All Forum Posts by: Dave Poeppelmeier

An even easier solution is Grandma can still sell the house herself, they will just send a mobile notary to her house in Montana for the closing paperwork, deed, etc. Easy peasy. Let the Grandson and Grandma sort out their arrangements on who gets what money. Great find on the off market house!

Personally, I do NOT rent by the room. For a 4 bedroom house, now you have 4 leases. Now you have to evict one kid, how do you get them out and another kid in halfway through the year? It's just a big pain in the butt and I don't feel it's worth the little bit of extra money. 

For students, it's easiest to rent to groups of students that know each other already. Have them on one lease with cosigners and you usually don't have to worry about much, and you run it like a regular rental. There's more hand holding, especially up front with getting them the utility information to make sure they actually turn on utilities. 

@Mordy Chaimovitz to answer more of your questions, if you rent to groups it's generally assumed that the house isn't furnished. International students will be looking for furnished places, and you can do that and charge a premium, but if you're going to do that you need to make sure the school has a large international enrollment. Regarding legal, make sure that the school doesn't have any kind of say in the residential housing market (small college towns this is very possible) and that your renters are courteous to the neighbors, mow the lawn, etc, and you shouldn't have many problems. Good luck! 

Yep, 1st month rent is very typical. Even as a Property Management company, we pay our leasing agent 1/2 the rent, and the other 1/2 goes towards our marketing, admin, etc. Was she doing the marketing aspect as well? 

If it's 50/50, you're still going to want to consider marketing to students. Are students living there because of the lower rent rates compared to "student housing" close to the University? If there isn't much option because it's a small town, consider raising your rents to match inflation/student demand. 

Student housing is nowhere near dead. You definitely need to know what you're doing, and every campus is different. Although enrollment is down in many campuses across the country, it's bound to come back (at least somewhat) with the Covid lockdowns dissipating. Where I invest, the University of Toledo, enrollment was down to 13,000 undergraduates this year from 20,000 prior to the pandemic. Like people above have stated, the big boys have build a couple fancy apartment complexes around campus, in addition to the old run down legacy apartments. The rent for the fancy buildings can be $600-900 per person, and the old legacy buildings is still $500-700 per person. With that being said, there is still room for single family houses as a much more affordable option. A 4 bedroom SFH rents for $1200-1400/mo, which is only $300-350 per person, with a lot more space than the apartments. I have 19 houses/20 units, and 14 were turning over this year, which was a little nerve racking. Even with all of the headwinds mentioned above, I only have 1 unit left to rent out for next year, with our rental season going through May, and almost every unit is students. Even though Blackstone is jumping into the Student Housing market, I would assume they're going to go for scale with the apartments. But, the demand for the SFH in Student Housing is also getting much more competitive as well, as other investors are seeing the same things Blackstone is and prices for SFH is going through the roof. If you plan on getting into Student Housing, you absolutely need to know the specific market you're getting into, as they are all completely different regarding rental seasons, regulations, rent rates, etc.

@Niko Nomura, you are definitely on the right track with your thinking. However, I would echo @Brenden Mitchum's remarks and don't rush into it. $12,500 for a down payment unfortunately is next to nothing in most markets, and what you're going to get for $50k is going to need a lot of work most anywhere. You're going to need money to fix the house up, and with an FHA loan most sellers aren't willing to make those types of repairs in this market where cash is flying everywhere and Conventional loans are going 20% over list price and more. I'm not trying to dissuade you, but that's the reality of this current market. But again, you're 19 years old and have a LOT of time in front of you. We all wish we were thinking about RE when we were 19! What are you going to school for? Do you have a passion for it? If you do, then study hard and get good at your profession, so you can start to bring in money to invest when you graduate. While you have your job, you can still network wherever you live and/or in the market you want to invest in, and follow all of the hundreds of threads here on BP about having RE be your "side hustle".

The other track to think about is if you're not truly passionate about what you're going to school for and Real Estate is "it" for you, then either go into some kind of business or finance program (or even a Real Estate degree, some schools have them). Or, if you have financial help from family and can pull it off, go into RE full time as a Realtor/Professional Investor. Then you can dedicate everything you have to finding off market deals, fining people with money to invest, etc. But if you do that, you are going to have to work your absolute butt off for a few years before you really see significant progress. 

But first and foremost, enjoy your time in college. Again, you're 19, so enjoy the thing you can do while you're 19 and not 39. RE will always be here, youth and college shenanigans won't. Good luck to you!

At some point, you have to jump in. If you've been reading a lot on the basics, then start to find your team. If you can start local, you have a head start because you already know your area. Find a RE agent that is an investor THEMSELVES. Anyone will tell you "I do investment properties!", but you want someone who has not just one or two. They should be able to introduce you to lenders, attorneys, insurance agents, etc. If you can't do that because you live in a crazy high priced area, reach out on here to people in the area you want to invest in, primarily PM companies and RE agents in the market you want to invest in. Regarding your reading, that's great, but start to shift to books that develop your mindset. You can only read about how to invest in RE so many times before everyone is saying the same thing. The biggest shift in becoming an investor isn't having property, it's thinking in terms of it's your business, and having that business mindset and attitude. Good luck!

@Jason Nguyen Interest rates are simply another factor in the equation. If you're looking at AirBnb, then you plug whatever the rate you're approved for in, and there you go. I simply use the BP Calculators still, because I don't feel like recreating the wheel. Just be sure you have all your numbers: STR PM can be pretty expensive, so be sure to know what costs are there. Also, rent rates are more than keeping up with the purchase prices, so if you want to still look at LTR, just be sure you know what your updated rents are in the area, and you can still cash flow.

Great articles @Andrew Syrios. I would add that each school has it's own culture of rentals and how things work. Wherever you choose, preferably the school in the area you live, you have to find out how things work. Do students look for houses in the fall or spring for next year? What is the average rental rate for a nice/average/dump property? Bedrooms and bathrooms absolutely make a difference. The more bedrooms you have, you HAVE to have the bathrooms to back it up. You can imagine the traffic jam if you have a 4 bedroom house and only 1 bathroom, especially if girls are living in the house (sorry ladies, you know it's true). 

Otherwise, to answer some more of your questions, yes you will have more turnover, but if you have a nice house, you can get students to live there 2-3+ years, especially if they stay for grad school. I've never had a student rental not rent out for the next year, so for vacancy rates I simply put 4% for the 2 weeks it's empty every year while it gets turned over. Regarding students trashing houses, as long as you set the expectations up front, it really helps. I've never had students trash a house (regular renters, definitely another story) as long as you take care of them and they know their parents are cosigners that will rain destruction upon them if they screw up. I wouldn't say they appreciate faster, but their values as rentals will be higher overall because of the higher rents. 

Washington Local is the weirdest school district boundary ever! It snakes it's way though neighborhoods in Point Place (43611) and West Toledo (43612, 43613). If you see a listing that says Washington Local and it is close to the borders, go to the school's web page to double check to see if it is in the district. https://www.wls4kids.org/MapsS...