All Forum Posts by: Elizabeth Colegrove

Looking for an investor friendly pit bull realtor for Leavenworth, Kansas. Commercial experience preferred  

Hi All, 

My husband's grandmother recently passed away and the family is selling her Bellbrook Estates (Addison) home. It is a 1955 construction with the new master suite built in early 90's. It is located on a gorgeous lot at the end of a culdersaq surrounded by park on 2 sides. It is the last "original" home in this neighborhood. Perfect for a teardown, fixer or even buy and hold. It does need work and the family is selling it "As Is" with no repairs being made.

We are holding an open house from 1 to 3pm this Saturday, March 4th and have private showing available Saturday and Sunday. 

If you have any questions or wish to schedule a private showing please give me a call at 469-249-2036.

Thank!

Elizabeth Colegrove

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink.

If your tenant doesn't see the seriousness of an eviction you can't make them care.

Honestly I have become battle hardy over the years. I am actually trying to relearn grace ;) So if it was me the book would have been thrown at her a long time ago. As I have learned tht being nice only bites me. So I would figure out my local laws (i am in calfiornia so i would hire my attorney) and go from there. She will get it in time, but till than... honestly not your problem

Good luck!!

Subletting = NO control

You finding the tenants = ALL the control

Personally NO way would I allow anyone sublet. If a tenant wants to break the lease, they are welcome. I require 60 days notice and provide a 2 month break lease fee.  I am in an area that is much cheaper to buy than rent, so this happens often. This way when people do break the lease, I am paid for my time

Hope this helps! 

Good luck

Remember the key is net not gross :)

We own 8 class A rental properties. Before I turned some into rental properties I was working less than 5 hours a month AND that was with self managing them in 3 different states! So while our gross number were smaller than many areas. Our nets were amazing becasue we had cash flow, appreciation AND principle pay down all for very little work.

Personally I love going into a place that I can leverage my money and than have my tenant pay off for very little down.

I LOVE leverage but hey were are 1.3 million dollars in debt. So call me crazy.

If I was in a city with high rents AND high mortgages. I would find the best multiplex in a non rent controled area. I would than buy it as a personal fha (remember 4 plex gets more fha limit). So even if I bought a 1 million dollar place I only have to put 25k down. Where as if I put a investment that would buy me a little over 100k place. 

Than I would live in one unit rent the others out. Now I have 1 million dollars of real estate that someone else is paying off just because I deal with it. If your unit has 2 bedrooms you can rent the other one out. Save up a down payment and now buy a small house using a conventional loan at 5%. If you can find one with an in law suite even better.  House hack the other rooms, save up a 5% conventional downpayment and upgrade. Now I have 3 properties in highly desirable locations that will appreciate with other people paying them down.

I put down between 3.5-5% when other people paying the rest of it. 

While I have bought 4 rental properties. I LOVE personal properties becasue they are amazing at boosting leverage.

My husband is active duty military so we move alot :) I have gotten VERY good at loans you live in :)

There are a couple of different ones that work great for housing hacking with low downpayment options.

FHA

VA

USDA

Conventional 5%.

Personally we are saving our FHA till we find a great multiplex we like that works with the numbers. So far we have used the VA loan twice and conventional 5% twice. Conventional 5% is only for single family homes. If you go to multiplex you have to put 25% down. So keep that in mind when you house hack.

We have done roommmates mostly as house hacking. If we head back to central california I want to get a house with an in law suite and rent the in law suite out. Perferably furnished to those looking for a short term solution. IF you are single you can flip it and live in the in law room, renting out the rest of the house.

 There is also airbnbing a room . This is great if you don't want someone all the time, or if you are okay with cleaning. Much higher rates. I am looking for a multiplex for our current area but as you know they can be hard to find.

There are soo many options, the key is to figure out what works for you and your options. FHA is only to be used once in the area. Unless you refinance out. Conventional 5% can be used as much as you want.

Make sure you watch your refiannce cost. We have a few loans that are SOO good, that we can't refinance without adding hundreds to our monthly payment. So keep in mind that refinancing might not always be practical. 

Hope that helps!

My husband and I have bought 8 rental properties in the past 5 years. We saved $60,000 while he was deployed in 2014-2015 to buy 2 properties when he got home. What I found is its not about cutting my starbucks addiction but about making the BIG changes that allow the biggest ability to save money. For us that has been housing and employement

For example, we have ALWAYS worked really hard to reduce our housing cost. Whether that was living on a boat, buying  a house, buying a foreclosure, renting out a friends room while he was deployed with my husband (stuff was my roommate), etc . I left an easy job for a job that with 25% more pay and 45 miles one way closer to home. So while I increased my work hour dramatically, my income went WAY up!

My husband is active duty so we move ALOT (we are at our 5th location in less than 7 years of marriage so I meant ALOT). We have 8 rentals & counting. Honestly I don't worry about pmi. As long as my numbers work, pmi is great! 

My goal is to put as little down on the house as possible. Since when we leave the tenant will be paying it off. Therefore we go with VA, FHA , conventional 5% loans AS MUCH AS possible. Simply because this means we have more cash to put down towards a pure rental home. At the end of the day, I self manage. That is my "sweat equity" to having someone else pay down my house. Therefore I want as little of MY money in it, even if that means paying a little more for using someone elses money.

Good luck!

Look at all your expenses, property manager, taxes and insurance!

We had bought back east but ended up finding the best deals in  Central California. The low insurance (out of the earth quake area) and taxes made it great as a landlord. We found that while our numbers are less. Our significantly lower expenses made the numbers look awesome!

Good luck. If you want to talk about out of state investing let me know. My husband is active duty so we have bought both local and not local. At the end of the day no matter if it started local. It never stays local ;) 

It really comes down to your PERSONAL goals. We have 8 sfh and they all have those numbers. I worked full time till recently, and love having class A properties. I self manage the houses so having higher end houses where I can put a higher expectation on people has allowed me to be succesful. The houses are leverage, they appreciate and someone else is paying them down. So at the end of the day. It works.

So personally it is up to you. What type of houses do you want to build in your porfolio? What is your goal?