All Forum Posts by: Joseph Sherer

@Sanjay Shah

Hey Jay,  

  A couple questions: What deferred maintenance have you recognized?  Is the owner currently paying utilities?  How is the rent history over the last 5 years?  Let's start here and see where we go.

@Jason Hairston

I may have mislead you so let me clarify. You don't necessarily "need" a property manager at the beginning.  Actually you save a good bit on your bottom line by not having a property manager.  So to answer your question directly, it would be very helpful to have a property manager in mind before you purchase a property.  When you put that property manager in place will depend on how quickly you are able to scale up.  (At some point, there is no longer enough time in the day to both manage the properties yourself and spend adequate time acquiring new properties.)

@Jason Hairston

A good property manager is key with college rentals for a number of reasons.

• High turnover
• Increased risk in property damage
• Property naive tenants

A good property manager isn't bogged down with these common college issues.

@Jason Hairston

Great questions.

I was looking at low income stuff as well as student rentals. I ended up in student rentals although both have similar ROI based on the properties I was looking into.

Depends on what type of bank you're approaching.  My first loan was with BB&T which is a bigger bank in the Southeast.  They required 2 years W2 income to count toward a debt/income ratio.  Over time I've found that the smaller, more local banks are the key.  They are much more flexible in their lending standards.  

Hey again @Account Closed, he's got some great posts scattered throughout this forum. Second, the quad idea is a great one. You could also start out with a SFH and rent it out per bedroom. If the family isn't willing to gift you money, it'd be easier to source this down payment. Same concept will apply for vacancy. If you're credit is good, you stand a chance at finding very low % down options with banks under the "first time home buyer" guise. My first house was actually 0% down on a "first time home buyer" promotion so make sure to check every bank in the area. Good luck and feel free to keep the questions coming.

@Roy N.

The "Take me Home" card is a great idea. We're going to implement it for sure.

@Bryan Otto @Wade Sikkink @Eric Manthey

Thanks again for the input guys. Wanted to give you an update. Went with a series LLC set up similar to the way Wade mentioned. Here is the setup:

Equity

• After year one, 5% equity
• After year two, 10% equity
• After year three, 15% equity
• After year four, 20% equity

Profit share

• After year five, 5% of profit
• After year six, 10% of profit
• After year seven, 15% of profit
• After year eight, 20% of profit

Wondering how other people have set it up and plenty open to your thoughts here.

@Account Closed

Checking into the Facebook advertising with the criteria you suggested. I'll follow up with how it goes. 

Really appreciate all the ideas.  I bet there are some other great ones floating out there, let's hear them!

@Sergey S.

 Thanks. That was a good deal of work with a Fiverr developer.  We're working on better pictures to for cleaner look.

Based on my experience, there are several sub-niches within the college realm.  To be clear, this is an SEC school with undergraduate numbers near 20,000.  I group them as follows:

• Freshman
• Sophomore-Juniors
• Seniors/Fifth year seniors (still in undergrad)
• Graduate students

The reason for this is mainly based on maturity levels and mindset.  The younger population tends to be less respectful and more interested in staying near all the activity.  The older population starts to become more respectful and is less interested in being so close to all the activity.  Personally, I prefer the older crowd for a couple reasons.  They tend to take better care of the property and properties near all the happenings tend to cost more.  This strategy is more of a market entry strategy.  Once you gain some momentum, this will be less of a concern.  Let me know what you think.

@Antonio Coleman

Will do.  We have a website up and running although I know it could use work.  Good perspective on putting the website where people are online.  

Any suggestions on using social media to the max?