All Forum Posts by: Dale K Poyser

@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!

Popular locks for AirBnB or remote management are the Schlage Encode Plus.

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

Yelp is a good source because it lets you read reviews of actual customers. Start with a contractor that has a lot of 5 star reviews.

You can join some facebook groups and network with investors in your area. Nothing like word of mouth referrals.

Either way you definitely want a way to check/verify their work before hiring them. Maybe start with some smaller jobs before going all in.

Depends on your goals and the current market. There are opportunities out there but some strategies are risky. 

1 - Airbnb (STR) comes to mind - very competitive, very saturated and becoming highly regulated.

2 - Most STRs are transitioning to MTR so that market will be saturated soon if it isn't already.

3 - Insurance crisis in florida is getting bad so those costs will eat up cashflow and short term appreciation. Also Condos are dealing with high special assessments. I would say the real estate market in Florida is Risky.

4 - If you follow the navigation and growth trends you might be able to get ahead of the next opportunity wave. I have heard good things about Ohio, Indiana, etc.

5 - Due to high interest rates flipping has become highly risky and most businesses have dried up.

6 - Co-living and Assisted living seems to be popular right now.

So - really depends on your market, your strategy, and your timeline. But, opportunities are out there. It's always good to invest when there is worry and uncertainty.

Do you mean Home Equity Loan? Would help if you stated what questions you had so people could reply right away.

I have knowledge on HELOANs but not direct experience. I opted to go the HELOC route instead. But I could probably (and will try to) answer your question.

It's not necessary to pay for coaching programs, but that absolutely helps to FastTrack the process. The major downside is you'll have to filter through a few scammers and fake gurus.

I recommend (on your own) doing as much research and legwork as you can. This will allow you to make more informed decisions,  as well as bring some value when networking for relationships.  

Don't focus on getting a mentor for now. Focus more on "being of value" to those you meet. As you focus on what you can do for others  opportunities will present themselves to you.

For networking try the biggerpockets Facebook groups , try meetup.com, the real estate rookie Facebook groups and any wholesaling groups you can find. Be present and participate. 

Read books, have conversations and after a while you will understand how the more successful wholesalers conduct their business.  

After a while you can quickly determine if and what wholesaling programs are right for you.

Good luck.

@Ashley Guerra I think @Andrew Kiel makes some great points. Based on what you are saying I think a SFH might be your best bet. I would be curious to see how your numbers would look if you got a 3/2 and househacked (roommates) or continued to live with your parents while you turned that place into a MTR.

I think starting out, you should def do what works for you. Buy places in nice areas because those also tend to weather downturns better.