All Forum Posts by: David Healey

Hi, Welcome! Regarding the Airbnb host question. I am a host and the only way I know of is to create and Airbnb account and try reaching out to the Hosts in the area. It's really tricky to get any kind of effective communication through Airbnb cause their communication policy is so rigid. You can't communicate any phone numbers, email, or physical addresses. It's super annoying. Hope that helps. I also manage a small property management company. Pro's: Being a PM puts you in connection with lots of property owners, you get to network with a lot of home service companies and get to know which companies are awesome and dependable and which are not, and it can be a great way to earn passive income if it's managed properly. Con's: you do get calls at inconvenient times, it can be a fairly large time suck on the time you spend prospecting as an agent, depending on how many units you manage rolling tenants over can take quite a bit of commitment to show the property and screen and vet tenants. I highly recommend The Book On Managing Rental Properties by Brandon Turner. He lays out some awesome systems for properly managing rentals. Regarding your Investor Lending question: that is essentially what banks do with Home Equity Lines of Credit (HELOC) so, I could see lenders doing it too, but with more of a Hard Money (high) interest spin to it. I haven't heard of anyone doing it myself though.
 Great Q on REO's I've been wondering that myself. Best of luck!

I would start by deciding what strategy you want to subscribe to. Buy and Hold: Purchase a Single Family Residence (SFR) or Multi-family (2-4 unit properties) and hold the property long term (10-30 years or longer) by either renting the property out, or living in it. Flip: Purchase an SFR or Multi renovating it and then selling it for profit. Where you have a job and a steady savings plan, by suggestion would be to purchase a Multi (at least a duplex) with an FHA loan (3.5% down) and Owner Occupy (live in) one side of the property. This allows you to leverage your savings and helps you get into the Real Estate Investing (REI) game sooner rather than later. I wouldn't recommend purchasing properties out of state until you've had owned a property or two and know how they should be managed. Once you're ready, you can hire property management (PM) companies where your properties are for approx. 5-10% of rents per month. Direct message me if you have any other questions. Best of luck!

I know I'm late to this thread, and while I agree with most of what @Steve Theobald said, there is one form of work-around that is mentioned in @Brandon Turner's books (The Book On Rental Properties & 7 Years to 7 Figure Wealth. I believe @Scott Trench touched on it too in his book Set For Life. It is on the White side of the Black and White spectrum. It is the option to refinance to a conventional loan. Obviously, this is only possible (in most states) if you have at least 25% equity on your property if it is a Tri or Fourplex. I believe most lenders allow 15% on a Duplex, and 5-10% on a Single Family Home. The simplest and easiest way to resolve the Owner Occuplied requirement is to live in the property for a year, but the aforementioned method is also tried and true. 

My wife and I are House-hacking a Triplex in Salt Lake City, UT and are looking to add a Community Laundry room with two sets of hookups for the remnants who don't already have laundry. We want to save as much money as possible with the installation as well as the running utility bill as we pay the utilities. So, my questions are these: 1. Should we install the Community Laundry as a cold wash only laundry system as its WAY more efficient than hot/cold wash systems and raise the rents a little ($30-$50) to cover our costs, or should we install a standard hot/cold system and raise the rents $80-$100/mo? Or do either and not raise the rents? The cold wash only system would not require an extra water heater and therefore, we'd save on the extra gas to heat the water as well as the upfront cost of the water heater and installation ($1200-$1500). Thanks in advance!!! -Dave

Awesome, I'm looking forward to it. What group is it a part of? How can I learn more about becoming a member?

PRO has opened access to a lot of awesome tools like the rental property and flip calculators. I also feel it's worth it to give back to BP. They got me started in REI and I gained a lot of insight and knowledge from all the networking I've done through BP.

How do we register to stream the live event?

@Tyler Allan Great question. The issue I've seen is that Homie wants to sell the property as quickly as possible even if it means they sell it for $20k-$30K less than market value. I recently spoke to a couple friends who had just used Homie to list their home. They said the Homie Rep told them to come up with a price and list it at that price. My friends asked a couple neighbors and who had sold recently and decided to list it at $205k. They live in a nice area on the East Bench of Cedar Hills, UT. I advised that they could probably get a lot more for the home and that I'd complete a Competitive Market Analysis (CMA) for them. The report factors very relevant criteria including: Sq. footage on each floor, beds, baths, listing and sold prices in the area, and a whole lot of other relevant things. It then compares it all to recently sold properties within a certain distance range you set.

I set this one to a 3 mile radius and found several homes (two on the same street) that had sold within the last 6 months. The price the report recommended was $229k. If we sold it for that amount that would mean after the commissions were paid (at 6%) the sellers would have still made an additional $11,200 in profit than if they sold it at $205k.

This is experience, along with @William Hochstedler's point, Homie is not having a major impact on the RE Industry as a whole.

I found a legal non-conforming triplex listed as a duplex in East Millcreek, UT (SLC).  I closed on it for about $370k when it appraised for $440k. I have also added some sweat equity in the form of refinished original hardwood floors and new paint throughout. I also updated the two attached 1 bed, 1 bath apartments. I'm using an Airbnb strategy in one and a standard 1 year lease in the other. I am living in the 4 bed, 3 bath unit with my wife and 3 kids. While I know my find is extremely rare, it's important to note that a little bit of research goes a long way. Also, look for properties that have been, "well loved," but not trashed as another way to negotiate costs at closing. Approach the properties with vision and you will find opportunities to cash flow. Especially if you decide to furnish the apartment(s) and airbnb/VRBO the properties. There is a ton of potential to earn a lot more income with this strategy. 

@Mike Mack is right though, with this strategy there is more risk in that you could be carrying more of the mortgage throughout the year, but if you do it right, you will come out on top with a profitable investment.

PM me if you want any more info. House-hacking is a no brainer. It's worth the $30/Mo. for the Rental Property Calculator. I am a Realtor now, but I used this awesome tool when I wasn't and it made a huge difference in the time I spent on analyzing deals. 

@Brandon

@Brandon Turner says we need to be analyzing about 100 deals a month if we expect to find the good ones.  Best of Luck!

Great thread, guys. I've learned a lot. I helped my dad replace the water line from the main (street) to the house about 7 months agoin American Fork, UT. We spent about $800 for the mini-ex rental, new water line and fittings. We dug under about 4 feet of concrete sidewalk and some 10" landscape curbing by hand. We ended up digging down to almost 6 feet. The project took us about 8 hours start to finish and only the $800. I've never done a sewer line up. Would you experienced viewers say a sewer line is a more difficult job than a water line? We literally just had to dig the 6 foot trench about 20 feet (about 5 feet by hand) and then lay the new line and connect it on both ends with the fittings, then bury the line.