All Forum Posts by: Dmitry Semenov

Thank you all for response!

@Matthew Olszak this company is a franchise (PMI Puget Sound) so I am pretty sure they used a lawyer to prepare the contract. I totally understand the logic that PM keeps late fees to cover expenses for posting notices, etc. My PM, though, doesn't post "pay of vacate" notices, they want me (owner) to pay $100 per notice on top of late fees.

@Patricia Steiner that is why I am separating with them :)

@Richard Sherman my units are local, so I am going to try self-manage. I think about hiring out all maintenance, leasing and working on organizing my systems right now. Funny that I already had to do some of that work, e.g. posting notices to enter or dealing with housing authority.

I would suggest to read "Section 8 bible" book, to have an impression about problems you might face.

I have inherited Sec 8 tenants in Seattle (feel free to PM me here, I can share some stories).

1. You need to deal with Seattle Housing authority, which is very slow process. I had to follow up, call daily and escalate to push the papers through. Employee all hidden behind voice mail and respond in 10% cases, if ever.

2. You have to deal with inspections. They find something every time. They forced me to re-paint the whole unit once. If you don't do repairs in time - unit become "abated", which basically means that tenant is living there but Sec 8 don't pay you.

3. You get Sec 8 portion on time, but then you have to chase the tenant portion or rent. It could be just $2, but you have to apply the same amount of time and energy as if you chase the full rent amount. I bought property from the out-of-country owner, they basically gave up on tenant portion and trained tenants not to pay :)

Overall, cash-on-cash may be good on paper, but then you have higher maintenance expenses, uncollected rents, eviction expenses and spend a lot of your or your PM time and effort.

Hello BiggerPockets,

I am separating with Property Manager and they now are charging me late fees that they didn't collect from the tenants. Is it common for property managers?

Property management agreement says:

"Fees Paid By Tenant – Manager may charge and collect fees to Tenant(s) in addition to the base rent in the lease agreement. These fees will be paid to the manager and not shared with the owner."

It is zoned as SF5000, so I don't think you can legally add a 4th unit.

Also, personally, I wouldn't bet on "possible" rezone, I would offer only based on current use (i.e. as a 3plex).

You could also mention that this property is in opportunity zone:

https://www.commerce.wa.gov/growing-the-economy/op...

Which means that whoever wants to develop it could roll capital gains (e.g. after selling stocks or other property) and defer (and potentially reduce or avoid) paying taxes on that gains.

Thanks for responses!

I am seeking for legal advice, of course. Just wanted to get more wisdom from experienced folks here as well.

Here are some products I am familiar with:

pellego.com

inbestments.com

They pull county data, some rents estimations and MLS data.

There are also other private companies that uses a bunch of public data (county records, permits, GIS, MLS, etc) to find deals / opportunities.

Hi all,

I have a 1st position loan secured by property (non-owner occupied rental, WA state). This property also has 2nd lien, brokered by the same broker. I'd like to keep relationship with the broker, so I also don't want 2nd to be screwed.

Both 1st and 2nd in default, so we are going to foreclosure. Broker wants to foreclosure on 2nd, so it wouldn't get wiped out.

Both 1st and 2nd are at 65% LTV, so as a 1st I feel pretty safe here.

What are the pros/cons for me as a 1st lien holder if the 2nd goes to foreclosure? Are there any risks for the 1st?

Second that suggestion about local meetups. Here are some that I've visited and found very useful:

• https://www.meetup.com/Addicted-to-ROI
• https://www.meetup.com/RealEstateAtWork
• https://www.meetup.com/Fixated-On-Real-Estate

(it doesn't mean that everything else is worthless, only means that I didn't visit all of them ;)

Also I found that some actively moderated Facebook groups are also very useful, in particular would recommend WAREI group:

• https://www.facebook.com/groups/WAREI