All Forum Posts by: Greg Weik

I voted against it.  As the owner of a Colorado PMC, I know my clients are fed up with government meddling in the rental world, as am I.  Re-directing tax funds to "affordable housing" is a very nebulous concept, short on specifics, and likely to not move the needle.  I'm not convinced any of this is really about helping people or providing "affordable" housing, however that term is actually defined...  

These programs steal money from Peter to pay Paul, and for people who work hard, pay taxes and do it right, it is frustrating to have tenants get handout after handout to "help them".   That so-called free money comes out of the pocket of people working hard, hustling, and paying taxes. 

I've seen multiple tenants in our portfolio get over $20,000 of completely free money "cuz covid" (yeah right).  The more you give people, the more they will take. It's not like making housing cheaper will suddenly cause the recipients of this subsidized housing to save money or budget properly or "get ahead" as is the common vernacular. They will still be broke. The cycle of people receiving handouts of any kind is extremely difficult to break.  I've yet to see any tenants get off section 8. 

Rant over! :) 

Happy to help.  We did direct marketing a lot back in the day when we were trying to get our PM business off the ground.  It's a long, tough slog.  At this point, I don't even recommend direct mail (in my industry) to franchisees, as there are a lot of other ways to reach your target audience for less money and spending less time.

Again, I don't know much about the buy houses for cash industry, but it seems like there are probably facebook groups and next-door posts you could follow/search to place the right comment at the right time to generate interest. You could target FSBO listings on Zillow and elsewhere.

My experience with direct mail has been that you have to hit the right people at the right time with the right message - and even then it's a small percentage of people who will pick up the phone.  

Hey @Sam Spoerl, while this world of "sell your house fast" is not my lane, some things jump out at me from a marketing standpoint that may help. 

1) Your personal photo.  I'm not sure this helps.  Maybe it does maybe it doesn't, but the idea is that this is a quick, cold transaction of money for keys.  The personal touch seems contradictory. 

2) Your email.  I would suggest changing the @gmail.com to a domain.  Cheap and easy to setup through Gmail, but will give you credibility.  Your target audience needs to believe you actually can close.  Anything that seems "small time" isn't going to help you. 

3) Offer for people to text you.  Most people don't want to make a call, get a spiel where they feel sold to.  You can have "soft contacts" with people where you can evaluate them and they can evaluate you, via text message.  I would suggest creating some templates you can send off (that don't sound like templates) via text. 

4) I would stick with a more professional font.  

Take it or leave it, just my $.02.  Good luck! 

Hi @James Ross, we would be happy to chat with you to see if RES is a good fit. 

I own the company and we've been in business for 15 years.  I own multiple rental properties and I can say with confidence that my team knows what it's doing.  My office manager is also a broker and also an investor who owns properties.  This dramatically impacts company culture around here.  We understand what our clients are looking for in terms of value and wealth generation because we are looking for the same things. 

We will always steer you and all our clients to their highest ROI.

That said, if your tenants have weeds, you will always hear from the HOA before us. We are not on-site and we are not likely to see issues of that nature before an HOA that is cruising the neighborhood looking for issues like this. If we are made aware of issues, however, we always act swiftly and competently.

The process of switching PMCs is pretty simple in our experience.  We take on doors from other PMCs almost every week, and we will be in the Springs this afternoon picking up another 10 units from another company.  

Please feel free to drop me a line or contact my office directly and we can go from there.

Hi @Lakshay Gopalka, I have used and highly recommend Steve at Advantage Home Inspection Service.  They were referred to me by one of my investor clients and now that I've used them on a few deals, I will only use Steve and his team.  Very thorough, and very professional.  

303-843-9770

I don't have any referral fee or arrangement set up with Steve, I was just very impressed with his work.  

Hi @Tori Wienke, what a frustrating situation.  I'm sorry to hear you've gone through this stress with these tenants. 

It sounds like you did everything right - legally and ethically. 

The rental market in our area is not great right now. If you let them leave without penalty on 11/30, you may well be sitting on an empty unit for over a month.  Just something to consider.  It sounds like you have no obligation to let them out at this point. 

@Patricia Steiner is right that in the event you let them walk, you need to have a detailed agreement signed off on by you and the tenants, indicating the tenants will vacate the property and relinquish all rights to the leased premises as of X day and X time.  Failure to vacate by X day and X time shall result in holdover rent being owed as well as an action for eviction being filed against the tenants.  Tenants shall be entitled to receipt of their full security deposit within X days of vacating the premises notwithstanding any charges, if applicable, related to damage to the premises or cleaning needed upon inspection and determination by landlord.  <-- something like that. 

In situations like this it is usually better to part ways and try again with new tenants. 

Hi @James Cheang, we'd love to chat with you to see if we can be a good fit for your property management needs.

I will DM you as well, but we are highly recommended on BP as well as on Google.  We've been helping landlords for 15 years and I can tell you that communication is the #1 reason I see clients leave a PMC and come over to RES. 

The process to switch over your PMC to Real Estate Solutions is very straightforward and probably easier than you might anticipate. 

I look forward to chatting with you - and you are welcome to call our text us at the number in my signature.  Either I, or my Office Manager, Chris, welcome a discussion with you about moving forward. 

@Anthony Parr, tell your wife some people on the internet told her she's wrong.  You're welcome to borrow my couch.  :) 

Obviously, I'm very biased, because I own rentals and a property management company, much like @Nathan Gesner  But as Nathan said, the numbers simply don't lie.  Net worth in the millions from owning just a few rentals over a few years is not at all uncommon.  Leveraging that equity to buy more rentals just spreads out the money and builds the wealth even more, as you obtain more high-dollar assets to appreciate.  Rinse and repeat. 

People can be very successful in either world though, I'm sure of it.  I personally prefer steady and predictable growth, and predictable demands on my time,  so I've never really considered flipping. 

@Account Closed right now, home prices are dropping. A lot.  They're dropping fast in a lot of areas.  Rental rates are pretty stable.  So... If you continue to wait to try to find a "bottom", my best guess is January/February 2023.  The people that have to sell (or think they have to sell) will have their homes listed far below what the market price was even 6-10 months ago.  There will be deals on the home prices, but you will get hit on the back end with higher interest.  It seems like a wash, but I don't think it is, over the long term.  Interest rates will eventually go back down. 

So if you wait for a few months to pull the trigger, acquisition costs will be attractive.  This should be a feeding frenzy for cash buyers.  Assuming you're not a cash buyer, and with interest rates climbing, the numbers still are not likely to be great - in the short term.  Remember, rents are pretty stable around Denver.  This is unlikely to change.  This means if you can weather the interest rate storm, you can refi in a couple of years and your numbers should be solid. 

@David Lemont underwriting is a challenge when it comes to acquiring additional properties.  The two-year rule is very common and from my experience, not something very easy to get around. 

It might sound counter-intuitive, but have you considered renting something to fully set the clock on your 2 (soon to be 3) rental properties?  This is a tough time to buy, with interest rates what they are, but if you can position yourself to be ready to pull the trigger on another house in two years, my crystal ball tells me interest rates will cool down and house prices will have leveled or even dropped in some areas by then.   

Whatever you do, don't try to sell your current primary home.  This is the worst time to sell I've seen since 2008 and it's not getting better anytime soon.