All Forum Posts by: Cory M.

Quote from @Robin Simon:

Do you own your primary residence overseas or have you owned a primary residence prior to going abroad? That might be the biggest hurdle - but otherwise, I'd check out "DSCR Loans" which are the perfect option for people like you looking to buy rental properties w/o W2 or DTI

We don't own any other properties other than the investment property we just purchased. We rented prior to moving overseas. For US government purposes, our legal residence is a family member's home where we stay when we are in the US.

Thanks for the DSCR info. I'll take a look.

I'm an American living and working overseas. My job has steady income, but no W2s and no pay stubs. I recently bought my first investment property with a conventional loan, but the lack of W2s and living overseas made it a bigger hassle. Are there any simpler loan options I should research as I start thinking about our next property?

Quote from @Heath Sizick:

This is a job for a handyman not a plumber. The licensed plumber will charge more. Do you know if your PM upcharges on all maintenance repairs? Many PM companies make money via maintenance upcharges. I would avoid these companies!

So, our PM company charges a sliding scale of between 5-20% based on the size of the repair (more expensive means they charge less as a percentage.) One issue I've uncovered in this is that they also add a $75 "admin fee" in addition to the percentage based "supervisory fee." I'm working to get to fully understand what makes up their maintenance fees (this is our first repair). But it hasn't been easy to figure it out so far.

Good news. I got the property manager on the phone. It was mistakenly charged as if they had done each task as a different trip, rather than all of them in one trip. The cost should be getting reduced significantly.

Quote from @John Morgan:

@Cory M.

I’d ask them for a break down. They shouldn’t be charging you over $300/hour for labor. $150 should have covered all this. You got ripped off big time.

That's kind of the feeling I got when I saw it. I just wanted to double check before I escalated things.

I just got billed $365 by my property manager for replacing a toilet fill valve and supply line. That seems a bit high to me, but I figured I should check before I get too upset about it. Does anyone local to Memphis know what the going rate for simple repairs like that should be? 

Checking Home Depot, it looks like parts would be $30 or less. That leaves $335 for labor and the property manager's fees. Is it reasonable for me to ask the property manager for a breakdown of parts/labor costs?

Hey Arron, I'm sorry for your negative experience! Can I ask if you've been using a property manager and what circumstances led to the properties being mostly vacant? One way to turn these properties around might just be to get them tenanted with a good manager in place.

@Kevin Siedlecki Sorry I'm late in responding. We were on the waiting list with MidSouth Home Buyers. That was taking a while so we started looking on our own with the help of CrestCore Realty and are now under contract to buy a house. That meant having to do more work, but I think it will be a more profitable deal in the long term. It looks like we'll walk into the deal with about $20k of equity and the house already has a tenant.

It probably depends somewhat on your total financial situation. If you have a super high net worth or income, perhaps your reserves could be lower. Or vice versa.

I'm about to purchase my first property (single family home). It is already leased and cashflowing, all new major systems except the roof which is 4 years old. I plan to start with about $5,000 in reserves and save up to around $10,000 over time.

@Joseph Bui @Clare Pitcher We're planning for our first deal to be in Memphis. But we're pretty open to other places long-term.