All Forum Posts by: Eric Schwake

@Jennifer Z. estimated rent is $975/month. The PM I’m going to be working with ran a rent range report for me on the property and I’ll be asking for closer to $1100 or $1200 but the rent guarantee is based on Roofstocks rental estimate.  My expenses were based on what Roofstock provides which seem to be fairly inline with various percentages I've seen discussed here and other places. I was actually worried about why it's been on the market for so long that's why I wanted to offer $72k with is $7k under asking. I suppose I could offer $68k however I'm guessing that won't be accepted since the home sold in 2012 for $65k. I'm thinking I should be protected because I'll have the inspection contingency in case way more than I'm thinking is required to get it rentable. 

Hi all.  I recently funded my SDIRA and I plan to make my first rental investment ever inside of it.  I have found a house on Roofstock that I want to go for.  I am using Roofstock because I'm from Oregon and it's nearly impossible to find the kinds of houses that are available on Roofstock for the money I want to pay.

The house I'm looking at is around $80K.  It's been on the market for over 400 days so I plan to offer $72k cash and will go up to $75K (the Zillow estimate for the property is $83K).  I assume the property will need ~$7k in immediate repair costs before being rentable.  Unlike many properties on Roofstock this one hasn't had an inspection yet but I plan to have an inspection contingency built into the offer so I can back out if repair costs appear to be much more than $7K.  After running some numbers I think the property would cash flow around $6K per year.  The other benefit of this property is that it comes with Roofstocks rent guarantee for a year where they will pay 90% of the estimated market rent for the property while I'm looking for a tenant with my property manager.  Obviously I plan to have someone in the property much sooner than a year but it's nice to have that little cushion to help avoid some risk.

So after saying all this I wanted to see what you all think about this.  Should I go for it?  As this is my first rental ever feel free to let me know if I may be missing things.  Really looking forward to everyone's advice and excited to get into this form of investing.

I’m about to buy a property from Roofstock. I’ve seen the same thing where they have higher prices than Zillow but just like any other home you can choose to offer less than what is listed. I definitely intend to offer less than what is listed.

@Eddie Werner thanks I may send you a message.  I actually sent a realtor a message on Zillow about a couple of her properties I was interested in and haven't heard anything back from her.  Seems odd that she didn't get back to me right away but whatever.  

 Ok that sounds promising.  I'm honestly a tad more hesitant to buy this place since it's not on Roofstock.  Being that it would be my first rental property purchase I was hoping to have Roofstock sort of hold me by the hand through it.   However I'm planning on using cash so that should make the transaction a bit easier but I'll still need to find my own inspectors/insurance/PM etc. Might be worth it though.  I've heard Philly is on the short list for getting the new Amazon HQ. Of course there are no guarantees but if that happened I'm sure it would be a big deal for the area. 

I'm an out of state investor.  I was initially looking at buying a rental property near Pittsburgh, primarily because I was going to be able to do it all through Roofstock which was going to make the process a bit easier.  However I was looking at properties around Philadelphia and found one that looks like a really good deal in Brookhaven.  Can anyone let give me an idea of how that area is for rentals?  I looked at the crime/school stats for the area and it looks pretty good but just wanted to get a sense of what others think.

Depending on how things turn out my first rental will be in my SDIRA and I'll be 2,657 miles away.  

I'd highly recommend you speak with @Brian Eastman. He's great and will provide you options based on your specific goals. 

So I'm posting this here because I wasn't quite sure where else to post.  I'm looking at my first rental property and I will be using a property manager.  I'm looking around Roofstock and one of the PM's I see over and over is MarketPlace Homes.  I've already had several long email exchanges with them and they seem on top of their game.  I just wanted to ask the community if anyone has used them and what your experiences are.

@Amit P. I've been thinking about Safeguard as well.  I've spoken with Corey there several times and it seems like a pretty good deal but I'd also really like to hear if anyone has experience with them.  I'm thinking about investing some of my SDIRA funds with them and would like something that seems fairly hands off for a 9% return.  Did you end up doing anything with them?