All Forum Posts by: Chris M.

7 units in 3 locations. Two of them were my former primary residences. One of them is a quadplex that I recently put under a PM. Wish I had done that sooner.

Thanks all for the encouraging words. Both sets of tenants have been awesome so far. The second set of tenants were very patient as I worked on getting the unit up to my standards while they were moving in.

Unfortunately I did have a pretty bad experience with a handyman/contractor during that last turnover. I hired this guy off of Yelp to do the finishing work but he did halfway sloppy work and then became flaky. I ended up firing him and finishing the job myself. Probably going to take him to small claims and posting a review of his lack of service online. This guy was a real piece of work.

Overall things are still looking up. We're expecting a son in a few months so I'll be house hunting by the end of this year. We've outgrown this current place.

Thanks @Dawn Brenengen and @Elizabeth Colegrove  things definitely started off on the right foot.

2014 was the worst for my wife and I on many fronts, we needed to rebound badly.

This isn't as big as some of the other inspirational stories on here but I view it as a win.

I went through my first eviction late last year and lost a few months of rent on the unit while things were winding through the courts and before the sheriff could show up for the set out. Thankfully the tenant vacated before they showed up so I didn't have to hire any movers. 

The place was a wreck. Turns out the boyfriend of the tenant had an anger issue and used to punch holes in the walls as well as beating her and their dog. He hid them from me by putting posters and pictures over them. It was during he holiday season that I had to do this make-ready and I couldn't find anyone available that I worked with before to help. So my brother who was on vacation and myself spent a couple weeks doing everything in that place. The tenants took the bathroom door when they left (who does that?) as well as destroyed the frame of the bedroom door so a new prehung door was needed. When we finished, the place looked amazing and everyone who saw it was impressed.

During this time, another tenant told me they had to leave as they were moving for their job. So now I have two places vacant. Their's was a lot better shape, but the previous owners were really hands off and let their property manager cut a lot of corners so I did have some work ahead of me.

My wife convinced me to list and show the unit myself instead of turning it over to my realtor as we usually do. I posted a sign on the window, craigslist, postlets and backpage and showed the place a few times. Flash forward to last Saturday, my wife told me 10 people called on Friday to view and I had them coming between 11-12. The first set of people who showed were awed by the place and took it immediately, pending my background checks. The second set wanted it badly but just missed out and we kept them as a backup. The same day, the other tenant vacated so it was a busy day in that building.

The first set of people showed up a few hours later with a u-haul and cash for the lease signing and walkthrough. My wife called the second set and they were very disappointed as they said they had been through over 50 places in that area and none were as clean or put together as mine. My wife told them that we had another unit just vacated that they could look at. They showed up immediately, walked in, and took it on the spot. I just spent the entire weekend making that unit ready.

I was bracing myself for a lean January with multiple vacancies when I haven't had one in year and now I got two units rented on the same day. Both are now renting for $50+ each more than what I got for them when I bought the place a year ago. I sign the second lease tomorrow and they are walking with cash. 

I love this business. What else would have me writing this after 1am when I just spent a day painting and changing ceiling fans?

So I've seen where people have had mixed luck with pulling labor off of Craigs, but has anyone tried subbing off of Porch.com with any better results?

My Craigs experiences have all been good so far, considering I am in SFL, but the last handyman I used regularly that was excellent no longer has a working number. I ended up doing my last rental unit turnover myself with the help of my brother, which was a lot more than I wanted to do but we got it done. 

I haven't started talking to banks just yet. Just wanted to know what some experiences were and what I'm walking into before I started making calls.

It's been some years since I was a tenant so I haven't run the numbers long term but once it makes fiscal sense I am open to anything. The problem I have right now is that with my family size, rental costs are around what I pay for a mortgage today. I'm sure my realtor can get me a deal though, she's really good at that.

The wife and I are expecting a new addition to our family next year and we're already out of room in our current townhouse. I haven't had to purchase a primary residence in quite a while. The current house was bought pre-construction near the end of the last boom and we took our lumps like everyone else but were able to refi under HARP2 a few years ago. The place is still underwater though and my DTI is a little high since I have concentrated on building up the rental units over the years.

So I'm putting this out there to see what others are seeing these days in terms of qualifications for an owner occupied mortgage. I do have most of what I think I need, a FICO over 800, 6 months reserves on all my places and well documented income on my tax returns from my primary job and rental units. My DTI as I sad is a little high (around 45% by my calculations) as I'm carrying 3 mortgages right now, with my current primary being the largest.

I was considering renting out my current home and renting a place for a year or so to offset the current mortgage and potentially make it easier to qualify for another loan. Any advice or experiences that could be shared would be appreciated.

Good find man. I might grab a few of those for the house. I'm still waiting for the duplex socket outlets with USB to drop in price so I can pick them up for the rentals.

I honestly don't know if that would be kosher. I have a really good agent who handles all the communications and can push the pile if things get backlogged. I looked at quite a few properties before buying but that was the only one that provided a prospectus with that level of detail. 

The seller's agent specialized in Hollywood so he had a template for all his properties listed there and did that as a service for all his clients. If I didn't already have a great agent, I would have worked with him.

You can get the cost per door by dividing the selling price by the number of units. 

When I bought my multifam I was lucky and got a sales prospectus prepared by the seller's agent that included nearby comps, tax info, rent roll as well as a breakdown of the annual expenses. I did my due diligence and confirmed those figures on my own as well as asked my realtor for her own comps before making my offer on the building. The sales prospectus as well as my own research helped the loan process a bit as I was able to supply evidence to my broker of the income of the property to get the loan. 

I was also able to use those figures as a starting point to negotiate with new vendors to reduce the annual expenses once I closed on the property.