All Forum Posts by: Doug Spence

@Alyson Green Great question. 

I pay a local RE agent to help show the property and make sure its cleaned out well between tenants. I also pay her to do annual condition checks of the property. 

You could pay someone to handle boarding up the home in case of an impending tropical storm or hurricane. Its such an important thing to do for insurance reasons, that its worth paying someone to do. I wouldn't rely on a tenant to do it unless you have a good relationship with the tenant and they are responsible. 

@Emily Valenzuela

Why do you want to rent it out under an LLC? I don't think the VA will let you move that mortgage from your personal name to an LLC, but you can rent it out as is, without moving it to an LLC.

As for your question, now is not a great time to do a HELOC or cash out refi due to current interest rates. I recommend just renting it out without taking out any of the equity. Also, you may not even have enough equity to do a HELOC, but thats a question for a lender.

What is the additional debt you have in the amount of 60k?

@Nicole Gullotti Welcome to Bigger Pockets! You're in the right place to learn a lot and connect with fellow investors and other industry professionals. 

I also live in SoCal (San Diego), and I invest out of state in multiple markets while working a full-time job as a Navy officer. Most of my single-family portfolio is in Wisconsin and Oklahoma, and I invest in passive commercial real estate syndications as well. I was in your shoes back in 2016 or so and I know how you feel! I'm happy to help however I can.

How did you decide on Ohio as your market?

@Elias Shanaa Welcome back to BP! I've done a lot of out of state investing in multiple markets, from San Diego. As for lending, I would have a conversation with @Erik Browning. He lends all over the country, including Texas and is a wealth of information whether or not you work with him. 

Don't hesitate to reach out to me with any OOS investing questions. 

@Erik Browning is knowledgeable about this. 

@Matthew Zolnor Interesting idea. I think the easiest way to do this would be with propstream. You could download the data and put it all into an excel sheet. I think the accuracy of rental rates would vary from town to town, but it could be a good place to start. Propstream is a paid software, but you can use it for a week for free. 

This is a great task for a VA as well. You could pay someone 5-10/hour to aggregate the data from zillow and apartments.com and provide this data.

If you find a better way, definitely let us know. I'm an out of state investor as well (Florida, Wisconsin, Oklahoma) and this would be a very useful tool!

Good luck!

@Justin Farr

Welcome (back) to the forums! I also live in California (in a property we house hack with a VA loan), but I invest out of state in Wisconsin, Oklahoma, and Florida.

I've done two out of state BRRRR's and two out of state flips in Oklahoma, and I bought all three of my Wisconsin properties sight unseen.

I knew early on I would have to be comfortable investing out of state because I'm active duty Navy and we typically move every 2-3 years. So I did a lot of research into out of state investing and have been successful at it so far. 

I'm also a LP on 4 different real estate syndications. 

I'm happy to chat and help out however I can. Good luck and keep us updated on your progress!

@Jonathan Klemm Thanks for the shout out!

@Lindsay Bowman I am by no means an ADU expert, but we do rent out a portion of our home (a JADU) to a tenant. I looked into building an additional ADU at our property, but ran into challenges with our property line, septic, and permitting so I abandoned that project early on in the planning stages.

Happy to help however I can though! I also invest out of state in Oklahoma, Wisconsin, and Florida, and I'm an LP on four syndications. 

Congrats! Sounds like a solid deal. How did you find and vet the property management company? I imagine management of this type of property can be challenging depending on the quality of tenant the property attracts. 

Do you own other properties in Kentucky or are these the first ones?

@Daniel Villa Welcome to BP! A FHA loan is an owner-occupied loan, meaning that you have to live in the home you're buying at least for a specified period of time (I can't remember what it is for an FHA loan).

That being said, it is possible to invest successfully out of state. I live in San Diego and own rentals in Wisconsin, Florida, and Oklahoma. I've done 2 out of state brrrr's and 2 out of state flips in Oklahoma as well. 

What are your goals? How did you decide on Nashville as your OOS market?