All Forum Posts by: Jamie Wheeler

@Hunter Reed I paid cash for the property and improvements. Insurance is $1,020/year and taxes are less than $400. So $119/month for taxes and insurance only.

So I haven’t had a rental property in about 10 years. I’m getting back into the game. I live in the mid-Missouri area. I got a great deal on a small 2BR/1BA that needed a lot of work. I have flipped it and my all in is about $53k. Of which I have paid all cash for. I’ve seen what other properties are listed for rent in this town and I currently have it at $785. Which I think is reasonable. There is a very low supply of rentals in this town. I have talked extensively to a local BiggerPockets member, who is also a property manager. He has been excellent in providing insight. Said he hates renting in this specific town and he only does business there because he has a large multiplex in the town. He gave me excellent advice on screening tenants and believes the pricing is around where he would rent. In the past 2 weeks I’ve had 60+ people reach out over Facebook marketplace, realtor.com & Zillow.

As soon as they reach out I send them my pre-qualification questions. Which screens out most of the tenants I would not like to rent to. So of that, I only get about half to respond. Of that half, 85% either have pets (although my listing says no pets) or they have something I can find from their name search on my state’s case look up website. I’m talking things like lawsuits for nonpayment of: rent/eviction, taxes, credit cards, loans.

I don’t necessarily feel lowering the price would provide any better quality tenants. Just feeling very overwhelmed with what I’m getting. There have been a few potentially good tenants. One said the property was too small for their things to fit, another isn’t sure if he wants to be in that area or if he wants to buy and another found somewhere else to live that he thought would be a better fit.

I honestly will never buy in this town again with the idea to rent a property. Maybe only flip, if even. I have about $53k cash into it and would guess I could sell it for $70k-$80k. I’ve put so much of my time and my boyfriends time into this property. To sell it and get minimal return would be a hard pill to swallow.

- Should I continue screening and just try to be patient?

- Lower the price?

- Look to sell and move on?

- Try it as a STR? There are events and a military academy in the town. It's also 20 minutes off a major highway. There are 5 hotels/motels in the town as well.

Please let me know if you have had a similar experience or advice. Thank you!

@Nathan Gesner I paid cash so I can for sure cover the amount. I tend to be a more paranoid person, so I am leaning towards the higher amount. I just wish they would come down to $125k- $150k. 

Hello all,

I'm a new member and this is my first post. So I have a property 2BR/1BA I paid cash for. It's a fixer upper for sure. I purchased it for $40k and plan to put about $5k - $10k into it for a ARV of $75-$85k. So my question is on insurance. My mom has about 9 rentals and she goes cheap on insurance. Most of her houses are comparable to a little lesser quality than what I'm hoping to get mine up to. She only insures for the coat she has into the property. I've got a quote from her insurance guy saying he could cover it for $50k max as is and maybe a little more when I fix it up. He quoted me $255/year for $40k coverage so I would assume about $300/year for $50k. I've got another quote through my auto insurance and they do quotes for replacement cost. They are quoting me $1,050/year for $186k coverage. I think what I could get/do a nice replacement would be closer to $125k- $150k max with hiring out contractors to do everything. They do not agree and say they can't bring it down any further. I would really like coverage closer to $100k - $125k because that's what I think I could get it done for.

Please let me know your thoughts/experience on if I should go cheap to save more money each month and only have a chunk of money to rebuild with if it were to burn down, go expensive so that if anything were to happen, I would have a much nicer house rebuilt, or keep shopping around for something closer to what I want on coverage?

The house is in a good neighborhood and it’s the worst house on the block. So rebuilding a much nicer house would be what I’d plan to do regardless of policy.