All Forum Posts by: Dave Poeppelmeier

Quote from @Mike Donovan:

Found this thread as I am researching Landlord insurance as it relates to student housing.  I inherited students when acquiring the property.  New occupants will be coming soon, but in a 3 family, i have set of excellent student tenants that renewed.

That said, many landlord insurance policies have exclusions for students, so I am trying to gather info on updating a policy to consider the fact that the building is only going to be 33% student occupied.  This property is in the area of Brown University in Rhode Island.  Thank you for any input!

I use Safeco for my student rentals. They have no questions about Students in their underwriting. I hope that helps!

Hi Jenna, welcome to Real Estate Investing! I'm an investor and Realtor in Toledo, and yes, it's a solid cash flow market up here, but I will echo what others have said and why not invest in Dayton? From what I have heard, Dayton is a similar market, and you will ALWAYS save money by investing locally by not needing to hire a Property Manager (yet). You can manage your own properties, which I think you need to do as a new investor to learn what it actually takes to run a cash flowing property. I would find a Realtor there who is an Investor themselves so they can help you identify properties that will work as an investment, not as a commission check for themselves. Let me know if you have any other questions, and best of luck to you!

Quote from @Phillip Dakhnovets:

Hello, my friends,

My name is Phillip Dakhnovets, and I have recently moved with my family to the Toledo, Ohio, area. We are absolutely in love with the amazing park system, the beautiful Maumee River, and the local hospitality.

In my real estate investing career, I have been fortunate to visit and analyze properties all around the country. Like most people on this site, I opened Zillow and selected the greater Toledo area as soon as I knew we were moving here. Over the past couple of months, I drove all around the city to see firsthand how good the deals really were, and here is what I learned:

Toledo has a LOT of investment property deals. I thought the 1% rule properties were all gone—but not in Toledo. The city has a great infrastructure and a strong manufacturing presence. People are hardworking and resilient. There’s tons of inventory at realistic prices. From my experience, these factors are the secret sauce for a long-term growth investor.

My family absolutely loves the city, and we are fortunate to call it home. We look forward to growing in the area and connecting with the real estate community. Please shoot me a PM if you would like to chat or just say hi.

All the best,

Phillip Dakhnovets

Guardian Property Management & Maintenance

Hi Phillip, welcome to Toledo. I'm glad that you and your family love the city, and you're correct in that you can find 1% deals here easily. 

However, you know that you need to be a licensed Real Estate Broker to be a Property Manager in Ohio, right? Your business name doesn't show up in Ohio's records either. If you're going to be a property manager here in Toledo, do it right please. There's plenty of yahoos running around saying they do PM, then flake out putting their clients in a bad situation. Best of luck to you. 

My thought is do what you have to do brother... We started out by raiding my 401k, including the penalty, because we didn't have a lot of money available to us. We started one house at a time, and had to roll the dice a few times, but it turned up pretty good for the most part. 

Having that HELOC available to you is a fantastic tool, you just have to use it appropriately. Do you have W2 income to pay it back? Don't think that when you get a bunch of properties that they are going to pay it back for you right away. If you use a HELOC, I would think about a BRRRR-ish strategy (No perfect BRRRR exists right now unless you go full off-market door knocking/postcard campaign/etc) to where you can refinance and get some of that money back, so you don't have $25k chunks of money at a 9-10% interest rate floating out there indefinitely. But again, it's a great tool to have in your toolbelt in case something pops up that's fantastic and you have to move on. Cash is always King, and a HELOC is basically cash. Get into the property with cash and refinance on the back end with a commercial loan that doesn't require a 12-18 month seasoning period. Just some thoughts for you, best of luck!

Just know about Section 8 here in Toledo... We have a city ordinance that makes income source a protected class, aka you can't say No Section 8, but it also means you can't say ONLY Section 8. IMO, Section 8 is a solid option here as they have closed the waiting list for a voucher, but you have to have a PM that knows how to navigate it. Just like the Due On Sale clause, is a bank going to chase you down because the property is now in an LLC? Not likely, but possible. Same thing here with discriminating against a private pay applicant because they're not government guaranteed income. Just something to think about. *Here's my disclaimer I'm not an attorney, yada yada yada*

Quote from @Anthony Roberts:

Hello BP Family,

I'm new to BP [first post] and really new to the Toledo Market.  I have purchased and renovated a couple of SFHs and am having some difficulties finding good tenants. Any processes to share and/or tips/recommendations?  

Thanks,

Ant. 

Hi Anthony, are you local and managing yourself or out of town? If you're out of town, then yes, you need a good PM. Shameless plug for LaPlante, reach out to @Andrew Fidler for more info on what we do, which is everything. 

If you're local and managing yourself, it's a great way to learn the entire rental process: acquisition, renovation, leasing, management, turnover. But, it also depends on where your properties are. If they're in D class neighborhoods (or even lower C class as well), then your options are pretty limited. You can't make a filet mignon with ground chuck beef if that makes sense. To get a better pool of potential renters for you properties, you have to be in areas where they are going to want to live. You also need to have an above average house for the neighborhood to give them.

If you're leasing yourself, you really can't go too wrong with Zillow. I would stay away from Facebook Marketplace, it was a crap show the couple times I threw a house up there, but that's just me. 

Bottom line is that it's a learning process. You'll figure out what works best for you, but be ready to learn the hard way along the way. Best of luck to you. 

Quote from @Eric Stewart:

Thank you everyone for your insight and help. 
Wasn’t a great first start but I will take what I learned and apply it to my future properties. 

Sorry to hear about having a lousy resident right out of the gates. If they just didn't pay the rent and left you with a big water bill and nothing much else, you got off pretty easily. Here is what I would say: pay the bill and move on. Is hours and hours of hoop jumping, paying attorneys to garnish their wages (if you have their SSN and whatnot from their application) worth $2k? For me it would be no. Time and emotional energy are some of your most valuable resources. I would just chalk this up to a learning experience and move on. Besides, the harsh reality of investing is it's going to take a few to several properties before they start to stand on their own and you don't have to keep pumping personal money into your business. Just don't let something like this knock you out of the race. 

However, what I do to avoid this is I have all of my properties on autopay, and I make the water bill part of the rent. Rent and water are due on the 1st. If they pay rent and not water, guess what? Late fees and the 3-day process start. Do I collect every cent of the water bills with move in/outs and whatnot? No, but it's worth my sanity and not having to deal with the big water bill situation you're dealing with now. Just my two cents. Best of luck to you. 

Quote from @Greg Scott:

Toledo has been losing population steadily since 1970, so it will be much harder to find a "good" area to invest.  I'd look for areas on the outskirts where development has been happening.

Well, it appears that the population of the entire Metro area is doing just fine.

The housing market and rents continue to be very strong in the C class areas and up in Toledo proper, and quite hot in the surrounding suburbs. Our economy is doing very well and Toledo has a very rental-heavy housing culture. @Aaron Maxwell I'd be happy to discuss the positives of investing in Toledo and the local market here.

Quote from @Will Gaston:

@Christos Kappatos 

I'm 100% serious:

Lowest expectations wins in college students.

Can't assume they'll read the lease, follow the lease, etc.

(Remember some of them had braces 2-3 years ago)

Their college housing is part of their learning experience. They need a wide berth.

But, the good part is that we have a blank slate to work with. We can teach them how to live in a house the right way and help them with the bumpy road of turning into a functioning member of society. 😆

Quote from @Christos Kappatos:

Quote from @Dave Poeppelmeier:

Quote from @Christos Kappatos:

I just listed my property! (On Zillow) Have had a lot of interest (staying very competitive with the market rents) but sooo many people seem to never read the darn post! 
I have clearly mentioned a few times that all parties need to submit an application that must be approved before any showings can happen but people keep requesting showings 😐. Any tips to mitigate this for student rentals, or is it part of the game? 

LOLOLOLOLOL, welcome to Student Rentals my friend. No, Zillow is a crap show but a necessary evil. I literally do the same thing: I don't waste my time showing someone a house that they're not going to qualify for, if they even show up for the showing. People see a pretty house (or any house) and simply click the "Schedule a showing" or "Request an application" box. I even have "NOT AVAILABLE UNTIL AUGUST 1ST" as the first sentence in the description. Can people do an application online somewhere on your website or PM software? I also stopped taking Zillow applications. Just fill out your Saved Reply, send it to every person who inquires so you stay good with Fair Housing, and the ones that are truly interested (and have a prayer at qualifying) will fill out the application and pay the fee. Best of luck, and no you're not going crazy. 😉

 haha, thanks Dave. It's crazy how many people just don't READ! Your saved reply, is it just a list of questions, or do you link them to a separate application process?

Also, I have a few applicants who live in student housing. I have never had to call student housing to verify their previous residence. Is that the same as calling any other apartment or landlord? 

I have a separate website that I send them to where I have all of the *same* info, pics, and a video walkthrough of the property. Zillow won't let you post any external links in the listing, but I send them a copy of the video in that message as well. Once people have to read the move in date, that eliminates 98% of people right there, and the others usually start to fill out the application on my website at that point. Regarding verifying living in the dorms, I've never done that, but I also have nicer houses that cost a smidge more and require cosigners, so that weeds out the party animals for the most part.