All Forum Posts by: Jack M.

I've turned my property over twice (meaning I'm on my 3rd tenant). First tenant did about $5,000 in damage after being in the house for two years. She had a bunch of pets she wasn't supposed to have, and the whole place had to be re-carpeted and repainted. She was also a bit of a hoarder, and it took a bit to clean out the place. It sat vacant for two months, which cost another $2500 in lost rent. So, that averages out to about $3800 a year in just that, plus there were some smaller repairs in between.

The tenant after that skipped out on paying a month's rent and getting it ready for the next tenant cost me $2500 out of pocket (including court costs for eviction. This is after I kept the security deposit). Then, it was vacant for a month. That's about $5000, and they were there for 16 months, so that's about another about $3800 a year.

So for my single family home, it's pretty consistently $3800 a year not counting smaller repairs and not counting any big CapEX expenditures.

The thought that you're only going to spend $2500 per year per unit is just pure fantasy. 

Long run or not, cash flow is cash flow. Having a nest egg doesn't change the calculations one bit. 

Why do you think you'd only need to spend $5000 a year on it? 

Vacancy alone will likely cost you about 2k, and when the tenant leaves, how sure are you that they won't trash the place, or at least leave it messy?

What about when you need a new water heater in 5 years, or a new roof in 10 years? 

How exactly did you come up with your $5000 figure? Was it just a random guess? Did you try using the calculator under the "tools" tab above? 

Welcome.

I use a company called Pioneer Enterprises, and so does my wife. They're okay. Sometimes, their response time is a little slow when communicating with the office, and I had an issue with them not collecting a late fee from a tenant (and accepting partial payments when I said they shouldn't), but other than that, they get stuff done.

It seems like paying off your credit cards first might make sense, unless you have an extraordinarily low interest rate.

If you're paying something around 10% interest on your credit card, you can get an instant 10% return on your money by just paying it off, and that's a 10% return with 0 risk. 

It doesn't solely have to be a financial decision.

I personally love living in a luxury apartment, and I don't care that I'm paying more for it than I would a mortgage. I don't have to deal with anything if something breaks, I don't have to shovel snow, and if I ever want to move I can just pack up and move with a couple months notice.

What hassle is there? 

It looks like it's just 12 hours of continuing education every 2 years and a small fee. You're saying there's a lot more to it?

If $23 bucks will break you, you're not ready to invest in real estate, imo. (It's 23 because they often have coupon codes). 

I like playing with the calculators, and I'm too lazy to replicate them in excel myself. And I think this is a good service and am happy to support BP. 

 Why should you have to tell the seller any price at all?

If a seller has a house listed for $150k, surely a buyer can't get in trouble for putting in a lowball offer of $100k, even if that buyer is a real estate agent.

Now if you're arguing that you should be able to say "I've done an in-depth CMA, and it says that your home is only worth $100k," then yeah, you have a point. That's just fraud.

I just don't see where you have to tell the seller anything at all.