All Forum Posts by: Jason Turo

Wow, you've been busy!  That's awesome, nice job!  If you don't mind me asking, what does the initial capital look like in these properties?

How are you secondarily marketing your vacation rental pointing to the booking site (Airbnb, homeaway, etc)?  It seems like it would be valuable to have more presence online (facebook ads, website, etc) directing traffic to the booking site rather than only advertising on Airbnb, etc.

Nice job @Jarrett Winston!  I would also enjoy hearing about your discussions with the bank on how you came upon your final price.  What did you initially offer?  How did they reply?  What supporting documentation did you provide them?

Thanks!

A resident asked to use Google Wallet to send their rent payment. I don't have any experience with it and it seems like it would be a user friendly way to receive payment, and it was requested.  Any drawbacks from your experience?

How do you make purchases and manage receipts for your rentals?

Is including the water/sewer and garbage necessary being the owner or can those costs be passed on?

Some people use a general 25% of rent as their operating expense.  What do all of those you've calculated add up to as a ratio of possible rent?

@Kenneth McKeown

Great job on acquiring and managing that place.  If I could provide a suggestion from experience is to find a student that would like to take the lead in renting out the whole space on each side.  I had a student who rented our master bedroom, she was responsible for renting the whole place, and she got two of her friends to rent with her.  She lived in the bigger/nicer room for nearly free and had two of her friends living with her that made it very easy.  We never had an issue in this way.  We used to rent rooms individually and people were not staying long as they didnt get along with the others or respecting house rules.  I cannot recommend more than to have one person take the lead and the financial responsibility (even if you collect a little less).  

@Daniel Hyman

Almost always makes sense where you are planting roots.  We always think we are planting roots but we stay open to opportunities and they have presented themselves yet again.

@Anthony Gayden  

We are looking at a similar situation. We are moving to a new town, under contract for a 3/1, 1165sqft 123,000. Appears I cannot use a VA loan as the purchase price is less than $144,000 a VA requirement. We just found this out AFTER being pre-qualified, going under contract, paying for inspections and had an appraisal. We wrote a congressional letter of inquiry to request a waiver of this requirement and will see what the VA says.

In the mean time, our choices are going conventional 30 or 15 year and 5% down (and pay PMI) . We dont want to put down 20% even though we could, we want to stay liquid for other investments.

Any thoughts?

What's your story of why you chose to rent where you live or finance a purchase?  

I've purchased a few homes I have lived in, and never owned/lived in them long enough to make up for the closing costs, interest, property taxes and insurance over that time period.  I could have rented for the same price or less over the past 4 years without all the costs that come with purchasing and owning a house.  What's your story?