All Forum Posts by: Val Csontos

@Richard Gaston There are a lot of used books on Amazon you can get for 5-10 dollar if you just search on " Real Estate investing" . Classics Like the "Weekend Millionaire" are still relevant and very useful today.

Just beause these books are cheap don't believe they are not useful. Infact some of the Gurus who are trying to sell you information for thousands of dollars they are getting there info from these books too. Like @Ned Carey

said just read a lot and ask question here on BP and pretty soon you will realize you do not need any guru, and start investing on your own, and you will also develop an important tool called the "bs meter" to alarm you If you are about to be taken by a guru or anyone.

Good Luck!

I would just remove the screen door and not supply new one. I did supply them for a few years but they are just money pit and extra work for you with no real benefit to the tenants.

I would not sweat any of the above listed items. If someone was with us for five years and was decent and always paid and was reasonable with us than I would not worry too much about those things you listed. Some of those things I would replace anyway like an occasional light fixture etc as part of my "upgrade". My bottom line if they helped me making my money with no hassle no problems for me than I let it go.

Now if it was a 12 months lease than I would obviously charge them for all items exempt the paint job.

Good luck to you!

@Konrad L.

Each of us is different, so it is hard to advise on what is the best way to go about investing in real estate. For me personally flipping did never really appealed as I thought it was a lots of work and in the end I am endup with some money but nothing to show for in the future! So my favorite is to buy SFR s with ugly carpet and paint fix that up and keep it rented. Since I take the properties highly leveraged ie (almost) no money down I have little cash flow for the first couple of years but I am patient and just keep going with it.I am more concerned about to make sure I go the second/third highest rated school areas in the county, so my houses will be sought after therefor cut down on future vacancies.

The VA loans are no-money down (if you are owner occupying it) and what I used to do when I had no cash I would call around and find a realtor who would willing to lend me their portion of the commission on an unsecured note and I would pay them say $50-70 per month for 50-60 months. There buy have no closing cost expense going in.

Now days I do Multi Family deals too, but if the situation is right I still like to own SFRs if they are in the "easy to manage" area/price range.

@Konrad L. I saw you mentioned that your real estate agent "advised you" regarding your RE investment.

I would like to share with you my short story about my agent "advising"me:

I listened to my agent's advise about buying rehabbing and selling a 3 BR 1 BA SF and this is what happened. I worked my a### off to do a rehab project and made $2000 in 4-6 months. My agent made $12,000 on the same deal because he helped me buying AND selling the house as well. This was back in 1999. At that time soon after this deal i came to realize that the RE agents are good at Selling and I am the investor and i need to do my own homework independently from the agent on each investment project.

I am also a Vet (12 yrs USAF) and the way i started out, i would get a VA loan lived in the house for a year, than i would get a second one and rented out the first. (VA let me use the loan twice.) by than i had enough appreciation (equity) in the homes that with the next house I went to the local bank (small bank) they said they will pay 80% with 20% down so I asked them for substitution of collateral (the vp for commercial landing was quite intelligent and creative).

So instead of putting down 20% cash they accepted the equity in the other property in the form of a second mortgage with no monthly payment just as a collateral.

Disclaimer: This will work is you have enogh instant equity in the subject properties (you need to buy them for at least 60 -70 cents on the dollar.

Good Luck to you!

That would be here (Baltimore Washington Corridor) we had our rent nearly doubled here in past 5 years!

Reasons:

1, Salaries High

2, Folks with variable interest loans were evicted from their houses in record numbers like 8%, and this created a Rental Shortage in the entire region.

@Roy N. MBQ never paid my college professor friend the 18 days of rent! She got so upset that the following year she did not renew the lease!

As far as the contract with them, currently i do not have MBQ tenants so i would not know what is language in the agreements. I just wanted share this story here so Investors in our area can look out for it.

@J Scott

I would not disagree with you about your comment on the Casino! As a matter of fact would love to hear your view on that one of these days! Only mentioned Casino among many, many Job Opportunities we are getting here!

@Aly W. I hear you about the same amount, we usually ask them to put street name/# next to the name on the deposit slip, AND we just raise the rent by $5 or $10 to make it unique amount. Of course once we reach the 100th tenant I will re-think this method :)

@J Scott You seem to be well informed so my apology if you have already heard this:

MBQ does not work the exact same way as Sec8 Voucher.(Housing Authority) They are somewhat similar in many ways but the devil is the the details.So here is the biggest difference that comes to mind right now.

Each agency does yearly inspection, and they re-inspect when you tell them you did the repair(with in 30 days of course)

However MBQ only pays you rent from the day you PASS the re-inspection. (my former college professor has MBQ tenant and they sent her the letter to fix a few small things(during normal yearly inspection) and it toke her about 18 days to fix things and notify MBQ and they "skipped" her rent for 18days!

Where as the Housing Authority pays you continuously rent as long you fix the items, and notify them with in the 30 days window.