All Forum Posts by: James H.

It would only be a good investment IMO, if you also could afford a lawn service to maintain the yard as you could not depend on tenants to do so.

How much would it cost to just resod the yard upon resale?

Will the tenants accept the increase in the water bill?

I think there is something to be said for having a well maintained yard in the scenario you mention. It sounds like the neighborhood is sort of on the cusp of trend up or down, based on your description of overall lawn care. You wouldn't want yours to pull the values down...

You're a pretty handy guy, you could probably install it yourself, but it would be a lot of planning and work for a first time install.

In your situation, I would borrow against the primary given a few conditions:

1) the new payment could be easily made using income from my day job without any dependence on the future rental.

2) it was borrowed as a cash out refi with a low locked in rate (would even go with a 15 year to further reduce the rate)- not a heloc.

3) I would only borrow about a third against it, or less depending on critieria number one.

Then, I would use that cash to get a discounted rehab to hold project. Any future borrowing would be against my rental(s) and not my primary and only if the cash flow was at least 200/month after applying a 50% rule and assuming major systems (roof, electric, HVAC, plumbing) all have at least 5+ years left in them.

You can get a pretty good idea of market values by researching and tracking listing prices along with days on market. This is what I was doing. After gaining access to the MLS, I don't think my estimates are any more accurate. This is for select areas for which I am very familiar like one or two zip codes.

I would just sell it. I would not want to hire a property manager nor manage from out of state. I don't personally like the rent-to-own scheme for various reasons. The main reason being that rent-to-own is basically seller financing with a "gotcha" clause that allows you to take advantage of the buyer. Seller financing is not ideal either as I would not want to forclose from out of state.

I would remain relatively vague with a tenant, but not dishonest. Otherwise it just depends. I do not liken it to asking how much money I make, necessarily.

In Texas, you have to provide the owner's address (cannot be a PO box #). So if you don't own the property through an LLC, you have no choice but to disclose where you live. It doesn't bother me at all to have my address on my lease.

I'd like to see some statistics on how many landlords have actually had a tenant terrorize them at there home when the tenant knew the landlord'd address. I'm sure there is a few stories out there, but not enough for me to worry about it. Quite frankley, when I rented, I could not find a copy of my lease to save my life and imagine my tenants probably couldn't either.

A lot of this stuff will be standard per region, some fees are regulated by the state. Many things can vary by deal. The title company will be able to tell you generally what to expect as can a good faith estimate for any type of financing.

I figured just waiting would probably do the trick. Good looking out on the new door, though! It's always cool to catch a find like that. I hate how the extras end up costing money, though, lol.

6 months gross rents per property would be pretty good. After you get a certain number of properties, though, you may decide to reduce the amount per property. If you had 10 properties that rented for 800/month, I think 20K would be sufficient, rather than 48K in reserves. Banks will want to see 6 months mortgage payments in reserves per property if you are getting loans.

I had a 2 ton unit installed with ductwork and cage for the compressor for 4200.

Adding the necessary electric and/or gas lines were not included in that cost.

If it's in another state and your're not handy, than my info is moot. But even if calling the maintenance guy is within her 10 percrent, often repairs generated from PM's come with a higher price than if you called the plumber yourself. But again, if it is in another state, you have no choice really. Those of you who invest out of state are a different animal and I just could not do it.