All Forum Posts by: Jason Parfitt

@Anthony White Congrats on the huge success! I've heard great things about the Memphis market.

Originally posted by @Jupshy Jasmin:

@Jason Parfitt: The last thing I want to do is run after tenants for rent, better yet, late payments. Does the system send out reminders for upcoming rent bills and notify them when they have a late payment?

If they pay late and only decide to pay the monthly rent, does the site have a way of prohibiting them from sending partial payments?

I like the idea of maintaining a copy of the lease online for reference purposes. I like to old fashion sitting down with the tenants and manually signing the lease after reviewing the terms, so does the site allow me to upload the copy of the lease too? Or is the copy of the lease is available if I select to electronically sign it through their services?

I really appreciate you sharing your experience with me.

 Yes, the system will send out reminders for upcoming rent bills and notify when they have a late payment. However, that's a great question about the partial payments, I'm not sure! Haven't had that happen so far but it's certainly worth asking the Cozy helpdesk.

I completely agree with you that I like to sit down with the tenants and manually sign the lease.  That's the way I conduct my business as well. After signing, I scan and upload the manually lease onto Cozy for everyone to access.

Good luck to you! Let me know if you have any other questions.

@Richard Miller Even if you loan the money and require a 30% return on your money, you won’t be able to use the property as collateral since the bank will require it for the FHA loan. If you’re putting the down payment, I would recommend purchasing the house yourself and renting it to the 4 individuals (if the deal makes sense for you). As is, there’s not much you can fall back on if you fail to receive the 30%.

Are you feeling overwhelmed with your Real Estate start?  It makes sense, there's a ton of information to sort through and horror stories from 10 years ago of people going bankrupt. The amount of acronyms in real estate can make people run for the hills.  And the number of properties on the market on any given day would be impossible to search through (if you don't have specific criteria).

But don't let that deter you from making moves towards your end goal! There's a lot of "free" activities that will help you in the long run. Reading real estate and business books from your local library, listening to BiggerPockets podcasts, and searching the MLS are all activities that do not require any financial obligation. They do require time, but you can "create" time by listening to podcasts while driving to work, reading books during lunch, and searching the MLS instead of Facebook. Eventually, the lessons learned will become so ingrained in your mind that you're no longer going to be overwhelmed.

I'm not kidding! After reading, listening, searching for 100 hours, it will start to feel completely normal to invest in real estate.  Yes, you worked hard for the down payment.  But you also worked hard learning real estate valuations and learning about great deals.  Once you find a great deal, you'll know it and everything will come together nicely.  Just take a deep breath and trust the process.

For myself, my wife and I got into real estate investing through House Hacking. Essentially, we purchased a home knowing we were short of the 20% threshold so we would have to pay a PMI. We just couldn't stand the idea of renting from someone else anymore. However, I really, really hated paying $300 a month in PMI for absolutely nothing. So, we searched for a private loan to put towards the down payment and bring our LTV up to 80%. Bought a new appraisal, and all of a sudden we were PMI free and had an extra $300/month in our pocket every month.

But how did we pay for the separate loan? Well, there was an extra room in our house, so we rented it out and used the money earned towards the loan.  The loan essentially cost us nothing (except for dealing with a roommate), and we had an extra $300 in our pocket every month.  From then on, our eyes were opened to the wonderful world of real estate.  Since then, we bought another house and have been renting out the original house ever since.  In 15 days, we will close on our 2nd rental property.  We plan to max out our conventional financing options within the next 2-3 years as we continue to build the retirement portfolio.

Lesson learned - Spend your time learning as much as possible, then take action! 

@Jupshy Jasmin I've used Cozy for my investment property over the last 16 months and I've loved it.  Our tenant appreciates the fact that they can use autopay and not have to worry about sending a check every month.  As an investor, I don't have to worry about late payment since autopay is set up.  However, if your tenant fails to set up autopay and they pay late, you're able to place an automatic late fee on the rent due.  

We also keep a copy of the lease agreement on Cozy so both myself and the tenant have an electronic signed copy of the lease.  If you were to refer to the lease when talking with the renter, they won't be able to tell you "I don't have a copy" or "I lost it".

The only drawback is the amount of time it takes for the rent to send an ACH payment into your account.  I believe it takes 5 business days, or you can pay a $2.99 fee to lower it to 3 business days.  However, as soon as payment is made by the tenant, I receive an email saying the payment is on the way.  While it takes a little while, I don't have to worry about whether or not it's going to get deposited in my account.

I'm closing on another rental unit in 15 days and will absolutely use Cozy for that property!