All Forum Posts by: Val Csontos

@Anurag Kumar My HVAC repair tech guy of 15 years who works during a day for a large local HVAC co, told me that the maintenance plans or yearly visits are used basically as opportunities for the HVAC co to convince the owner that something costly is broke and needs repairs. Instead of wasting your money you might want to print out the harmful effect of not replacing the filter for residents and make sure the tenants always get a copy and warning,

     Also you can take it a step further and you can-write it in the lease that "if the filters are not replaced regularly tenant understand that this will cause a $300 repair bill at the end of tenancy, where tech or HVAC cleaning co. needs to come out and clean the system." These two ways usually takes care of the problem for you at no charge!

Good Luck to you, and let us how did you solved this issue for your rental.

Val

@Alecia Loveless  I understand that you inherited the tenant and the lease. How ever this is how we avoid that from ever happening again.
We advertise the place for let's say $1,500 per month. When we write the lease we write up the lease for $1,650 and we state in the next paragraph that if tenant pays on of before the 4th he or she gets a $150 discount off the rent. They always ask why the rent is written higher but when I explain that to prevent late payers from paying late they always understand it. I had one family that payed late every month for 3 years, so i got to collect 3 extra month or rent. But most never pay late ever........Please check to make sure this clause will be legal in your area. In my area here in Maryland I tested it about two year ago (I have been using it over 20 years now) when in court a judge asked to se my lease so he could see the rent amount for himself. He had no issue with it for our area.

Good luck to you!

Val 

            It is a $3 Million Multi family project near Greenmount Ave and before I deep my toes in there any further I would love to hear some local's opinions of the area. Is it worth fixing up an apartment complex  C- to B in the area? If we did that will I be able to find tenants for that price range?
           I am getting confused signal as far as development is going. I see infrastructure replacements and resurfacing on parts of Greenmount ave, but I don't see any of the usual Franchises that normally fallows the path of progress.

Thanks for looking!

I am seeking your advise, if you have recent experience, and understanding of the Waverly area. Normally,I am focused on the sub-markets in the Baltimore Washington Corridor, (for good reason) but someone brought me a deal opportunity the other day from Waverly/ Greenmount Ave area that on the surface I thought it might worth a look. Are there any local intricacies traps that i should watch out for in a deal?

Thanks in advance!

Val

ps. ( I mean to write: I am looking for some input, but smart ph is not so smart)

@Brandon PhillipsDo you personally know any one who does did bird-dogging and succeeded with it? I used to believed and / said the same things to  people including all of my wife's relatives and our extended friends,  but never really heard one case of it personally that worked out not even in one case that I know of it. Frankly it is probably easier to become a mustachian (look up mrmoneymustach) so you can save up a little bit of money really fast so you start house hacking. Of course I might be wrong about this like many other things in life.... :)

@Sheila Campbell There are many ways to purchase a property with no money! Here is an example or two: 

     Early on I read a book that said that you could get a realtor as your buyer agent to lend you his/her commission. So we did that early on. I called about 19 realtors in my area to see if they would lend me their commission so i could use that money to purchase a property creatively. The first 18 said: "no, no, never heard of this, my broker would not let me do this, you are not serious for asking...." You get the point........any way the 19th said sure I'll do it! And so with his help I was able to purchase this foreclosure that there were running no money down special. 

    With his commission I was able to pay for closing cost on each of the properties we purchased. I gave him an unsecured note at zero % for 48 moths of payment. The nice thing about this that I ended up buying many other properties with his help on the closing cost.... and in a year or two he was getting from me  close to $2,500 per month, so during the winter, when the other realtors were starving, (the ones that did say no to my request) he was doing fine...and I ended up buyer pretty much all of my properties with 

    All these payments came out of the cash-flow, and even thought the properties were so leveraged that I barely  broke even at the beginning (they were in quite suburban setting where it was/ is harder to cash flow) But now two decades later the property values close to quadrupled and the cash flow now over a $1000 on each of those properties. (Probably $700 after capex) 

    Also we would close at the end of the months and in some cases we did show the house to potential tenants before closing on the property and did sign the lease with in the same few hours after we did purchase. What was nice about it, that the lease due in advance for the month but the mortgage is not due only 30 days later (if you settle on the last day of the month) so in many cases we purchased the Fridge or stove from the first month rent if the unit was missing one) 

Good luck to you in these fun times!

I have zero doubt that you will succeed!

Where there is a will, there is a way!

Kind regards

Val

In my experience, most of the time when people ask me if I am the owner/landlord/property manager, they usually have pretty bad financial situation, and often time they were already rejected by the large complexes, so now they are taking their chances with the" operator owners" , and they are hoping/praying that they will not get another rejection for their application fees. 

My response to their question is always truthful: We manage this place professionally with credit checks and employment verification. This usually discourages the flaky types from applying.

In my areas when there is a economic bust:

 condo's prices go down first and dives the deapest 

and when there is an economic recovery:

the same condos are the last to recover with the slowest recovery rate. Also instead of paying useless condo fees for $100s of dollars per month, why not by single family and not have any significant fees. 

Good luck to you!

There is no reason to go around a realtor ever. 

1. Find a good one and he/she will help you succeed as an investor. For years i had used the same realtor as a "buyer's agent" and he would lend me his commission toward the closing cost of the rental property we were closing on. I would give him a note at zero interest for 36months with monthly payments. Sort of like a car payment exempt the payment would come out of the cash-flow. After the fifth or sixth property he was getting close to $1000 per month from me, even in the snow storm when other realtors were getting 000.

 (ps to find a realtor who is flexible like the above,  does take some work, i called literally about 19 people and about 17 of them did think i was nuts one hang up on me and finally one said that he will lend me his commission if i buy all of my properties with his help.) 

2. Realtors are a tight community and if they find out that you try to "go around" someone good luck try to get on their list of potential buyers.....for "pocket listings"

Bad bad bad idea.

Good luck to you!

@Cameron Marmon

No Tax Return is a major red flag!! I would not touch it. Especially since it is out of state!!   If the property was 20 minutes from my house and I knew the area very well, may be I would consider it. But keep this in mind:

if you are seeking to finance the property from third party (not from the owner) they will need a tax return also!!  Just be patient and a better deal will come along. It always does!

And good luck!!