All Forum Posts by: Jason Dobbins

I am in the process of purchasing a 3 unit Property.  Part of the Property is a Semi finished space with a seperate entrance, full bathroom and a bedroom.  I would continue renting the 3 units long term, but my question is could i use this space as an AirBNB even though the property is only a 3 unit?

I am not looking for legal advise if these is a possibility i will consult my lawyer.  I am more interested if anyone has done this before

Project Manager with a side of Computer Engineering.  My job is a lot of hours but my hours are flexible which makes real estate investing work for me.  If I need to go to a closing i just go, need to fix something at a unit i just go.

To me if I had a 9 to 5 job that didn't allow me that flexibility i am not sure i would be investing.

Traditional Duplexes are hard to find but there are plenty of Multi Families in the Manchester Area and with interest rates low even with higher prices they cash flow well because the rent prices are also high.

I am not a fan of SFH so i can't help you with that strategy. Personally i think with a potential drop in the market as SFH would be a bad investment at this point. With a Multi at least you have multiple rents coming in and can ride out the bad market a little easier.

Good Luck

When i price rental prices i typically will search Craigslist and Facebook to see what rents are going for in a given area.  I have also used Rentometer 

https://www.rentometer.com/

You need a memebership if you want to get details on the rentals they are showing but they do offer a free trial so i would try the trial to get what you are looking for.  The free search will show you what the average price is, high price and low price based on a specific bedroom count

I have seen some other properties that do the student rentals they look in good shape didn't look like a frat house.  The property also has plenty of parking.  There is a service that places the students into the housing I don't know exactly how it works yet or how they get paid.  The property is reporting rental income and no expenses to this service so my only conclusion is they take money off the top and pay the property owner.  From my understanding all Leases go from June 1st to May 15th so gives a 15 day window for repairs and maintenance before new student tenants move in.  The student rental service appears to deal with the leasing of the property and they said that this property has a wait list every year

My understanding there are no landlord utilities based on the property disclosure except for water and sewer which might be tough to cap

@Roni Elias not furnished. Seeing the property on Saturday but it looks very well updated from pictures so at this point I am not expecting to do anything

It's currently being rented by a student service and has a good track record of rentals

Property has internet but not included. The only utility included is water and sewer, trash, snow removal

I am currently looking at a property that is a student housing rental. There are 2 units 1 4 bedrooms and 1 2 bedroom brings in $3800 in revenue the CoC is $1200/mo. For those who might have Student housing do you save more than 5% for CapEx and 5% for Maintenance?

Any other friendly advise?

I am sure most people it was the money, but curious what events might have happened to make the plunge?

When i was 30 i was looking at getting into purchasing a multi family but but I got scared about, what if i lose my job how will i pay for it if tenants move out.  It wasn't until 3 years ago that I had a "are you kidding me moment".  I always knew my grandfather owned a small shopping plaza and i knew he had some land lease deal which had a 14 unit multi family.  It wasn't until recently that i actually knew more about the deal and also about my grandfather to learn that he owned a lot of property though his life including a movie theater of all things.  

Well it was the land lease that really made me realize that real estate is a good investment.  See he owned a small 6 unit shopping plaza and this was back in the 50's another guy owned a empty lot behind his plaza and the gentleman wanted to build an apartment building in the 70's, however he didn't have enough land to build the apartment building, as well have a parking lot.  So he made a land lease deal with my grandfather for 30 years it only paid roughly $250 a month (when my dad inherited it not sure what it started at) but I am sure he figured it was land he couldn't use for anything anyway.  

My Grandfather passed away in 1993 which passed the land lease to my father.  In 2000 they renewed the land lease for 25 years my dad was figuring that would put him in retirement age and a great time to then sell the property.  Last year before the land lease was up the other 50% owner of the land lease who also owned the 14 unit apartment building decided that the market was hot and that he wanted to put the property up for sale and terminate the land lease early.  So my Dad agreed and ended the land lease so now my Dad and him were 50/50 partners on the apartment building.

Few weeks later they had a buyer for 2.8 million and about 3 months later it was sold and done.  While going though everything for the closing we discovered a lot of the original costs which is what really gave me that "I have to get into real estate" kick in the ***.

The shopping plaza purchased in the 50's was $3500 it contained 6 units. In the 80's my grandfather split each unit into a separate deeds and sold each of the tenants their units for $70k each which was $420k then the unusable piece of land turned into $1.4 million. Which would be an annualized ROI of 9.5% This obviously does not include the Rent he got from the Plaza or the land lease payments

Which made me realize how powerful Real Estate can be for me over the rest of my life but also how much it can change the future of my family.

@Ralphie Hernandez on a serious note I don't get to write off my losses against my other business earnings either but I still get to record the losses which should keepy rental income negative for years meaning my profit after expenses is tax free. That is enough reason for me.

@Ralphie Hernandez did your cpa give you a list of tax free investments? Guessing his suggestion would be hide cash under your mattress. Real estate is an investment treat it like one