All Forum Posts by: Edith TenBroek

@Steve Sanchez Any tennant issues in this niche in Peoria? Do you do your own property management?

Thanks!

Edie

I live just North of Bloomington/Normal in the tiny town of El Paso The numbers aren't great that great the livable parts of Bloomington unless you can afford to get into apartments. (Someday!) Peoria or Pekin are areas I'm looking at. Also Streator. The numbers just aren't wonderful any closer. DH is not really interested in doing the property management anyway, so I thought we might as well look at the KC area since we visit so often. It would be more convenient to look at property there than 2+ hours away in Chicago.

Thanks for the thoughts! Keep em coming!

Edie :)

Raytown and Grandview are areas I was looking at. I saw "approaches standard" on the schools. Is that doable?

Independence seems all over the board. Lot's of houses. Lot's of CHEAP houses. Lots of foreclosures. Anyone know the reason for so many in Independence?

Should I look more at 50,000 range?

Hey all!

So while we are paying down debt, saving money, and getting ourselves situated to start buying property I've been reading, learning, researching etc. So many SFH's that are "affordable" are in areas with higher crime and or lesser schools. I know these should be avoided, but what about "lowest crime" areas (according to Trulia) that have "not so great" schools. Are these good bets, or do I really need to look at better areas. Also, are Trulia's estimates of crime and school quality accurate?

I've been nosing around the Kansas City areas and it looks like there are lots of good options, but the good school areas are EXPENSIVE with low cash flow numbers The areas with better cash flow have higher crime and/or poor schools. What's good in KC?

Hello all!

I'm a 45 year old work from home and homeschooling mom of three. I currently teach some college classes online, and own a small business selling jewelry making supplies on Etsy.

As we reach our mid 40's hubby and I have been thinking a lot about retirement. He is a full time prof at our local community college. He has a good pension with match through the State University Retirement System, but we want to add other things to our retirement income, so we are looking at getting into buy and hold in the next few years.

Right now we are doing a "Dave Ramsey" plan to pay off all debt. When we get to next step we plan to save 3 months of living expenses, then start piling money onto our current mortgage and saving to buy real estate for our retirement income. Thankfully college for the kids is mostly taken care of. They will get two years tuition free at the community college, then they have a trust fund set up by my mom before she died to pay the rest.

So we hope to start buying in a couple of years. In the meantime I am reading reading reading! I've been practicing running some basic numbers.... just using the 50% rule to see what the cash flow looks like.

Any hints or suggestions are welcome!

Thanks!

Edie

I''m keeping your info! I'm a newb, just learning the ropes. We live in IL, but my in laws live in the KC area and we are down there several times a year. I hope to start purchasing within a couple of years and I'll definitely look you up when the time comes!

Edie

OK, I'm a total newb, but I've been practicing running numbers. Tell me if I'm on the right track

Using a gross estimate - the 50% rule...

Assuming no upfront renovation is needed...

Your gross monthly rent ($3300) minus 50% (taxes, insurance, upkeep, vacancy, am I forgetting anything?) equals $1650

If you compute a mortgage rate of $853 (25% down, 6.5 percent, 30 year) you have a monthly cash flow of $797.

This looks like it's worth a look.

Now you get into specifics, like actual taxes, actual insurance, records of previous work done on the house, actual vacancy rate, and any need for larger improvements like roof, HVAC etc.

Then run that against actual mortgage numbers and see how you stand!

Am I forgetting anything?

Hi all!

I'm not going to pursue this. Hubby talked me down! But I'm still interested in following what happens with this property. It's been on the market about 7 months. I did a search and found out the annual taxes are about $11,000 and they are current. If anyone is interested in looking at it here's a link...

http://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/Rantoul-IL/2110418428_zpid/54064_rid/paymenta_sort/40.452695,-87.899208,40.170479,-88.411446_rect/10_zm/3_p/

Back to reading, learning, paying down debt, and saving to buy a nice little duplex or something! :)

I also wanted to add the Realtor said (take this with a grain of salt) that the 1-2 bedroom units would rent for 350 - 500 each. Gross cash flow would be over $16,000 a month when fully up and running. Insurance is a little less than $1000 a month, mortgage is negligible.... see why I'm interested!? No clue on insurance though... I just wish I were a lot more experienced at this.

Thanks! I need to hear this type of advice. I tend to think beyond my means sometimes. It still looks like a great investment opportunity. It's seven separate buildings with both 1 and 2 bedroom apartments, so I'm thinking someone could get ONE of them up and running, then work on the others over time with the revenue from the first building. Another thought I had was you could "harvest" materials from the other units (appliances, bathroom fixtures etc) to make the original renovation more affordable. The pictures showed that some of the units were decent, while some have big holes in the walls etc.

I haven't seen it in person yet, so there are many many unknowns.

More thoughts are welcome! It's probably not going to happen, but I'd love to use this as a "what if" scenario, and learn something from it.

Think more about it, I could probably pull about $20,000 in equity from my own home, but I don't have much else to put into this deal.

Hi all!

I am a COMPLETE newby and need help figuring out if this is even possible.

I live in Central IL. I found a listing for a 46 unit set of apartment buildings on 8 acres on the edge of a medium town that is currently distressed, but rebounding. It's also within about 30 minutes of a major city with a major State university. I talked to the realtor and he shared that the place has been abandoned for about 5 years. They have a major septic system malfunction and were shut down by the health department. So we would either need to fix the septic system, install a new septic system or hook up to the city sewer system which would mean running about 1/4 mile of pipe. That's the expensive bit. It has a well that the realtor thinks is in good shape.

The property was built in 1966. In the pictures the bones look good, but I haven't seen it in person. It would require some renovation, but it doesn't look like there are major structural issues other than the septic.

The realtor didn't have data on the taxes. But he thought they would be low.

The place is selling for (OMG!) $59,000!! It seems like an incredible deal.

My thoughts are, get capital, buy the property, renovate a chunk of it to start cash flow, then keep up the renovation over time with cash flow until it's all done, then hold for retirement income!

I'm willing to make calls, meet people, paint, shop for good used appliances, find contractors etc. But I need to know if I can get the money (I really have nothing to invest at this point) and if it would be worth the work. I'm willing to work.... and I'm willing to do this slowly, reinvesting all money back into the job. I'm also a queen of finding good deals on supplies and materials.

I just need financial backing and assistance in knowing what questions to ask.

It seems like a BIG bite to chew off as our first job, but it looks like it has GREAT potential.

What questions do I need to ask? Whats my next step? Am I crazy to even look at this deal?