All Forum Posts by: Jacob H.

My wife uses apartments.com to do basically everything with the tenants renting her house. She lists the property, screens, and even collects the rent from there.

It's a bit tough to say since I don't fully know the situation but I think you need to determine what your goals are as well. If you are looking to begin investing in real estate to build a passive income stream, I'd say investing in a rental with the cash may be a good idea. It also depends on if you are planning to sell the house soon and how urgent the pipe and tree issues are. If they are going to cause issues or damage to the property, you may need to prioritize that, otherwise, you'll be paying for repairs that could've been prevented. 

Have you reached out to some contractors to see how much they'll charge for the maintenance needed on the primary residence? Based on how much that'll cost may better help you make a decision.

From what I've seen, the more units you have, the lower the fee. However, I've also seen some PM companies that have lower fees but underperform as well. I don't think it's uncommon to see 8% for a property that size. As others have suggested, you should call around to some in the area and see what they are willing to charge.

On a side note: I would recommend that you focus more on a "good fit" and quality PM. It may be worth it to pay a little more for a better performing PM.

I think you'll find that's a fairly common strategy among investors here on BiggerPockets. Using the available cash you have to take out a loan and leverage a rental property, while that home is appreciating and being paid for by a tenant, you purchase the next property. All while paying a mortgage on your own residential property. The cash flow that's obtained from the rental units you own can help pay for your primary residence as well. In your dad's case, he has a large chunk of cash that can help him purchase multiple rental properties at one time if he wants (or a commercial apartment building which will yield even higher cash flow most likely). 

A key consideration is how much he wants to leverage. With higher leverage will be higher risk, typically. Example: If he wants to purchase a $200k rental property in all cash without a mortgage and use the remaining $50k as a down payment on his primary residence, he would be reducing his leverage, paying a mortgage on his primary residence, and receiving rental income from the $200k home - this is less risky.

On the contrary, if he purchased 2x $200k rental properties by putting $100k down on both and taking out a loan, along with a loan on his primary residence with $50k, he'd be using more leverage. There's more risk involved here since there are three loans but there's a higher potential for reward with 2x rental properties being paid for by tenants, 2x as much cash flow, and 2x as much appreciation. 

Regardless of the strategy and technique, the question you're asking is to invest in real estate or to not invest in real estate. I think you'll have a hard time finding anyone on these forums that'll tell you it's a bad idea to invest in rental properties.

I learned a lot about being an owner of a commercial property and how to properly run an Airbnb. My goals for 2022 are to continue renovating the apartment, increasing the overall NOI, cash flow, and value of the property (I don't plan to purchase another commercial property this year). Another goal is to expand on the Airbnb business.

I agree that getting started is the hardest part. I think listening to podcasts, exploring forums, researching online, and reading books are all very important pre-requisites to purchasing your first property. However, what I found was there is a point where you can do a bit too much and get into a form of analysis paralysis. Eventually, you have to just jump in and purchase your first property. In all of the months that I spent researching, listening, and reading about others' experiences, while I learned a lot, it got to a point where I was hearing the same things over and over. The first couple of months that I owned my properties, I learned more than the years of research I did. Doing it yourself is the best way to learn and if you have questions or an issue, you can jump back on the forums and ask.

I used to use Trulia but recently searched for their crime map and couldn't find anything; I could just be looking in the wrong spot. LexisNexis at https://communitycrimemap.com/ is pretty good as well.

What kind of commercial investing are you looking to get into?

If their 12-month lease has expired and they're currently operating on a month-to-month lease, you can tell them they need to leave with a notice (most states are 30-day notices but you'd have to look into the state specific requirement). If they refuse to leave, you would then move to an eviction. As others have already stated, things may be more complicated with the eviction moratorium, depending on your state. Regardless, don't let the tenant tell you what they will and will not pay.

The stock market is the place where you have the greatest chance of making the highest returns while you wait. However, a sound investor understands that for manageable risk and success, the long-term play is essential. If you are expecting to use the cash within the year, placing your money in low-fee index funds (like a vanguard S&P 500 index) would essentially be a gamble. If you expected to pull that money out in 10 years, there's a much higher chance that you'll have gains. With higher reward, there is high risk and I'm sure you're aware of that. If I was expecting to be purchasing a real estate property within the year and had $20k+, I'd probably place a smaller amount into the stock market (but not so much that it'll affect my ability to make the down payment) and put the rest in a high yield checking/savings account. Again, the likelihood of the overall stock market being higher in 30 years is pretty great. The chances of it being higher within the next 3-7 months is 50/50.