All Forum Posts by: Devon Harris

Nobody can tell you it is right thing to do, it is a fraud but many still do it anyways..

However, nobody can tell you you need to sleep in it 365 days. 

You can move your address to that location,  do a short term rental like airbnb, furnish it, and stay there here and there then you should be fine, you dont have to do long term rental the first year and it is still your home with your own furniture.

During the COVID-19 fiasco many renters were allowed to stay in my properties without paying rents. The Section 8 tenants paid on time the entire time. The rents were equivalent to market in Dayton and Springfield Ohio. More Sec 8 qualified landlords and properties are desperately needed. Those areas have many qualified tenant voucher holders that are not able to find safe, sanitary, and secure housing. I suffered financially not having more Sec 8 deposits coming in monthly during the Governments COVID-19 rental eviction moratorium. Moving forward I'm having a balanced mix to offset any future repeats. My business plan never accounted for the Government interference in my rental income business! When the moratorium was lifted, my nonpaying tenants vanished before I could take action to participate in the extremely slowly rolled out Emergency Rental Reimbursement Program. Section 8 Tenants properties are inspected frequently by my inhouse assistant. Tenants are given a payment plan to reimburse damages to the property they are responsible to repair. If they refuse to be responsible, I forward to them a notice that I will forward a damage report to the Housing Authority within 5 days if arrangements aren't made to rectify the situation. They respond 99% of the time and make payments and wake up to the reality that if they are denied future Sec 8 status they will have to reapply and go to the back of the three plus year waiting list to maybe be approved again for the program. Since 1986 I have experienced only one tenant going all the way refusing to make or reimburse for repairs. They were removed from the program. I've also had nonsubsidized tenants behave the same. You can do an extensive vetting of prospective renters and still find yourself in this situation. Remember, "If it was Easy...Everybody would be doing it!"

@Brad Pethke We use Innago, a online property management solution to collect rent payments. The software is free for landlords to use and they have a small fee that they charge directly to my tenants when they make any payments to me online. I've been using Innago for years now and it's been working really well for me.

I've had a couple lenders offer me an ARM lately. If you believe the rates will dip sometime in the next few years you can go that route. However, if values dip as well and you become upside down, you could be in trouble.

You can also negotiate that the seller buy down your rate. In my neck of the woods a lot of homes are stagnant on the market, a lot of price drops, etc. If not already, you'll soon be in the negotiating drivers seat and have much more leverage. 

 It does thank you. Why do lenders or people in general say that conv loans require 20 percent down?

@Khoi Nguyen guessing you're buying a Class A property? They rarely actually cashflow the first 3-5 years, but appreciation MAY make up for that.

At least 80% of "real estate investors" are really hobbyists.

Why?

They're buying SFR properties at retail prices!

We did that on the first property we bought, then never again.

As an investor you should be patient and look for deals that meet one of the following:

1) You buy below market value
2) You buy with little to nothing down
3) You buy with seller financing

This past December, we bought a package of 4 Class B- properties that met ALL 3 of these!

You also have to make sure you have a clear vision of how an acquisition will make you money and have as many exit strategies as possible.

80%+ of investors hire a Realtor to find them a property. That Realtor solely looks on the MLS.

We've only done one transaction via the MLS (out of 20+) in the last 10 years. Even on that one we got seller financing and low down payment, something our agent was shocked was accepted.