All Forum Posts by: Clark Kirkpatrick

Hey Scott, I feel your pain with this. It is a constant struggle. 

We hired a PM for our Pottstown rentals, and had to go through some trial and error before having confidence that we were with the correct management company. Now we use 2 - Specht and BIG Realty - and both of them have been great.

They handle that aspect of finding & vetting people that I also don't like. It cuts into cashflow significantly, but I view this as a 10+ year strategy and I think it will be a winning play in the long run.

We have mostly rented to market tenants rather than section 8 - this may help, though I know some people make the voucher programs work as well.

Hey Jason, we can help with this!

My company, Pottstown Construction Company, has done many rehabs in Pottstown and we're a GC equipped to handle your entire scope. If you'd like to do some background research, our website is pottstownconstruction.com and we have solid Google reviews.

My cell is 484-345-1399 if you'd like to chat. 

@HsinYu Chen Home365 is not good. They used to be called SlateHouse, and that was a good company. Home365 bought SlateHouse and turned it into a disaster. 

Big Realty, Rentwell and Specht Realty all service Pottstown and are much better - you can actually call a person (no "submit a ticket" crap), the person you talk to next month is the same as the person you talked to last month, they're honest/transparent about maintenance markups (which 365 was not with me), and in general they actually care/try to do a good job with whatever issues come up.

Hey Geoffrey, thanks for keeping our power on! I'm local to Pottstown and my company does a lot of investment property improvements. We also have a good network of people who can help with things that aren't our specialty. I'm happy to help.

@Joseph Gringeri I'm house hacking in Pottstown. Been investing here for 5 years now, and it's an up and coming area with a solid downtown scene (better than Coatesville, not as good as Lancaster City). It's a good spot, if you can find a multifamily home here.

Investment Info:

Single-family residence buy & hold investment.

Purchase price: $85,000
Cash invested: $125,000

BRRRR deal! Refi covered all but $3k of costs.

BIG Realty has been awesome for me.

Pottstown Real Estate Hackers Meetup Folks -

I'm super pumped for the May meetup on May 22nd at Blackjax Restaurant in Birdsboro --- we are going to talk about lessons learned on how to decrease risk as an investor, using real stories to both have some fun but also highlight where issues can arise.

We will be joined by an awesome speaker with insane real-life experience..... Ryan Daubert from Red Rabbit Insurance will be in attendance. How is this for a bio --- Ryan currently manages over 30K insurance policies from real-life real estate investors of all types of policies. He also owns a portfolio of rentals himself - so he truly understands the various view points of being a real estate investor. He has seen it all, and has so much amazing experience to share.

In addition, we will have some real life stories of crazy things that have happened in the real estate investing space. It will highlight some trends from working with thousands of investors of the common traits that successful investors share which helps them decrease risk of their investment as well.

I think this is a really really important topic for new and experienced investors alike to keep your assets and wealth secured as you grow. Ryan will also take questions and be available if anyone has specific questions that they want to talk through with Ryan about their own situation.

Finally, we will have some conversation around the future of the meetup and some things we are working on to make the Real Estate Hackers meetup and network more valuable for all investors (while still keeping it free for investors). Excited for everyone in attendance to hear some ideas we have, and also give us your feedback on how to make it more valuable.

Hope to see you there, and would be great if you shared with a real estate investor friend so we have a great audience here in May! As always, the meetup is FREE for all investors. The restaurant has a server for anyone who wants to order food / drinks.

630 - 7PM : Time for networking and food / drinks
7PM : Intro and open for any deals that are available for investors
710PM: Content kicks off in the back meeting room at the restaurant

Our Sponsors of this great event are...

Red Rabbit Insurance - RedRabbitInsurance.com

Pottstown Construction Company - PottstownConstruction.com

The Sheldon Zimmerman Team - ZimmermanTeam.com

Real Estate Hackers -- RealEstateHackers.com

I like your proposed layouts a lot better. These little 1-br units in Pottstown aren't great IMO - the ones that I have turn over a lot and don't get the greatest tenant interest.

In the second floor layout, it looks like the kitchen should have enough space to include a little dining area - put a chandelier hanging between the closet door and "ref" box (not sure what that's representing here) and then they can put a dining table under it. Or, could make a sort of breakfast nook in the bump-out opposite the stove.

For the third floor, what if you eliminated the closet in the dining room? I can't tell if that's a mini closet under a staircase, but if it isn't then that could free up some valuable space in a small dining area.

If you're rehabbing anyway, then getting the layout change done in one fell swoop would cut down on overall expenses, increase the ARV and add extra rent ($500/mo in total?) to your income - and that little bit extra is where your actual cashflow is.

 Awesome. That's more like what I remember seeing. If you need a rockstar management company, let me know - I use 2 in Pottstown: one's great and the other is seriously not great!