All Forum Posts by: Jay Orlauski

I have seen many situations  - especially where tenants are involved -  that they do not want realtors and potential buyers going through the buildings for several different reasons - some are afraid to spook their tenants in case the property doesn't sell fast and they get stuck with vacancies - they may not want to disturb their tenants - or don't want people going through there unless they know they are serious. One way to find that out is if they make a qualified offer on the subject property. I am in California and I see listings like this ALL the time - " showings are subject to accepted offer"  - it is very normal here. I think generally speaking, the sellers simply don't want to waste time and prefer not to alert their tenants that the property is for sale until the last possible moment when it becomes inevitable. 

Hi Andrew -  I'm a realtor in the Fresno area that has been investing personally for over 15 years and I actually prefer to work with investors since we speak the same language. I would be more than happy to talk to you about the local real estate market here.  In fact, if your going to be down on a Tuesday or a Saturday - you should come check out our meetup group. I formed a local real estate investors meetup so we could connect with other investors, learn from what others are doing, and discuss local deals in the area. The meetups are always very informative and invigorating - Of course I am more than happy to meet with you outside the meetings anytime you are going to be in the area. Also let me know if you're interested in receiving any listings - I can help you out with that as well. I can be your feet on the ground if you'd like. Here is the link to our meetup group: 

http://www.meetup.com/Fresno-Deal-Seekers-Meetup/

Let me know if I can help you at all

I think I am qualified to answer this question as I have lived with tenants several times - always with the intentions of just " keeping it on the down low" -  well ... that doesn't work - I cannot keep my mouth shut when the new tenant suddenly redoes the front yard or is letting some guy fill up 5 gallon water bottles in his trunk from the hose  -  or any several number of things I do to improve the property - it is just sort of obvious that I own the place. But I have stopped letting that be an issue - we keep our units up so that we are not concerned about complaints and when they do come , we are glad to get them taken care of ASAP - all the tenants know we own the place and they don't abuse us - but I have had tenants that think we are there for them 24/7 just cause we live on the premises - on an occassion or two - I have had to tell a tenant to "remind me on Monday" or something to that effect when they try to encroach on my private time. Over all , I have had good relationships with them and try to keep it that way - but if you screen good, put in good people that you will get along with, and keep the place up - there should be no reason to be intimidated by living with your tenants. If they get too needy - make them submit complaints via written notice so that they do not get into the habit of expecting you to drop everything your doing to tend to them on  a moments notice. I'm not sure about Pennsylvania - but in California - you have a little more lee-way with selecting tenants  - if it is a multifamily that you reside in, certain discriminitory laws don't apply so long as you are not advertising anything discriminitory. My point is - you can literally  choose your neighbors which give you a leg up on the situation. If it is a great deal and you are willing to be a landlord - go for it! Of course if you truly want to stay anonymous, you could always hire a property manager and play dumb - or just do everything via mail  - but at some point in time - you may be forced to show your hand and it might be a little awkward - good luck - keep us posted on how it goes for you!

Wow Keith -  thanks for the followup !!  - sounds like it has some potential so far - I look forward to reading your future updates.  Go get em' !

 Hi Keith - thanks for the feedback - I look forward to hearing about how it goes for you. I grew up near your location - or at least spend most of my teen years in the inland empire - between San Bernardino , Rialto , and Highland. 

Anyhow - I hope the service works for you - I would definitely love to hear about the results - please keep us posted

 Hi Chris - Just out of curiosity - what would you say makes those two the best ones?  I have started a local club her in Fresno and am always looking for ways to make it better. We have held 4 meetups so far and I am really excited about Basically, each week we meet and greet, listen a presentation, analyse at least one deal, and share stories with each other. One challenge is continuing to find speakers for the group - but there is so much synergy in the room -that I don't believe we will need a new speaker  every week - group members get caught up in taking to each other and networking -  and that's my favorite part of the group. Anyhow - any tips on why you prefer the two groups you mentioned would be greatly appreciated. - thanks . 

 It was great. Even though it was raining pretty hard, we still had a good turnout - John Hughes from Socotra Capital came and talked to us about using hard money and answered a lot of questions and cleared up some misconceptions. He really liked our group and in fact is going to help sponsor us - so we have out first sponsor now! - Also - we plan to have him come in at least once a quarter to talk to us so that members who missed him will get a chance to get some questions answered and also give him an opportunity to get to know us better and vice versa - so things are moving along well - I am really hoping that this year we can see some tangible results come out of this meetup. 

 Hi Nathan! - great question.  - actually - I am about to send some updates to the group , but since you asked , I'll give you the skinny. Just found out yesterday that the BitWise HashTag building that I want to hold the meetups in will actually be open by next week - but they cannot BOOK anything yet until their booking system is in place - which will be next week .. so I'm calling her back on tues day to confirm a meetup space - I was planning to start advertising the next meetup yesterday, but the presenter doing the talk is out of town till the 11th so I wasn't able to get her confirmation  - I will be talking to my other point of contact there today to verify that we will have somebody  to present to us - sooooo long story short - I'm shooting for a meetup on Thurs. Jan 21st - now, I know that weekdays aren't particular good you specifically cause of your work schedule and location - but I wanted to set a weekday meeting for the convenience of the Title company who isn't open on Saturdays. Going forward, we will alternate the meetups to so that one week is on Saturday - the next week is on Thursday - and so forth - so two meetups on a Thursday and two meetups on a Saturday - this way members can still attend when it's most convenient. You should receive an update soon about the next meetup. The ext Saturday meetup will be Jan 30th. Hope to see you there! - Jay

 yeah ,, it was killing me to not be able to participate in one of the greatest fire sales of my time..I wish I had started talking with other investors sooner - I'm sure that I could have bird dogged a lot of deals - but my mindset was on using my own funds and my own lender ( after all, that's all I had ever done previously) so I was limiting myself and didn't take advantage. 

I've never been accused of being a historian - but I was in Fresno during that time frame dealing with real estate. Unfortunately, I don't have much to analyse about how it affected me considering that I sold off most of my rentals for double what i paid JUST before the crash. I would like to say it was my sharp intellect- deep foresight - and mastery of the market - instead it was timing and good luck - I was liquidating them to start up a new business that had nothing to do with real estate - shortly afterwords the market came crashing down - we did still own one SFR - the only SFR I ever owned and it was completely underwater - we could not keep up the payments on it and it would not sell for anywhere near what owed on it - however we did leverage the heck out of it just before the sky started to fall so got some money out of it at least. Meanwhile people were squatting and getting paid $5000 to walk away from their home - and here we just turned our keys over like suckers. The good news was that we among the fist to start filing for foreclosure so we didn't have to wait too long to get our next property and the market was still low enough to get a good deal.

In terms of tenants leaving - I think that was a different situation back then and they have tightened up standards a lot since then - it's no longer a situation where someone can borrow %100 on a home and move out of your rental - it takes some saved up money now.  I f you do your due diligence and run the numbers  - being sure to be positive cash flow from the beginning , then market fluctuations shouldn't bother you if you are in it for the long haul - I used to say that I didn't care what the market did cause I was collecting rent - not selling my house. Also, it is universally known that in real estate, the deals come from individual situations - not necessarily  from the direction of the market - you can make money in a buyers market or a sellers market -  if can find the right deal, then it doesn't make a difference what the market is doing - you've got to figure that in every transaction - SOMEONE is making some money - the key is to put yourself in a position where it is YOU who is making the money. That means doing some research , knowing your market, always being on the lookout for a deal and knowing how to run your numbers. Good luck - please keep us updated on your progress!