All Forum Posts by: Clayton Sneider

Hey folks. I am interested in buying an apartment building. I have bought a couple of single family houses in the past as rentals, but I would like to learn more about buying either an apartment complex or possibly buying multiple single family units. Where is the best resource (preferably free) for learning about this? I can invest up to about $400K as a down payment. I would like to buy an asset that produces significant cash flow. I would prefer to buy something local to the Longmont CO area, but there are limited options, so I am open to out of state investing, but concerned about managing it. Thanks!

Hey folks,

I have a 4 bed 2 bath house in Longmont CO that is currently a long term rental. Tenants are moving out in a month. Should I turn it into a STR? My mortgage payment is ~1,500/mo and I can get about $2,600/mo for a long term rental. The house is in decent shape, with updated bathrooms and kitchen and has a nice backyard with a patio and a garage, but the house is in kind of a lower class working neighborhood, not in the more desirable downtown area. I have never done a STR and I would need to completely furnish the house. My main question is how much money I can expect to make doing a STR. I am pretty dang busy but I would likely do all management and maybe even maintenance myself. How can I figure out how much money I will bring in? If I can make at least $2K extra per month it may be worth it. Is that realistic? How much could I expect to pay to furnish a 4br house? Any info from Longmont locals is greatly appreciated.

@Zeona McIntyre thanks for the suggestion on the medium term rental. I think that may be a good option for my property. However, I am not sure if a traveling nurse will need a 4 bedroom house. I will check out Furnished Finder. 

@Zeona McIntyre

@Rory Korpela

Thanks, I appreciate the feedback. Yeah, I agree the location doesn't seem the best for an AirBnB. 

Hey folks, question for you Longmont locals. How much could I realistically expect to get from a 4 bedroom 3 bath house on AirBnB in Longmont per month? The house will be decently remodeled and furnished, not super high end, but nice and clean. The house has a decent size private backyard and a one car garage and is in an OK neighborhood, not great. I know this a question that you can't answer precisely but what is a reasonable monthly income range to expect?  The house is located in central Longmont, near the intersection of 17th and Princess st. Thanks!

@Rodney Sums, thanks for the advice. I don't think I will buy a property just to AirBnB it. But I already own one so I might give it a go. I will definitely think twice about doing anything in case I get bad reviews.

Zeona, no I did not end up buying an AirBnB property in Longmont. I recently sold one of my rental houses here, and I am fixing up the other one. I may turn this last rental into an AirBnB property when I am done fixing it up. It is a four bedroom house with a decent backyard, but not in the best neighborhood. I will make the decision to sell or to AirBnB it this summer. 

I have no idea if the house is over priced or not. But you should stop using the 50% rule and the 1% rule. You have to evaluate a property based on actual expected expenses. One rule that works for buying $60K properties in the midwest is not going to work for buying $900K properties on the west coast. If you are a real estate investor and you live in Bellingham then you should be able to estimate the expenses (taxes, maintenance, CapEx) of a house in Bellingham.

One of the big advantages of real estate investing is the ability to obtain low interest financing. Buying with cash takes away that advantage. Its also not necessarily safer to buy with cash versus using leverage. Imagine you have $500K in cash. In one scenario you use all of your cash to buy a house without a mortgage. Now you have no "emergency fund". Is that safe? I don't think so. Imagine if you then lose your job and have some unexpected expense. In a second scenario, you put 20%/$100K down, and you still have $400K in cash. I would sleep much better with the second scenario personally. My preferred third scenario would be to buy 4 properties with $100K down payments each, and still have $100K in cash as a cushion. That would be a pretty secure position, with decent cash flow if you bought correctly and the chance to make a killing on appreciation. If the properties appreciate you will make 5X what you would make had you bought all cash. In general, if you can borrow money at a lower rate and invest the money at a significantly higher rate of return, then do it... carefully and within reason.

Alexander, generally you have to pay taxes and a penalty if you withdraw from a 401K or traditional IRA, even just the contributions. The 72T and Roth conversion are ways around paying the penalty.