All Forum Posts by: Derek Faller

@David Renfro

There is a big difference between a trailer park and an RV park. A trailer park would be a long term rental for people who own mobile homes or park unit trailers. A RV park is a short term rental of spaces for people traveling in RVs. Each would have their own plusses and minuses. A trailer park would be more consistent rents, but you will attract low end tenants. RV park is going to be seasonal and less consistent money, but should be less issues with tenants. You need to do research on the area to see what would create more demand and perform better. I don't know the Austin area. I do own an RV and travel a lot and know that RV parks seem to be doing well if they are in a good location.

In either case you don't want to own the trailers or RVs. They depreciate rapidly and will have lots of maintenance over time. Build the infrastructure for the park and let people bring their own units and charge space rent.

As for money down, that is up to you and your means. Popular opinion is to put the least down you can and still make a profit. I prefer to put a little more down for a better return and buffer, but it is a personal choice.

I would definitely go with a local lender then an online one. In my experience the onlines can take longer to fund and seem to have more problems. One of my clients that used an online lender had to do two extensions and escrow ended up taking over 60 days for a conventional loan. I would recommend going with a mortgage broker over a bank. They usually have more programs available especially for first time home buyers. For Bend I would recommend either Carl at Mid Oregon lending or Chris Raven at Finance of America Mortgage.

If you are talking about the one in Northwest Crossing it isn't really a triplex. They are three separate townhomes that the owner for some reason is only selling them all together as one package. So you could buy it and then sell them all separately. I am not necessarily trying to justify that price, but it isn't quite as absurd at it would be if it was a normal triplex. 

In general real estate is cyclical so there will be some down years in the future. I personally don't think we will see another decline or bust here in Bend like the last one in 2008 - 2011. That one was based more on the subprime loans and speculators buying multiple homes for the appreciation we were seeing here. This new rise in prices seems to be based more on people who want to move here or retire here. 

One of the things that I think will keep Bend's home prices from sinking too low again is the fact that we are running out of land to build on in the city limits. In Oregon, cities can't expand their urban growth boundary until they reach a certain about of infill and capacity and then it needs to be approved by the state. This keeps cities from sprawling too much like in other states. The other issue besides the UGB that will probably keep home prices up is that the desirable west side of town is backed up to the national forest so even if we expand the UGB it will probably be to the east or the north which are lesser desirable areas. They aren't bad areas, just not currently areas where I really have clients wanting to live. Everyone wants to be close in near downtown or the river or on the west side.

The local economy is still pretty weak for the home prices we have here. It has gone up a little bit and some smaller businesses have been moving here or sprouting up, but tourism and the hospital are still our main employment base. It seems most people are moving here with jobs they can do from anywhere or are retiring.

So while we will probably have some down years at some point in the future in Bend, I am still seeing a ton of people looking to move and buy here. The next pullback may be more dependent on the national economy or local economy of where people are moving to Bend from that will determine when the slow down happens and to what degree. 

I don't know anything about Arkansas, but I am pretty familiar with Bend. If you are looking to move to Bend and you want to buy before prices go up more and rent until you do move then it may make sense. If you are looking purely at numbers, like you mentioned it is hard to find something that cash flows here. This is especially true if you want something in a good area that you are planning to move into eventually. Rents have gone up  greatly in the past few years, but so have home prices. In order to get something to cash flow you would need to look at manufactured homes or lower priced homes in less desirable areas. 

I do think home prices will continue to go up here Bend, though maybe at a slower and more controlled rate then then last few years. There are several apartment complexes being built so that may affect the rate of rents appreciating in the future but it is hard to say how much since the vacancy rate is still less then 1%.

I am not trying to turn you off to Bend as it is an amazing place to live, but I personally wouldn't buy rental property here if you are basing a decision only on the numbers. If you are going to move here and want to buy now before prices go higher and are willing to take a little loss on cash flow then that might be worth looking into.

Feel free to hit me up with any questions you have about the Bend area.

With listsource i believe you are paying per address so checking that box will get rid of any duplicate addresses that are the same so you are not paying for the same address twice. I am not sure of an advantage to leaving it unchecked.

They typically seem to be around 8% to 10% a month and half a month for lease up. At least this was the case a few years ago before I got rid of my last rental here.

Looks like you got a lot of good recommendations for PMs in Bend. Since you mentioned that you are still getting to know the Bend area, if you have any questions feel free to contact me. I would be happy to help you learn about the area.

Yes you can use the income from the first property in addition to any regular income you have to finance the second one. That is the simple answer. 

I have used Deschutes Property Management as a rental owner and thought they did a good job for me. I have heard Plus management is also good but don't have any experience with them myself.