All Forum Posts by: Don Chambers

Please take my real estate investing survey.

It's only 3 questions and it's anonymous.

If I get enough responses I'll use them for an article.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/S6R8J6P

@Reed Rickenbach I never take money out so I guess I do hold that back. Over 6 years my expenses are about 41% of the rent, and they were 39% last year. I had to get 7 roofs 4 hvac units and 2 houses had to have the pipes to the road replaced.

When I sold some houses a broker told me that the industry average is 40%, which is what prompted me to check. For the blog, I found an academic paper that says the same thing - about 40%.

I purposely made a basic looking site. I was going for a design like investopedia. But now I think its too bland and I'll eventually change it up.

Thanks for the input.

After an 11-year hiatus, I am resurrecting my blog about my adventures in real estate investing. I'm not a writer but a small-time investor with 70 rentals. It's free. I'm not going to try to sell you anything.

At this point, it's mainly targeting rentals, but I'll eventually expand it. I am never going to add anything that I don't do. In some posts, I share actual data from my books.

Please critique it. 

Is my approach or investing advice wrong?

It's called The Real Estate Adventurer, and I can take negative comments (I hope). 

I looking for opinions about software to manage my properties. I've read several posts, buy a lot are old and features change.

I've been using QuickBooks but I think I'm outgrowing it. I'm over 70 properties now,and continuing to purchase.

My accountant recommended AppFolio, and an attorney suggested yardi. I don't think either of them has actual experience with the products.

I need it to handle all the accounting and replace quickbooks, unless it has an automated QB integration.

I own the houses so it's more than property management. I need to track depreciation, loans, and all tax data for both ownership and property management.

I also need integration with bank accounts and credit card companies. I have a lot of transactions and don't need to do this manually.

I'm also interested in your experience with data migration. I have a lot of data to move from QB. I don't want to start over tracking metrics from scratch.

Any advice?

Is anyone doing their own SEO and AdWords?

I would like to discuss some strategies with people I don't compete with.

I am looking into buying my first property at a tax sale.  This is a tax deed sale in Georgia with a 1 year right of redemption.  I am an experienced investor, I'm familiar with the laws, and I have an attorney helping with the process.  My goal is to acquire properties to add to my rental portfolio.

If the property is redeemed, I will get what I paid plus 20%, plus any additional taxes paid.  I expect to pay very little, so the 20% will only be a few hundred dollars.  This means if I do anything to the property I run the risk of not recouping the cost.    I will need to neglect the property, no cutting the grass, no insurance, etc.   I am sure the city will send me letters for not cutting the grass, and maybe fine me or put another lien on the house.  What if someone is injured an sues me?


How are you handling the holding period when you buy at a tax deed sale?

Also, any gotchas I may have overlooked?

I have a manager that works for me for a small base salary and a percentage of rents and flip profits. The pay structure aligns their incentives with mine. This year I would like to hire a handyman to reduce and stabilize costs. I have been using contractors and usually have them to include materials so I don't have a good breakdown on labor costs.

I have 66 rentals and do 2 or 3 flips a year. I want to hire a handyman to do maintenance calls and get houses ready between tenants. I can't figure out how to pay the handyman. I want to reduce costs, pay them fairly, and try to align their incentives with mine.

Some days (or weeks) there will be little or nothing to do. Some weeks we will be swamped. Sometimes I get another rental and it has to be renovated. Sometimes I have a flip going. I dont mind bringing in contractors to augment the handyman for special projects.

If i just pay by the job I might as well use contractors like I've been doing. I don't want to pay hourly where I end up paying them to sit on a bucket all day. I want to provide a stable salary, not give them busy work when there is no work, and expect them to help when we are swamped since sometimes they get paid for nothing.

I've done pretty good aligning my managers incentives with mine. I want to crack the handyman issue this year.

Any ideas?

What kind of overhead do you mean?

I am looking for an employee so I handle all the overhead.  Phone, printing, etc.

Does anyone have any tips on hiring someone to manage rental properties?

I have 26 properties and I am trying to step out of the day to day operations.  It's not a full-time job but it's a lot off hassle for me because of the other things I have going on.  I have someone now but it's not working out.  They have taken a full-time job and I am slowly being pulled back into the work.

Currently, I pay $200 per month, $200 to get a property rented, and a percentage of rent.  The percentage is a sliding scale based on occupancy - 4%-8.5% when everything is rented.  It's usually about $1300 a month.

I expect them to cover all duties for managing the properties except going to court and paying bills.  They put out signs, show houses, handle repair calls, send late letters, file evictions, record payments, and work with contractors.  Its sounds like a lot but I have been doing it and know it takes about 8-10 hours a week and that equates to more than $30/hour.

I have looked into a property management company.  They are very expensive and I can't find a good way for them to handle repairs.  They have no incentive to reduce costs.  Plus, they are not really working for me and it's hard to get them to do odd things that come up.  I need a part-time employee.

I am open to paying more if I get a reliable person that keeps tenants happy and vacancies low.  I am not sure what I am looking for or how to find anyone.

I need a tool to help me work leads.  I have been working with Podio but it is lacking or I can't figure it out.  In Podio, I have tried creating my own app or using existing ones.  I have my data imported and google voice integrated.  It seems perfect, except it's difficult to work the leads.  I am still working it through Excel but that is not ideal.

1. Many leads are just phone numbers - hang ups from a direct mail campaign.  Podio handles this, but other tools required a name or an address.  I need to call them before I have this info.
2. I need a way to ensure the leads gets worked and have a followup date. In Excel, I just use a follow-up date sorted with oldest first. After I call, I change the follow-up date and resort. Then I just work through calling the top one.   
3. I need to be able to divide the leads between people that work for me.  In podio, I can share the workspace but everyone sees everything.  I just want people to see the things assigned to them, so we don't have multiple people calling the same lead accidentally.  With Excel, I just send people different excel files with just there leads.

Working with Excel is tedious.  A lot of scrolling.  My needs seem simple and there should be a tool for this.  I don't mind paying if I need to.  My volume is low enough that I just need a tool for the leads.  Maybe 60-80 a month with only a small portion getting past the first phone call.