All Forum Posts by: Greg Weik

Hey @Adele Tegger, I wish you the best of luck with your goals!

Fort Collins is a tough market to park $60k and make it really work for you.  

Underwriting guidelines are typically 20% down (minimum) and showing cash reserves of 6 months for all your properties.  

Assuming you also have the cash reserves, $60k is 20% on a $300k property.  That doesn't get you much in Ft. Collins, especially with current interest rates.  Your only real hope to cashflow would be to get a small condo or townhome and VRBO/AirBnB it. 

This would be the cashflow play, but those units do not tend to appreciate at a high rate vs. a SFR, as I suspect you are aware.

You honestly might be better served investing the $60k outside of real estate, unless you find a really strong deal.  I also agree with what @Jacob St. Martin said about flips as a way to turn $60k into $120k faster (but with far greater risk.) 

@Dominic Gilbert Mini splits all the way. 

Even high-end new construction homes are built with mini-splits vs. HVAC these days.  I think this is what the market is moving towards, for many reasons.   

Anyone who has been around and dealt with the inefficiencies and costs of traditional HVAC would easily prefer mini-splits.  

I'm not sure any price point would see an impact (ROI) from HVAC vs. mini-split, but $800k is not particularly high in the Denver area so I would pocket that $10k or so and move forward on mini splits.

The answer will depend on state law as @Greg M. alluded to but also what your lease says. 

Seems to me proper notice was not given and no refund is owed. 

Rent is always pre-paid, not paid in arrears.  If the tenant had possession on the 1st, they owe rent for the month, regardless of when they decided to move out. 

The tenant having paid full January rent is evidence they intended to occupy for the month of January.  That they changed their mind on the 6th and decided to move out 10 days later is not your problem. You were not afforded a reasonable (in most states, 30 days) amount of notice to re-market your property. 

A wrinkle in this story, in terms of what is owed, would of course be if you re-rented the property on the 17th, but I would suspect that's not the case.  If you did, you cannot collect double rent. 

Hey @Melissa D., best of luck as you start out with investing. 

I'm a local investor and I've owned rental properties in Florida as well as Colorado.  Now that I've been investing in rental properties for 20 years (and running a local PMC), I have learned a thing or two. 

Re: your questions - 

1. If you're local to the Denver area, what is your favorite networking group/meetup and why? Are there any you would avoid?  

--Unpopular opinion on BP, but I would skip the networking in your situation. I've experienced enough of this to know that the people who have real credibility don't usually go to these.  There are exceptions, but generally I would say this is a waste of your time.  

2. If you have purchased an out of state investment property, what were your biggest lessons learned and were there any surprises during the process? (I'm currently reading David Green's Long-Distance Real Estate Investing book.)  

--You can get a "great deal" buying property in Alabama, or Oklahoma... I guess?  But you will never see the appreciation that truly builds wealth, because those low-barrier-to-entry properties will stay flat on the metric that matters: appreciation. 

There are SOME exceptions to the extremes of Colorado and Alabama.  Probably Idaho.  If you do your research, an out-of-state investment can work, but you need to know exactly how to hire a PMC (most get this part wrong) and you need to ask a vetted PMC what they would buy in the area and what it will rent for.  Don't buy and then hire a PMC, find the PMC first.  They know everything about the local market that you want to know. 

Yes it's very expensive to buy in Colorado, and that's not changing anytime soon. People want to live here, demand will remain high, and appreciation is how you build wealth (not cashflow.)  Building wealth in real estate is a long game, there are no shortcuts. 

3. What is your favorite real estate resource (i.e., book, podcast/episode, tool, etc.)?  

--Again, unpopular BP opinion, but books are written to sell, podcasts are made to generate subscribers, etc etc.  There is knowledge to be found in these media forms, but knowledge isn't their first motivator.  

If I start a property management podcast or YouTube channel tomorrow, it will be to make money not to educate you.  I will provide useful information along the way, but getting subscribers is the number one goal, and to that end, most of the talking heads are going to make investing sound FAR more sexy and lucrative than it really is.  

The money is in selling a dream, not selling a map. 

Final bit of advice: if you can, steer clear of house hacking and multi-unit.  I could write an essay on why, but as someone who manages nearly 1,000 doors up and down the I-25 corridor, I can tell you these are not the investment vehicles I recommend to my clients and they are not what I personally would ever own. 

 @Scott - just to be clear I was not trying to throw any shade your way!  Your analysis was great and I appreciated the thought you put into it.  

My take:

No one knows. 

Pundits will continue to talk, and they will continue to have no accountability for their predictions. 

The smart money is on becoming a pundit, if you can.  Make predictions and speak assertively.  It doesn't matter how wrong you are. Your job is unassailable. 

With regards to real estate, there's no point in predicting the future. If prices go up, there will be opportunity.  If prices go down, there will be opportunity. 

Maybe 2nd to the job security of a pundit, however, is the job security of a solid property management company.  

Renters gonna rent, some percentage of renters will always be a PITA and landlords will always need our expertise. 

 Hi @Jarrett Fogelman, welcome to Denver!  Do you currently own any rental properties here? 

I agree with other comments - you don't want a Real Estate Firm that claims to have a property management division.  Companies are either property management companies or not.  

It's like when someone tells me they've started 7 business.  Well, if you were good at the first one, you'd have stopped there. 

In any case, it sounds like you're looking for investor guidance more than anything.  I happen to be an investor and I own a PMC, and I'd be happy to offer some free advice on what to buy and where, if you're interested.  

The best seat in the house is the front row seat at a PMC.  We get to see what works and what doesn't. 

Best of luck. 

Hey @Ken Ormsby I always have clients interested in selling.  I had one reach out just today asking if I had anyone who might want to buy. 

I've purchased a couple of my investment properties directly from property management clients who decided to sell.  If you can get in before a property hits the market, you can often negotiate a great win-win deal for everyone. 

We deal mostly in SFRs.  Feel free to DM me and I can give you details on properties I have that are going to hit the market. 

My $.02 is that you don't want to paint with a broad brush.  Employees vary wildly with regard to performance and value to the company.  

Don't reward excellent employee A with the same bonus as sub-par employee B. 

Take your excellent team members aside and pay them a lot more than you need to.  

Try to build a company around the people, not build the people around the company. 

@Allison Cutlip No offense intended but "How do we create a lease" and "How do we find software to manage the property" sounds a lot like you need a property manager. 

A good property manager will help to keep you out of legal trouble and also be a much-needed buffer for your new neighbors, who could turn out to be psychos.  You probably don't want to live next door to tenants; ideally, they would just think you're also renters. 

If you insist on going it alone, my advice is to hire a real estate attorney to draft a lease with all the current legislation.  If Ohio is like most states, this is a complicated task, not best left to chance.  Good PMCs use attorneys and have strong leases. 

Best of luck, but again, I suggest hiring a professional.