All Forum Posts by: Val Csontos

@Jason Schiffner ,

Welcome on the BP! I am not an expert on commercial props. or small town investing, but if I was in your situation I would take my time and educate my self in the area and the type of properties you are looking at. I hear from others: in rural areas you have to be especially careful going in because once you own the property you might be stuck with it for many years to come, in some cases even decades.

I agree with @Bill Gulley if congress decides to put your and other neighboring post offices out of business than you got to make sure you still have someone to pay you rent.

Ray Alcorn has a pretty good course on commercial investing for beginners and others. I recommend it. He is an active investor and also lives in semi rural setting. You can pick up a used one for pretty cheap on ebay.

I am also an USAF vet. used to be computer guy, then intel analyst/linguist at Ft Meade,

Good Luck to you!

@Albert Martinez

Over the past 16 years we write all leases with such timing, so they all expire end of April, May, Jun, (lowest vacancy rate/ highest rent, months for us) at first we did have to write 8 months leases and 15 months leases to "catch up" all expirations/ vacancies between these dates. Once we achieved this our rent average went up almost a $100/mo on each unit.

We do not list in MLS (i have an RE license) but we had found that Craiglist give us tenants faster (and better qualities too, as many out of state folks are moving here too)

We do not prequalify, (total waste of our time!) here is how the flakes get rid of themselves:

we have a full page very details ad on CR(craigslist) and only thing is not in the ad is the time of the open house for personal safety reasons.(we only give this out if someone calls us with a caller id).

So we tell folks who calls us or text us come to see the unit and they can have an application document IF the are willing to commit with a $30 FEE. This way we only get one may be two applications and those are NOT from flakes.

If some one says they have one more place to see, we tell them if they choose our place, text or email us for an application. And we send them apps document as a file, AND instructions on how to send us $30 via Pay Pal.

@Account Closed Good point! Let me give you the long version!

Years ago we had folks come to our open house for rentals, and we noticed than many would take copy of the application with them or some would complete one on site, and were telling us that they don't have cash on them but will be back in an hours etc.... with the fee or the application.

And out of say 25 people not one would EVER come back! So we came to the realization, there was no point to offer folks the application document, UNLESS they were serious about it and was ready and willing to make a minimal commitment with the application fee!

So nowadays during the 1.1/2 hours of open house, we only get maybe one or two applications completed with fees attached and both are pretty good candidates!

We no longer have to waist time with "flakes" and "tire kickers" they go on their own during the open house. We follow the KISS whenever it is feasible :)

Take Care, and

Regards

Ps on occasion we run into folks, who tell us they are shopping around, so for those, we tell them if they decide with our unit, to go ahead and send me an email/text to request the application, and I e-mail back one with instruction on how to send my the apps fee via Pay Pal. Those "shopper" types seems to like our process.

@Wes Thom is right about human safety!

@Zach Schwarzmiller If i were you I would consider an upgrade sooner rather than later.

I would sleep better at night knowing that i did my part in accident prevention. What happens if a child accidentally damages/ a cord or a pet bites it, fire starts etc....

With a proper upgrade, you have less of a chance to take some of the liability from your insurance co too. As you guessed they will try to blame everyone, first before they pay out!

If you can not afford a full upgrade, have the master electrician divided it in half of three, in order of priority.

Good Luck!

Ps.to save money, some master electricians are known to give you a significant discount if you run the cables for them, so they just have to connect it.

Just like you would do with a title co.s as an RE investor it is worth to build a relationship with an electrician too as you are going to need one, in the future, and it will be probably a Sunday night at 10pm :)

@Paul C. You did not say, what your market look like. It it is hot, warm, or cold.

If hot raise but a little bit less than others, if is warm still raise some say$10/mo, it it is cold than. you would negotiate.

Keep in mind that moving even if is done diy, will cost tenants a few hundred dollars and a huge hassle. So call around and pretend that you would like to rent a similar unit, and see what is on the market. No one will move out for a $10/mo increase! Now they might move out if they don't like it there for other reasons like location or if you were overpriced in the first place!

Good luck to you!

@Jon Holdman local banks can be amazing partner for your RE investing business if you approach them.

Here is one of my favorite "creative" deal with the bank.:

We purchased a property from estate sale via my realtor friend, for $150K asking price.

The after fix-up appraised for $300k

we got a loan for $180k

"the $54K down payment" was cross-collaterized - from other property we had equity in.

$150K paid to seller, $30k to fix up unit

we were end up being short about $5k so we charged it on credit card. (paid off about 3 years later.)

The property cash flowed from day one about $3-400/mo after all payments including reserves

My experience is that you can do creative (great ) deals with your local lender IF:

you maintain some level of relation ship with them and you have a minimal seasoning like done a couple of deals etc.....

@Account Closed Good point! We get around some of the problems you are stating by putting in the ad:

" If interested call or text us, if no one answers, please leave a message and, will get back to you the same day!"

Ofcourse we do follow up with same day calls! That does seems to work for us pretty well and we mostly get reliable leads that way.

@Bill Gulley I like your very detailed "it depends" explanations in regards to partnerships. I thinks it is right on the money!

@Aly W.

we had found over the years in our market that pre-screening is totally point less and just waist of our time! (I used to pre-screen just like you for about the first five years in the late 90s)

1. We write everything in the CL ads except for personal safety reasons the time and date for our open house. We tell them the opening time, if they call or text via phone.

2. Flakes will not show up for the open house.

3.If the flakes do come they won't ask for application, or if they would like one we tell them they will only get one if they pay the apps fee of $30. They always say no thank you! The serious ones will say yes of course!

In our experience the best way to fill rental vacancy with ads is to send everyone to the open house,(which is only about an hour long). If 15 people calls us from the ad, we tell all 15 to come in during the hours for the open house. 85% wont come anyway so you don't have to be worried about crowds!

Do this Once a week until qualified applicant find.

Happy Investing!

@James Kandasamy In my market if i get this many calls i would raise the rents by a few $$.

We do not get too complicated, but we write a very detailed CR ad which include 99% of all possible questions from applicant so when they call they mostly inquire about showing time (for safety reasons we will only provide that upon request) Also in CR if you have an account it does let you save your old ads. We have 4 years old ads out there in CR account that we still use.