All Forum Posts by: Derek Petersen

What are the experiences from BP folks that have a full time W2 income plus claim "Real Estate Professional" on their return?

I'm curious if anyone has had a good experience buying a home warranty plan for multifamily properties. I have recently picked up a fourplex and triplex with some deferred maintenance from the previous owners. The property manager is suggesting I buy a plan for the fouplex due to the age and number of appliances, and the triplex had the basic kitchen appliances replaced when I bought the property. I think the policy is roughly $1300 for the fourplex and a little less for the triplex. Maybe it makes sense for the first several years until you have a handle on the property condition? Similar to buying a used car, once you have it for several years you know about all the problems with it. Or does it make more sense to spend the $1300 on replacing appliances each year?

Thanks Jon!

Anyone have experience getting beyond 10 Fannie/Freddie loans?

Vinyl Planking sounds like a good solution. The installation will be a slab on grade, and I've read some negative reviews about installation on concrete and specifically basements, and one review of the Allure product had to rip it out after experiencing a chemical odor that wouldn't go away.

Is the vinyl plank easy to swap out if you have damage? I'm also concerned about the product being discontinued and hard to get, like I'm going through with the wood laminate.

I've got a 1 Br here in San Diego that has a wood laminate floor in the living room. Even the scratch resistant laminate doesn't seem to hold up well against the transient renters I've been getting for this unit. I have some moisture (I think from the window AC unit) that has discolored 6 or 7 pieces of the floor right next to the wall and I'm turning the unit over and need to figure out a solution. The contractor has told me that if he can't find the same laminate type with matching grooves he will need to do the entire floor.

Does anyone have experience with a faux flooring type that might hold up better than wood laminate for this type of unit? The wood looks really nice, and helps to sell the unit, but just isn't very durable for this type of renter. I've heard of tile with a wood appearance but haven't researched much and thought I would ask the BP brains for some input.

Thanks in advance, Derek

Foreign investor activity is so high in San Diego that it completely skews all sense of economic reality. Tough to buy here and make anything pencil. We're currently in speculator's territory which pushes the cash flow investor out of state. Good luck!

Check out Rentrange.com too; first couple reports are free!

I recently purchased a triplex in southeast Atlanta. I verified rents with CL,Rentometer, Rentrange, Zillow, and TWO local property managers. So, after closing I market the units and it turns out that market is 20% lower than the above due diligence indicated. Hmm... so apparently there was Hedge Fund activity (duh, right?) that purchased many homes in the area and dumped them on the rental market causing a blip on the radar that hadn't been picked up by the aforementioned due diligence. Yes, so a lesson was learned. I'm glad I used conservative rents in my analysis so the property performs ok but not up to my normal criteria.

Kevin Yoo-
Dutchtown, St Louis, MO and South City are pretty close, 63116 and 63118. I would say finding a good property manager for the multiplex can be difficult and I've had my share of frusterations but the properties are still performing. UC is under contract for the lazy people.

Marco Santarelli-
Are you doing mostly SF or MF too in those markets?

Karen-
I bought several MF in SD back in 2010 in a small and brief window when it made sense.

Kevin - I bought a 4plex in Dutchtown (C+) last year with a Cash on Cash just below 40%. I'm UC on another in south city; a little more sketchy (C) but more potentional for upside.

Definitely makes sense to move outside of this zip. I'm uc in Indy, Atlanta, and Phoenix so we'll see how those turn out, but the pro forma's look great.

Thanks all for the welcome! Now back to my day job. :(