All Forum Posts by: Chris Penny

Congrats @Debbie Gilliam , way to go!!!

This is very useful. Thank you @Kim Meredith Hampton

I couldn't find a proper forum category to post this question so I post here. My question is: What are the general things you look at when finding a management company for your property? 

For example, I have one company offered me 50% for the 1st rent, 8% monthly, and 15% on top of any repair. While the 8% monthly is somewhat common, 50% of 1st rent is kinda low, the 15% overhead of repair is concerning me. Or should I?

Thank you @Ana Garcia , @Javi Chipi , @Josh Prince!

@Rocky Griffin no this one is in OKC. Thanks for the offer, please check your inbox. I sure would appreciate any help possible. 

@Alec B Calzada thanks for the reply. I am not very handy and with a full time job plus a toddler I don't feel like I can do much of the work here. Maybe I can get help from my in-law once he retires :). You might know this already, Union City where I currently live in is not as hot as others in the South Bay or Penisula while the construction cost I believe could be roughly the same throughout the Bay Area. Thus the same unit in cities like Sunnyvale or Palo Alto could be rented out for 2500 or 3000 while in Union City it is at most 1800. I really need to analyze the time and effort (and cashflow) spending on building an ADU here vs using the same money investing out of state.

I am looking at a duplex 6 beds 5 baths total, listed price is $150K. The house is built in 1971, in a B neighborhood, currently rented both sides for $850 each. Looks like the cost for rehab is minimum, sure I need to dig more on this. Given the young age and the rent, what do you think about this deal? 

One key factor here is that the seller just recently sold an exactly same duplex nearby for 150K (so he's pretty firm on the price of this one) and he said it was appraised to $195K. It this applies to the property I am looking at, I can basically pull out all my cash after a few months. However, I am a little bit confused with appraisal here because I thought appraisal value is based on the sold price of nearby similar houses. If that is the case, and given the other house sold for 150K, how can this property be appraised to 195K as expected?

@Thomas Graham Thanks for the zip code. I looked at some properties and they seem great. How is the rental market there and what kind of job renters mostly do? Oh and is insurance expensive there?

Thanks @Rhett Tullis for such a great tip. @Deborah Burian I guess what we can say is that a good school district means the neighborhood is quite desirable. I'm not sure about the cost of private schools over there but here in the Bay Area it's quite an issue. 

Thanks all. I am well aware of zoning and I plan to check with the city's building department. However, if the building price is as @Ori Skloot said then I have to reconsider if it's worth it. My whole assumption is based on the estimate that I can build the unit for around 80K.

Is this topic getting lost? Can some experts jump in and help? Thanks