All Forum Posts by: Emily Kessler

We just bought our first rental property in northwest Raleigh, right near the intersection of Duraleigh and Glenwood. We had about 10 applicants the first weekend we posted it, so there's lots of potential in that whole north Raleigh area. I think it's a mix of grad students/young professionals and young families. 

Hi @Connie Bhimireddy, we ended up purchasing a package of documents from uslegalforms.com that were NC-specific. We did tweak the lease a bit on our own as well. 

I've been living in Raleigh for over 4 years. We bought our own home last July and just bought our first rental property a few months ago. Cost of living is fairly good, especially compared to the North. If you're looking to live near the downtown area, that's getting a bit more expensive as Raleigh is quickly growing, but I think you can still get some good deals if you're willing to rehab. The rental unit we just bought it outside the beltline on the northwest side of the city, but we're looking at buying something close to downtown next that we can fix up. In terms of living somewhere walkable, it just depends what you want to be able to walk to and what type of house you want. If you want to be able to walk to downtown Raleigh, it's pretty expensive, especially if you want a SFH vs a condo. However there are other walkable areas like around NC State campus, Cameron Village, North Hills, and the small towns around Raleigh (Apex, Cary, Holly Springs, Fuquay-Varina) that could offer that experience at a cheaper price. Let me know if you have any other questions! I would share more of my investing experience, but like I said we just bought our first rental and only signed our lease with tenants last week, so I don't have much to report on yet.

@John Mathewson and @James Triano I am a real estate investor and am also looking to get my license, and have a question that maybe one of you can answer. If you buy or sell a home for yourself, do you still have to go through a broker to oversee the transaction? 

I'm a new real estate investor (rental properties) and am thinking about getting my real estate license, partly for MLS access and commission savings on future investments, but also because I want to test the waters to see if I might like it for a full time career down the road. My understanding is that once you get your real estate license, you work under a broker for a few years. I'm wondering how that works if I get my license only to use for my own purposes at first, meaning I won't be actively seeking clients. Do I still need a broker to oversee deals that I do for myself? If so, do I "apply" for a job with a broker after I get my license, even though I won't be doing it full time?

Hey Scheryl, I'm new to real estate investing as well. We just bought our first rental property in Raleigh and I had the same question. Unfortunately I don't have a great answer for you, but one thing we tried was looking at rental listings on Zillow or Craigslist and seeing how long they had been posted for in certain areas. I know some people suggest calling property management companies to see if they will share that data. I did call a few that would help with listing rental properties and they said they can usually rent something out within a month. We ended up not using a property management company and did everything ourselves, and we had a lot of interest. We are going to end up holding the place for a little over a month, because we found renters we really liked and they were willing to sign an 18 month lease if we waited until mid-January, so we decided it was worth holding it. However, I'm confident we could have had someone in there within a few weeks if we didn't hold out for the 18 month lease. I'm not sure what part of Raleigh you're looking at, but with more and more people moving here, I think it's a pretty good rental market right now.

I'm getting ready to purchase my first rental property in Raleigh, NC and want to make sure I'm using all of the correct state-specific forms. Does anyone have a recommendation of where to purchase a good lease? I have seen ezlandlordforms.com and uslegalforms.com in other posts - has anyone used those? I also want to make sure I know of other materials I'm legally required to give a tenant. The house was built in 2001 so I don't need to worry about the lead-based paint notice, but is there anything else like that I should be aware of? Anything else I need to be aware of to make sure I'm covered from a legal perspective as a landlord? Thanks!

We are about to purchase our first rental property and are a little nervous about finding renters during the holiday season. We are wondering if it's worth it to hire a real estate agent to help us get it rented. Does anyone have experience working with an agent rather than listing yourself on Craigslist, Zillow, etc.? Do you know what they typically charge? Thanks!

@Andrea Collatz I would love a copy of the renter's guide as well. Also, can you tell me what the cost is for Smartmove?

I'm looking to invest in my first rental property and have been researching how to accurately estimate cash flow. I've seen some different advice for estimating maintenance and repairs and CapEx and was wondering if anyone has good advice to share. The most common way I've seen is 5-10% of the monthly rent for each one, but that doesn't seem like it would always be accurate. In my area, two similar homes (size, age, etc.) could have a rent difference of $300-400 depending on location, but the maintenance and CapEx wouldn't really be affected by location so basing the estimation off of the rental income doesn't seem accurate. Does anyone have a different method that they have found to work? Thanks!