All Forum Posts by: Daniel P.

Hello!

I'm sure this has been posted before, but I wasn't able to find anything semi-recent. We are closing on a corner lot single family in a few weeks with a detached garage about 240 sq. ft. and hoping to expand it into a single bedroom ADU. I'm curious if anyone is able to share their experiences in building a detached ADU, have any recommended contractors/engineers/etc., and wouldn't mind sharing costs they've seen with this type of project.

Any thoughts, insight, or experiences would be amazing. I've read past posts and would love to continue adding to what I've already absorbed. I can share my contact information with anyone more interested in a phone call than an exchange over BP.

Thanks in advance, stay safe, and be careful out there!

- Daniel

Hey Steve - Curious if you made a decision on which direction to take? I'm looking to an ADU build and trying to collect information, experiences, recommendations, etc.

Thanks!

Hi there Benjamin. Thanks for opening the door for input. I do have a couple of ideas and suggestions for the management side of TCS.

I'll send a PM!

- Daniel

Hey Alan 

Glad you found the post helpful. I'm actually still working with TCS and have a home inspection scheduled for tomorrow afternoon for another property that's being wrapped up. This would be in addition to the properties I listed in my original post. To your answer your specific questions:

"Have you stayed with them and are you overall having a good experience?"

I'm still working with them and hope to have my latest property wrapped up within the next two weeks. The property is a 3/1.5 row home very close to a park and will be my first section-8 (see below). I opted to add a half bath to bring it inline with the comps and take advantage of the opportunity while construction is in progress. I chose not to install central air since it's not typical for the neighborhood, but I can always retrofit central air later if I wanted. We also adjusted the staircase to maximize the usable space in the living room. Aside from that the usual is applied here - new electrical and plumbing rough-ins, kitchen, bath, flooring, mechanicals, roof, etc.

As for my experience these days - I'm still pretty happy with the service, communication and updates, etc. I'm getting updates every Friday instead of Monday and work more closely with a new'ish hire to avoid the bottleneck issues I mentioned before.
I also met up w/ a couple people two weeks ago for a walk through of the property. Specific to communication, it's been much better compared to months ago since I have other people to work with instead of one primary person. 

"Are they able to consistently find you good deals?"

The deal I'm currently in should cashflow about $320. It'll be my first section-8. Why section-8? Simply because the numbers work better with it than without (Just over $300 cashflow vs $100). Achieving cashflow over $300/mth seems to be difficult these days without section-8 it seems (but I could be missing something - I definitely don't see all their properties).

From what I remember, the reason they gave was because costs of renovations and off-market values have increased significantly in 2019. Do I prefer section-8? Can't say that I do... but I'm a believer the stereotype issues of section-8 can be avoided through property vetting of tenants and making sure I get the right renters, so I do have good hopes for my first section-8. I can certainly be wrong though but we'll see!

"Are they providing good property management service?"

I would say yes. There certainly have been a few issues here and there, but nothing that's a major cause for concern. I find it easy to ask questions about tenant requests, owner distributions, insurance renewals, etc. The people I've worked with on the management side come across as people who are genuinely trying to help, so that certainly has kept me around. There are a few things I wish were done better but overall I haven't had a need or reason to search elsewhere.

I'm more than happy to share more of my experience if you have any specific questions. Feel free to PM me if you'd like to exchange contact info. Hope this was helpful.

- Daniel

 Exactly, and this applies to not only potential customer but also to Morris Invest. How can someone start a turnkey company, partner with a 3rd party wholesaler and rehabber, and then claim to "not know" of their negligence and poor results? I absolutely do not buy any of their claims that they (Morris) were unaware. Did they have no quality control process for the years they were in business? No proactive inspections to ensure their customers are receiving a quality product? This screams absolute negligence, ignorance, or intentional fraud on their part.

At the same time, I find it difficult sympathizing with anyone claiming they were duped by Morris Invest. As a turnkey investor myself, it wouldn't have been difficult to find out how their sausage is made. Some phone calls and some basic online research would have raised a number of red flags. I know some people are eager to take the easy route, and it sucks the customers are in the situation they're in. It's just hard to feel sorry at the same time.

No I haven't... I have mixed feelings about section-8 and not sure if that's something I'll do. 

Do you have any experience with it? What are your thoughts? I certainly like the aspect of clockwork payment.. and feel that maybe it carries a stigma that it doesn't deserve (maybe?? I can be wrong..).

Hey Stephen. The note on my first property has a rate of 5.25%, second is has 5.875%, and I'm about to lock a rate on my third over the next week or two so I'll let you know what that turns out to be! 

Do you mind me asking what lender you went with on your first property?

As for the rehab.. that sounds stressful but I'm glad it all got sorted out. Are you getting an inspector to review the property as the rehab comes to completion? I make sure to bring in a home inspector so I have an unbiased 3rd party person to tell me what's right and wrong with the work. I've then given the report to Josh and his team so they write their punch list using the inspectors findings.

I've used the same inspector for all three properties and can't speak highly enough of him if you're interested. I can PM you if posting that here is frowned upon.

 Hey Andre - that would be their old name before merging with TCS.

Edit: I figured this might help. I found their YouTube channel helpful for general REI and landlord tips/suggestions.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6yPudW6R9dvDNZTa4YR-jg/videos

 At the beginning, it was not bad but not great. I found a couple errors owner distributions last year - nothing that wasn't resolved within a couple days, but still something I had to catch myself. Found that a tenant with a mid-month move in date was incorrectly charged a late fee not long after moving in. This was fixed the morning I pointed it out (day after I spotted it) so that's great, but still something I had to catch.

Repairs/maintenance goes pretty smoothly. I'm notified immediately after a request is opened and we have someone on-site for the repair within a day or two, depending on urgency.

Previously, trying to communicate with specific departments wasn't easy. Had to call the main number and select the option for the department, hope someone answers, leave a voicemail, and I would typically get a call back a couple hours later. Then they hired a new owner/tenant liaison months ago and she's been my interface for everything, and the experience is *significantly* better now than before. Reaching a tenant to coordinate work I want done, asking another department a question/request, checking on the status of rent payment for a specific unit.... she's very good at keeping track of all that and getting back to me pretty quickly.

With that said, I plan to continue using them as my PM as long as they keep up what they're doing now. If things change in a negative way, this might change, but I'll take what I'm getting versus the average stories I hear about PMs around here.

As for online reviews, I remember the first time looking them up and finding the same thing. One thing I noticed about these reviews is that a good number of them belong to either a) tenants whose owners don't give a crap about their properties and don't authorize maintenance requests (or can't be reached) or b) properties they're collecting rent on, but maintenance is handled by another party. At least that's what I found when reading through them. 

Did you find the same thing when reading the reviews?

Hope this helps!

For now that's what I plan on doing but hope that won't be for long. I would prefer keeping the rates I have now, and I don't plan on having them mortgaged for the duration of the note. So my plan is to accelerate payments to shorten the life of my loans, and transfer properties over to my LLC once that happens. In the meantime I'm shopping for umbrella policies to help cover my liability.

I'm curious what kind of rates your receiving from your credit union. I live in NYC so I can't join any credit unions in PA (first thing I asked around about a while ago). I purchased my 2nd property under and LLC as well, but ended up paying transfer tax and it wasn't insignificant.

Hows the rehab going on your 2nd property?