All Forum Posts by: Cody Purcell

Managing your own long-term tenants shouldn't be too difficult as long as you've got a good handyman on call just in case.  I personally like having a property manager handle things for me but everyone's style and situation is different.

I'm not a financing expert so probably not the best person to get advise from.  I'd talk through it with your lender and get pre-approved given your present situation.  I know Kiewit will provide a letter of employment saying where your job rec is as well as how long you've been there, salary and all that good stuff.  The only thing there you might have to work through is if the job rec says "based in Arizona" and you're buying a primary residence in Omaha then you might have some explaining to do or extra paperwork to get from Kiewit.  Outside that I'd think you should be fine but again, I'd talk through it with your lender.  Rates are great at the moment though and Kiewit isn't at risk of laying anyone off so might be a decent time to be a buyer...

Hi Tyler,

So looking to buy a multi in Omaha and will use it as your primary when you come back, correct?  There are obviously a lot of variables to consider... are you looking to put long-term tenants in the other units or try your hand at the AirBnB model?  Are you looking at self-manage or have a property manager?  If your intent is to place long-term tenants and take advantage of a good property manager then it should be more or less hands off for you and the distance shouldn't be too much of a hurdle.  If you're looking to self-manage or more complicated yet, short-term rental then you'll definitely want to be confident in the team you've got in Omaha.  I also work at Kiewit and have done my share of house hacking and I have both long-term and short-term rentals.  We've actually got a place under contract in Atlanta, hoping to close in about 10 days, and I'll be splitting time between Omaha and Atlanta.  It can be done!

Just curious... are you looking to finance as a primary with a low down payment FHA? They hit me hard in underwriting and I ended up having to come up with a bigger down payment than they initially offered due to the current distress in the market. I wonder if they'd give you grief about financing an out of town primary 6-7 months prior to moving back...

Good luck!

-Cody

I'm in.  Registering now.  Thanks for the heads up Dave!

I'm not a STR host yet but something we're looking at. I haven't used this myself but another host had recommended I check out AirGMS https://www.airgms.com/ which has your multi-calendar support (think it uses iCal on the back end like @Michael Kuglersaid), plus automated messaging and supports multiple accounts among other things.  Could be worth a look.

Looks great!  Do you have other short-term rental experience prior to this property or are you just getting started?  I haven't really considered AirBnB as an investment strategy here in Omaha before so I'm curious to see how things play out for you.  Keep up the good work!  

@Owen Dashner  @Matthew Watson  I echo what Matthew said about Google Voice.  I've been a GV fan since it launched and while there were a few years there where it looked like Google was going to stop supporting it, they've been keeping it up to date the last couple years.  I personally use it on my cell phone but I've also got it set up to ring to a "real" phone in my home office so I can use that speakerphone and headset if I so desire.  

If you're going to have multiple people handling leads, I recommend using a good CRM program to track everything.  A spreadsheet can work if you've got a good system in place but using an application like insightly will be a big help.

-Cody

-Hello Jenessa!  We've got a decent start but now that we've burned most of our investing capital it's getting interesting.  As far as our next goal... I've got alerts set up through my agent so I analyze every property within the given criteria and if/when one jumps out I'll go take a look and possibly make an offer.  We're also looking for that perfect 4 unit house hack if that opportunity ever comes up.

-Thanks for the tip Matthew!  I'll definitely drop into Collin's meetup and check it out.  I'll probably see you there in a few weeks!  

Hello world,

My name is Cody Purcell and I've been a BP consumer for years but as I'm sitting here, home sick with the flu, it dawned on me that I've never gotten around to setting up my BP profile.  There's no excuse really... I'm actively investing, I enjoy meeting people and I KNOW that BP is a great place to network and develop relationships... so I guess now is the best time to get started.

My wife Stephanie and I got serious about investing in mid 2016 and so far we've acquired four rental units in Omaha. Our first was a duplex in Midtown we picked up in late 2016. I was fortunate enough to get an off-market deal through a friend of mine that is with NE Realty (if you're looking for someone I'll give you his info, just DM me). Then last winter we purchased a new primary residence in Millard and put a tenant in our previous home near Lake Cunningham. The numbers on the home we left met our investing criteria so we decided to keep it in our portfolio. We also have some equity in it and a HELOC that we leverage for additional investments. The home we're in now was a real fixer and our strategy is to live here until we finish renovating it and then we'll either have the option to flip it and roll the equity to something else or keep it in our portfolio and do a cash out refinance. The other property we acquired last year was a FSBO where I had met the seller through my property management company. That property is a few blocks East of Benson which isn't a neighborhood I was pursuing but it was fully renovated and the numbers were excellent so we bought it. I know, I know... you're thinking I was tricked by the cash flow potential and that I'll regret investing outside of my target areas. I reviewed the last 4 years of the properties performance with the seller, thought it through and since I have high confidence in the screening and administration of my property manager we figured it'd be worth it. It's been less than a year but so far so good...

Our next step is to finish renovating the property we're living in now and then either repeat with a new fixer or, better yet, purchase a built for purpose 4-unit property and live in it for a year or so.  Unfortunately, those seem to be few and far between in Omaha.  We're also still looking at other single family properties to outright add to our portfolio.  Mostly in Midtown/Dundee but we're open to other areas that are headed in the right direction.

If you're in Omaha, I'm happy to meet up for happy hour or coffee sometime. 

Thanks for reading my post and have a prosperous 2018!

Cody Purcell