All Forum Posts by: Dennis O'Loughlin

Investment Info:

Single-family residence buy & hold investment.

Purchase price: $45,000
Cash invested: $45,000
Sale price: $42,500

2 bedroom, 1 bath with over 1100 SqFt. Tons of natural light with the lake visible from the sitting room and only a five minute walk to the water front. Some interior painting, repair, and updating, as well as replacing a few pieces of damaged siding. The house is being shown to a potential Tennant tonight.

What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

The house was well maintained and with it's location we knew that it would be easily rentable. Fixing a few things and updating the paint in a few rooms allowed us to start with a higher rent than the previous owner. This one was strictly location location location with a strong offer.

How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

We searched the MLS, found a great realtor, did a video tour, sent in our best offer all online.

How did you finance this deal?

Paid cash to free up as much equity and cash flow as possible on our first investment.

How did you add value to the deal?

Knew that by updating some things we would automatically get an increase in value.

What was the outcome?

Even with a lot of offers on this house we wrote our strongest offer and got the house under contract quickly.

Lessons learned? Challenges?

With older single family houses we learned that sellers are wanting to not have to worry about inspections, even if they are just for informational purposes. After losing several other houses, we chose to not ask for an inspection on this one, realizing that some things will need to be repaired/updated etc and hoping the lack of inspection doesn't come back to bite us.

Did you work with any real estate professionals (agents, lenders, etc.) that you'd recommend to others?

Tonya Feller in Decatur is AMAZING! She worked really hard showing us locations, will send us information on any property we want, was honest if she wasn't sure about the answer to a question, and is easy to talk to.

Good evening y'all! My wife and I recently bought our first rental property with a good potential ROI calculation. We met with a potential property manager this afternoon and we were a little surprised by the amount of fees charged. None of them seemed excessive to either of us and they all seemed to make sense but I wanted to ask y'all and see if this sounded fishy. They charge a 10% management fee which we know is pretty standard and they don't take any type of fee if the property is vacant. They do charge a new Tennant fee of either $500 or 62.5% whichever is greater. This comes off the first months rent. They charge the 1st months rent and the security deposit directly to the potential Tennant. They hold 5% of the rent each month to cover the garbage bill because management companies pay the garbage bill apparently. Their maintenance fees are $30-$40 an hour depending on the job.

We would appreciate any thought or insight into these fees.  Thanks for the help.