All Forum Posts by: Ben W.

@Account Closed

We are Cincinnati based.  While we do manage mostly for our own account, we do help a few out of town investors.  PM me if I may help. 

@Sam Wu, OTR has a great vibe about it right now because, as with many cities, young people and older are moving back to the core.  That being said, the challenges in this pocket are that it is a small pocket.  There are over 50 distinct neighborhoods in the Cincy region.  As was suggested, get to know areas and determine your criteria.  Build your team, including a realtor, who will run comps for you.  Be careful in also working with wholesalers who are not local as they do not know the particulars of the areas as well. 

@Al Hartwig, @Kevin Brown raised some good points.  There is much you do not offer such as how your existing properties are doing, why you are trying to get them in shape (to sell, raise rents, etc), how much time you have to devote to this.  I would suggest doing a more full evaluation of your goals and develop a business plan/strategy.  As part of this planning, look at who is on your team.  As we all know, you cannot do it all yourself (many of us have tried); have you considered expanding your team?  Your team can be vendors (maintenance, realtors, other investors, etc).  Research how others have successfully grown their businesses.  Maybe partnering?  There are many of ways to partner.  Additionally, there are numerous ways to source properties.  BP is a great site for learning.  Good luck.  Ask questions.  This is a marathon.  Glad you reached out.

keep going.  Keep the positive attitude.  Not everyone is wired the way you are.

@Brandon Redfern, GREAT job getting to where you are now. I am also in the same job/income bracket and decided that Real Estate was where I could generate a much higher return, even when factoring in the time I spend. I have been investing for over 20 years. My strategy has been more on the lower end of the market as we focus on "distressed situtations" (other investors, banks, auctions, etc). What I have been able to do, as you probably have, is to leverage my ability to get financing or create low money down deals (seller financing) and leverage this into a very high ROI operation. What the Rule of Thumb does not factor in is the ROI (if you can generate a return that is double digit, then you are way ahead. Even in our no- money down deals, we have no problem internally financing the improvements because of the leveragability we have on the front end (100% financing for a very low purchase price; then we fund the improvements and DO NOT seek to refinance or cash out). I now use a property management firm for my 40 unit portfolio 100 miles away (great decision on my part, but took a long time and much trial and error to get there). However, we manage our 125 unit residential and small commercial portfolio in our home market ourselves. By "we" I mean a team that I have had to put in place. I found a very professional contractor (former corporate guy who gets it) to act as my Chief Operations Officer and assist with coordination of the maintenance and turnovers. Because we are buying lower end and the tenant base can be more transient, we have more issues. But, I run a tight ship using a great management software system (AppFolio) that provides me and the COO a dashboard. I have found that no one manages or cares as much as you, not even my COO. So, as you grow, find out where you need to outsource and ask for input from others.

Again, congrats on getting to this point. Do what you like doing and what is working. Do try to reach slightly outside your comfort zone from time to time if your are wired that way - there are so many things to explore in the REI world. I wish I had started when I was 10.

Ben

@Account Closed, I hear you on the concerns about investing far away from your home base,  I have portfolios in my home market and one 100 miles away.  It took me four tries to get my system working on my out of town portfolio due to issues with management companies.  In my home market, we manage for ourselves but are periodically talking with and researching third party management companies.  Happy to provide you guidance as you work through your process.  We also interface with many wholesalers and other sources of properties and can help you in that regard. 

Stay strong.

Ben

@Brandon Styles, the investor called me because we owned a house next to him.  That was just the beginning.

@Mindy Jensen says most things that I would.  I am a landlord of about 150 single family houses.  Here are my comments:

Carpet:  if you trashed it, is it all throughout?  If only in certain spots, then prorated.  BUT, a residence is subject to Normal wear and tear.  I do disagree with others comments about not being able to charge for fully depreciated items in a house.  What if I had a house that I owned for 50 years and the house was fully depreciated.  If someone damaged the hardwood floors, walls or other areas, I would, AND COULD, charge for damage to such.  It is just a matter of supporting what the replacement and repairs will be.  I have WON in court on this, many times.

Charges for early termination:  Not if you left at end of lease term.  Were you on month to month and gave proper notice?  Should not be able to charge you unless you violated notice terms.

Leak:  We would not normally charge for that.  We assume that tenants do not give notice to landlords unless it is really impacting them.  If there was significant damage that you did or further exasperated the issue, we might charge you.

Rodents:  questionable.  Probably chargeable as it appears that you did not clean the place well enough to notice this issue, either during the term of your lease, or upon moving out.

I applaud you for reaching out to this community.  We don't see many from the other side on here.  Good for you!!

Ben

Wham Properties

@Jason Davis, what is your business plan?  Local, regional or national in scope?

Jason,

We hold mostly for our own account and have about 150 pptys now.  Reach out to me if we may assist.  With us, there is no middle man.  Once you PM me, I can let you start to vet us.

Ben