All Forum Posts by: Dale K Poyser

@Dave Spooner does Innago do expense tracking, tenant screening (credit, criminal, eviction), showing of the property? 

There are several strategies you could do (traditional and non-traditional) based on your current circumstances.

You should take time to understand a few strategies, and see if any resonate with your personality/investment style. Find something that fits our style, and you'll be passionate about it and can weather the inevitable storms that come. 

There will be ongoing and unexpected costs with any strategy that involves owning a property. If your income is low or very tight, this might be a stressful option for you right now. I would not advise putting your entire savings into a deal. It's always good to have reserves. Some other strategies to consider to get your feet wet.

You mentioned Fundrise as a current investment. You could also look into individual REITS. Some REITS have a monthly payout and most have quarterly payouts. 

Bird dogging - you could build your knowledge and help others find deals. For example, going to auctions, courthouses and pulling foreclosure lists. You can then offer that list to investors for a fee or equity in a partnership deal. If you get good at this and find those unicorn deals, the money WILL come. You won't even need a bank in this scenario as investors will be funding the deal themselves.

You could look into wholesaling but this is quite competitive.

You could look into tax deed or tax lien investing.

Once you have some steady income, then you can look at acquiring some properties. By then you will have enough knowledge to avoid the common pitfalls that rookies get into. 

Continue to network, ask questions and bring value to the communities you are in. Eventually it will click, and the path will be clear. Good luck!

Remember - you need one of three things to be successful in investing. 1)Time 2)Knowledge 3) Money.

@Tanner King check out this article on biggerpockets

https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-how-to-expone...

Also, just finished reading the book "The Self Managing Landlord" by Amelia McGee and Grace Gudenkauf. It was pretty good and I recommend that as well. If anything, it will allow you to better manage your PMs or ask better questions.

Lastly - tThere are different levels of property management. Some investors only use them for placing tenants. Some use them for occasional maintenance and inspections. Figure out how much you can or want to do, and what you don't want to do.

Depends on your investment strategy. 

1 - BRRRR

2 - Wholesale

3 - Buy and hold

4 - Short term rental

5 - Midterm rental

Do some research and once you have some more specifics then the community can help you determine the team you need, and how to find them.

This is common, when you initially list a property the interest is at it's highest for the first week or so then it wanes after that. Couple things you can try to keep it fresh in the queue and listings.

1 - Update the price (could be higher or lower)

2 - Update the description

3 - Add 3D view or professional pictures

4 - check the comps for similar properties to make sure you're competitively or fairly priced.

Updates causes your property to be seen as a fresh listing which moves it to the top of the "most recent" listings.

@Abriauna Garcia Here are some suggestions

1 - Start with a budget. Look at what you have coming in vs going out. Determine how much you can comfortably afford to pay for housing. Note, you will always qualify for more than you can comfortably afford.

2 - From the budget, you'll have your housing "number". Work backwards from there to figure out how much house you can afford. For example, if you can afford $2800/mo at todays interest rate, with 10% down that is a $430k house. 

3 - New construction incentives are really big right now. Some builders are offering interest rates as low as 3% which means you can afford more house for that $2,800.

4 - Start researching different cities on Zillow, redfin, etc. to see if there are houses you like in that price range. This exercise will give you ideas of neighborhoods and what price points are fair.

5 - Determine your acquisition strategy. There are many strategies you can look into. Determine if you want to put money down (and how much) which would lower your monthly payment.

6 - Look into strategies like 1) Lease Option 2) Assumable mortgages 3) Subto 4) Bank statement loans 5) Seller financing 6) live and flip 7) tax lien, tax deed, auction investing.

Good luck feel free to message me if you have specific questions on anything I wrote above. 

Quote from @Sundar Sritharan:

Thanks so much for the guidance—I really appreciate the insights!

To clarify, my contract does state that repairs under $500 do not require owner approval—but this is specifically for repairs, not estimates or optional services like duct cleaning.

In this case, my tenant requested a duct cleaning, and I asked Mynd for a quote. They provided an extremely high estimate, which I rejected.

Since I declined the quote for a valid reason, Mynd still charged me $100—stating:

“The vendor provided an estimate, but their estimate was declined, so they billed for the trip fee.”

To validate this, I personally contacted the HVAC vendor, and they confirmed that a site visit was not required for a duct cleaning estimate. They could have provided it over the phone if given the number of vents in the home.

This raises a serious concern: Why did Mynd authorize an on-site visit when it was completely unnecessary?

I take responsibility for reviewing my contract, but this situation seems like an avoidable and unjustified charge rather than a misunderstanding of the terms. Curious to hear thoughts from others—has anyone experienced similar issues?

Thank you for sharing your experience. Was considering MYND, but not anymore. If you feel they are being deceptive, or  shady I would encourage you to review what your contract says about cancelling, and get a fresh start with a new PM. Alternatively you can set your threshold to something like $100 if the arrangement allows it. 

This is your investment, do what you need to do to get the right team in place.

Can't ignore the fact that CA is not landlord friendly. Also, from a budgetary standpoint 3.5% down means a sizeable mortgage payment that most cannot afford. One bad tenant or setback and most are looking at a foreclosure or a never ending cycle of bad tenants because they're struggling with holding costs.

Each angle has risks and benefits

OOS - low barrier to entry and able to better absorb those newbie lessons

Local in CA - notoriously bad for businesses and landlords, high barrier to entry.

Some do very well with OOS investing and some do well locally.

Send a certified letter to the PM so you know (and have proof) it was delivered. Once you know it is delivered, you should also follow up with an email and text. The same way you communicated when you gave them control of the property, should be sufficient to give notice now.

It sounds like you have not received 2 months of rents, is that accurate? Pretty sure that is grounds for legal action against the PM. If the new PM company is unable to help you navigate this, you might need to look for a different PM. A good PM company should know the ins and outs of situations like these. They should at minimum be able to point you to a resource that can help. 

People switch PMs all the time so this should not be this complicated. And if this current company is doing this, look into reporting him AND taking legal action asap. I would hope he/she values their reputation and future business more than a couple months rent on two properties.

Don't despair, there is a path forward out of this. You will laugh about this in a couple years.

Good luck!

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Just be aware you have to change the batteries about every 6months.