All Forum Posts by: Corey Dulimba

Hello!

I'm working on getting my first rental property and have an offer out currently. I'm thinking about the leasing process and how to tackle it. Originally I was just going to DIY it but, now I'm thinking of paying a property manager to do a one time lease. I plan on doing the property management long term for the property.

The pros for the one time lease is less work for us, especially the driving back and forth to the property for showings ~30min each way, and the expertise since I've never done this before. The con is the 70% 1 month rent cost but, if they can get a good tenant that will stay for more than a year I'm happy to pay that. The other thing I've been thinking about is the old saying "no one cares more about your money/investments more than you" - would I get better results doing it myself?

I would love to hear people success or failures on either approaches or considerations that I should take.

If I were to do DIY what are the sites people use for listing? Are there any big ones I'm missing below or ones not worth it? This is my current list:

- Cozy.co: syndicates to Realtor.com and Doorsteps.com (I would also use Cozy.co for rental application and tenant screening)

- Zillow Rental manager: Syndicates to Zillow, Trulia, and HotPads.

- Padmapper

- apartments.com: syndicates forrent.com, apartmentfinder.com, apartmenthomeliving.com, apartamentos.com

thanks for the add'l information @Steve R.

@Shuang W. and/or @Steve R. can you tell us what you are considering cashflow? I'm currently only seeing the ability to cashflow (after all expenses and mortgage) when houses are around $200k and managing that on my own and still only getting $100 or less. Would like to hear how ya'll are doing this at higher price points for houses. thanks!

Thanks everyone for your comments. I know SFH don't have the best cashflow but was hoping to get at least $100 a month. I know this is going to be tough in Austin. I was planning on my putting 25%. I keep on hearing about multi family homes cash flowing more so will definitely look into this more.

I live in Austin, TX which has high property taxes, currently 2.19%. I'm working on my first deal and started thinking about property taxes through the years. I'm looking at purchasing ~$200k SFH for long term buy and hold, typically these houses with the county are under valued so its not uncommon for the appraisal value every year to increase by 10%, or more, if there are not covered under homestead while the property is appreciating at an ~4% rate. This would kill my already minimal cashflow if every year they increase this much.

I can protest the appraisal and I have done that with my primary home and will plan to do so with my rental. I know I can write off the property tax but even with the write off its still a considerable amount of $ out of pocket every year that will continue to grow. I can increase the rent yearly but know I won't be able to increase it by 10% every year.

I wonder if there are other strategies to minimize an ever growing property tax bill or peoples general thoughts on how property taxes long term fit into their long term buy and hold strategy. thanks!