All Forum Posts by: Eli Sunderland

Hey Steven,

I can vouch for the benefits of the group as well.  I, like you, was a little hesitant at first to pay for a mentorship group, but it was a great move for my business.  I joined last fall and have closed 103 units since.  One aspect of it that has been incredibly helpful for me that might not be obvious has been the network of other investors you automatically place yourself in when joining the group.  I've raised $1M in capital from partners in the last 6 months for the 103 doors, and a large piece of that has come from this group!  On top of that, I've gotten access to their vendors - lenders, attorneys, cpas, insurance agents, etc, which has been very helpful.

@David Moore - absolutely!  Pretty good value-ad possibility.  Room to bring rents up at least 100/unit and charge back some of the utilities to the tenants.

@David Moore - Ya, I don't use a PM company for the duplex I've got right now, but since I'm getting into the bigger Multifamily space, I figured it made sense to start building relationships with the best PM's in the area!  

Hi all,

Simple question for you guys.  I hope to be closing on a small apartment complex (10 units) in south minnneapolis in the next few months.  I'm looking for an awesome property management company, preferably one that manages properties similar in size to this one.  Anyone out there have any suggestions on PM's in the area?  

Thanks!

@Bryan Germann - are you living in minneapolis now?  I'd be down to meet up and talk strategy sometime if you're interested!  It's much easier to talk in more detail offline.  

@Bryan Germann - Sounds like you're on the right track! I'm a huge fan of 'house hacking' to get into the real estate investing game! As for my financing, I actually used a loan product that lends up to 85% of the ARV of the property, so I was able to finance in the purchase as well as most of the renovation costs!

@Bryan Germann - have you ever considered multifamily, specifically 2-4 units?  I'm a big fan of multifamily because in my experience it's far easier to cashflow them.  I've got a duplex in minneapolis right now a bit east of uptown, and it's going really well!  

@Chaz Black -  Like @Lumi Ispas said, depends on your target customer.  If it's a really high end flip, quartz might give enough return to warrant the cost.  However, if it's more of a nice flip or rental, I'd say go with granite.  I recently got granite installed at my place for about $40/sqft, so pretty affordable!  PM me if you want contact info.  

@Anna Gorres - Do you have any goals on your purchase?  How much cashflow would you expect to make it worthwhile?  Also, have you considered a live-in-flip?  you could get into a place with a construction loan, live in it and fix it up for a year or two then either rent it or sell it!  Just a few thoughts.

Welcome to BP @Anna Gorres! 

You mentioned you're into interior design - with your background, have you considered partnering up with investors focused on fix & flips, or maybe even some general contractors?  Maybe offer to help on the design side for a small piece of the equity?  Seems like a sweet way to get in the game if you can find the right partner!  

As for your questions -  @Tim Swierczek and @Jordan Moorhead pretty much nailed it, 

1) When doing research, I use zillow, hotpads, apartments.com, craigslist, and rentometer.

2) I'd say in general SFH are actually more attractive to tenants because they get more privacy. However, bigger units, 4 or 5 Beds, are always going to be harder than 1-3 beds because it will either have to be a family or a group of friends, and I can say by experience that trying to get 4 or 5 people to agree on a place can take time!

3) You hit on the most significant factors here.  I would add prevalence of crime to that list as well, though.  Google "trulia crime heat map" then search your neighborhood and you can see the neighborhoods with a lot of crime. 

4) Ya, I'd say most people would not consider minneapolis a "landlord friendly" city.  There are quite a few inspections involved in the rental process, and all of those take time.  However, I'd still advocate buying in the cities because the rents are that much better here!  Especially if you go for a small multifamily, 2-4 units.  

5) I don't have much input here since I never even really looked into buying a condo. I didn't like the idea of paying HOA fees.