact that the temperatures have been very pleasant...I think the problem is simply air circulation.  It is a damp climate right now and since its 65-80 degrees most days people are not using their ac or heat.  I have seen this a lot here as well where people can "feel" the dampness and rush immediately into the "M" word.  That's my 2 cents

 How much of the deposit are they keeping?

That sounds like pretty minor stuff cost wise... did they keep the entire deposit? I believe the City of Columbia water department charges a reconnect fee so you were probably required to give the landlord notice of when it was to be turned off so that they could have it put back in their name.  That may be what that is about. As for cleaning, I've seen a lot of apartments that tenants claimed were clean where cleaners had to go back in and it could be for a variety of reasons.  The landlord should have given you a specific set of instructions on what they expected.  As for it being cleaner than when you moved in, hopefully you had some sort of move in checklist or inspection where you documented where it was dirty.  I'm not sure about the drip pans. 

I've had success in Richland County getting the taxes lowered on some of my family's multi-family properties.  The assessors there are actually pretty nice and easy to work with if you are straight up with them.  I basically pulled comps and did my own appraisal based on rents and conditions of the buildings...they had them assessed in some cases 30 or 40K higher than what was realistic.  They looked over what I submitted, did their own appraisal, and in most cases agreed with me.  But last year I found that they lowered a bunch of them on their own and a lot of the properties that we had pinpointed as assessed too high came down to a realistic value that wasn't worth arguing over.  One of the appraisers told me that they do the assessments in 4 or 5 year cyles, so expect them to go up again in 3 or 4 years.  And the ones I talked to are very aware that the taxes are insane here, therefore willing to help for the most part. 

 This.  There are plenty of multi-family properties in Columbia and West Columbia.  But the taxes are going to eat your lunch.  The market is steady so I think it is maybe better in terms of risk...but you need to buy right and rent your stuff in the Summer to reduce vacancies since we are extremely seasonal (as I assume most markets are around college campuses)