All Forum Posts by: Drew Gedemer

If you are staying in Lake County, there is an investors group.  http://www.lcpia.org/ is the website.  They meet once per month.

HOA is likely going to always go up, which is unfortunate. Depending on the cash flow you calculated, I don't think I'd let 20$ stand in the way of me grabbing the property.

Our Lake County market seems to be really seller strong still, unfortunately.  Even when I'm taking a look at foreclosures, people are bidding them higher than what I am willing to pay.  Best to be patient for the right property.

I talked with 2 people last week at our local meet up that had some properties they were going to sell.  PM me if you want their contact information and the details.

Hey Peter.  I'm up in Round Lake Beach.  We have properties in Hainesville and Lindenhurst.  Good luck on your investing journey.  

Lake County also has a real estate investment meet up to.  Might be worth it for you to check out if you are looking for local investors.

http://www.lcpia.org/

How long have they been there?  I guess this is confusing to me, if someone were in one of my vacant properties, I would call the policy because they are trespassing on private property right?  If they have been there for a long time though, there is likely some type of rights they have?

Cozy.co has credit and background reports that you can send to your prospective tenants.  Best part about their service is they pay to Cozy directly (hopefully that is typical for your market).

@Michael Watts you like the semi-gloss? I find that the shine makes the cabinets look odd. I guess it depends on the other features like backsplash.

Like any other investment, look at your cost and what additional income that you can generate.

This is very tricky, however, as carpet is not the ONLY factor that determines your rent.  I would try to look at similar places renting out with your desired upgrades, and look at what they are asking for and/or what they are actually renting for.  That seems to be a pretty decent assumption.

Investment Info:

Single-family residence buy & hold investment in Lindenhurst.

Purchase price: $150,000
Cash invested: $35,318

This was my first deal! The cash on cash return isn't the best, but it was a strong enough deal for me to dive into investing. Had to do a lipstick rehab with paint, new garage door, seal coat driveway, radon installation, and new electrical box. All in all, closed and got the house rented in 10 days! Keeping all cash flow and going to roll that over into my next deal!

What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

I wanted to dive in because I have not done my own buy and hold.

How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

I was brought this deal before it went on the market from my real estate agent.

How did you finance this deal?

Bank financing.

How did you add value to the deal?

Not much, just a lipstick rehab with paint, seal coat driveway, new electric box.

What was the outcome?

Got someone in for the rental within 10 days of closing.

Lessons learned? Challenges?

Slight smoke smell will not go away with washing the walls! That was a big surprise having to repaint all the trim, walls, doors, and ceiling.

I typically use Cozy.co.  Depending on your market, the tenant can actually be responsible for paying.  Nice thing about Cozy is that they pay directly to the site for background and credit score check.

Post on here whether or not you find that FinRET is useful or not.  I, like the other folks that posted, also use cozy.co.  Although it is $40, tenants are more than willing to pay that for my market.