All Forum Posts by: Dean Kohler

we are going to rent our place out and here is what we are finding out....  8% of what the property brings in... anywhere from $300 up to 1/2 the 1st months rent, this is to get started into the agreement...  maintenance fees are for the most part on an hourly rate ranging from $65-90 per hr....   there is a reserve to be held for repairs, in our case between $250-500... 

i have 1 company that doesn't take pictures during the walk thru, but instead, has a check list they use....  we have talked to 3 different PMs and they are different in several ways, but they all can do the job.... its a preference as to what i want them to do...

granted i am in vancouver washington, and state to state could be different with the regulations and requirements.....   also there are a lot of people on here that have helped me out so far in my ventures, i to am just getting started

this all is just what i have learned to this point

if i had 1million to do whatever i wanted with.. i would get a few SFH that i could payoff, then would find a four flex, and then still have enough $$ to do anything i would want to do.... you see we don't compete with anyone, never have, and we have a simple life and that just fine with us....

i have found that once you have enough money then, money isn't an issue...  and in my view anything that we don't need to be comfortable is to help others....  yeah we have a charitable side, but, 1st things 1st, i have to take care of myself in order to help other people, otherwise I'm worthless as a person- just a personal view of myself- no implications to anyone else

 Richard,

i tried to send you a pm but it wouldn't let me because you need to be a colleague...  could you please contact me by pm

everyone is giving me a lot to work with, and giving me different thoughts that hadn't even came into my mind...  thank you all so very much

@Say Teoh

thank for the referral, we are going thru a lot of phone calls right now and we can add residential west to the list...

thanks

wow great info from all of you here...

@Jacob Sampsoni have no experience in property management, and wish to do a hands off approach when it comes to the tenants...  right now the financial situation is very tight, and it would be a great benefit to rent the house out and have someone else cover the mortgage...  so yes we will bleed a little bit at 1st, but thats only about $150 a month, that is doable at this time and the outlook here only gets better....  as far as letting someone rent the house goes, we are tired of this place and have been wanting to simplify our life style in a radical way.... we will be getting an rv and live in that, by doing so, we cut the bills in half, the clutter is gone, and we aren't fixed in one spot.... all that being said, keeping this house gives us a foot in the door for greater investing down the road while being able to have the life style we have wanted to get back to....

great questions, and they have all been considered in the passed, thanks for the questions and the reminder

thanks for your replies, we are still out about 3 months before we rent out the place... so right now we are doing our homework and gathering information so we can make an informed decision... just starting out in the investing and not knowing anything, its way to easy to make the mistakes... we will make mistakes, i just want to minimize them as much as i can

hi

I'm new to all this rental stuff.. we are looking for a property management company to rent out our house, and to take care of the things that go wrong while a tenant is renting it...  

my question is, what questions do we need to ask so that we don't get may surprises down the road in future? we live in vancouver washington and the people we have talked to all want X amount for a monthly fee, then they want any where from 300-500 just to put someone in the house...  then there is the charges for service calls when thing go wrong and need to be repaired...  

i understand that a service call for a broken appliance is going to be there and that any company will need to get paid for what they do... 

i would appreciate any thoughts anyone has about their experiences, and any tips that would help us... if anyone in this area that has input, i would especially like to hear from you..

thanks for reading and for your response...   

congrats

 well ok,

i have been driving truck for over 30 years, then lost my job a year ago because of an accident that has taken me out of the truck... I'm not afraid to step out into something new, scary? yes, afraid to try a new avenue? no...  at this time we are getting ready to rent this place out to reduce the bills we have...  by doing so we would then get an rv and live in that, (its always been our dream and have done that before)...  by doing so our bills would be cut just about in half, while being able to keep the house...  the down side is, is that we will have a management company and they need their pay, this makes us short on the rent to cover the mortgage and the fees from the management co. by about 200 a month....  

now with the accident i had, there will be a settlement down the road, and my hope is, is that when that comes thru then we will be able to pay this house off and get cash flow, and not have to worry about a mortgage for this place....  we plan on using this place as the 1st step into investing and it could be a very solid step in that direction...