All Forum Posts by: Richard Henry

Stephanie,

I am an investor in Tuscaloosa. I attend the REI meeting most of the time. It is a small group but there are some good people that go.

I have found Tuscaloosa to be a difficult place to wholesale because the lack of active buyers. There are only about 4-5 investors, including myself, that are always willing to buy.

Please feel free to contact me if I can help you in any way. We read and buy and hold in Tuscaloosa county.

Brian,

I am an investor in Tuscaloosa and am glad to help you with referrals in Tuscaloosa. Please feel free to contact me if you still need help in Tuscaloosa.

David,

I am an investor in Tuscaloosa. I just bought a house near Bryant Denny Stadium on campus. It is a 2,000 sq/ft 3 bed 2 bath house that is currently rented for $1,600 per month. I just let the tenants out of the lease because I am going to update the house. I plan to list it for sale for +/- $350,000 in about 2 weeks.

That should give you an example of the property values. A nice new house on campus will rent for $700 per bedroom. The houses will sell for +/- $200 per sq/ft though. it is also hard to find single family homes on campus because of how hot the student market is right now. We were only able to buy our current project because we bought it in the foreclosure auction.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or need any help.

In our area (Alabama) we use the same lease with the same rules for a Section 8 tenant or any other general tenant. The only difference is that the Housing Authority pays the rent as long as their rules are followed. The lease is just like any other in that it is a 1 year lease between the tenant and us as the owners. My lease has a 30 day right to terminate on sale that the housing authority hasn't said anything about. I would think you have the same rights and responsibilities as you would with any other tenant.

We compared it to PropertyWare and Appfolio. For the money, Buildium had everything that we needed. We started using it at the begining of the year. I have not used the accounting side as mush as the property, tenant, and listing portions. The automatic website with online rental application has simplified our leasing process. Our accountant liked it and made just a few changes to the chart of accounts though. I am pleased with the management side and I haven't used the accounting side enough to comment myself.

I would be glad to send you my lawyer's contact info in Tuscaloosa, AL. He specializes in Real Estate law.

My bulk mailing company can use their bulk mail rate and still use some type of an actual stamp for just a few cents more. I would check with your local bulk mailing company.

I live in a college town and we require all to jointly guarantee and all to have their own guarantor. All tenants and guarantors would be responsible for the entire lease. We also get a security deposit equal to one months rent and the last months rent upfront. Then we require the first months rent prior to move in. This way we have 3 months of rent before they move in.

This is only for student rentals though. We would not be able to require this on a working class type of unit though. Just an idea.