All Forum Posts by: Jeff Zimmerman

@Anurag T. good luck!  

Hey @Anurag T., new homes in Madera are fairly easy to rent out if they are in Tesoro Viejo or Riverstone.  They both have easy access to HWY 41 into Fresno.  Most of the people who are buying homes in those 2 communities are commuting into Fresno for work or school. Riverstone homes often come with extra requirements for water filtration on the homes, therefore some people prefer Tesoro but they are both great places. 

Other zip codes you can look into that are in Fresno or Clovis are 93720, 93730, 93619,93612,93611,93737,93727 (the SE areas of this zip code with newer homes that are in Sanger Unified).   3/2 newer homes that are the easiest to rent out are generally in the Clovis Unified Boundaries and in some cases the Sanger Unified boundaries.  Good luck! 

What's up Miguel, congrats on starting out.  I've been an investor in Fresno and Tulare county since 2011.  Feel free to reach out if you'd like to ask any questions about starting out or anything RE investment related.  Good luck! 

hey @Andrew Albritton, sorry that's a tough situation.  Best thing to do would be to speak with a good local CPA who can guide you through all of that.  I have one in Fresno, Roeser Accountancy that could help with this.  I also have a client in Turlock who could rec a good CPA up there as well.  Feel free to message me if you'd like to connect with him. Good luck! 

hey @Nathan Gagliardi, I've used Bill Roeser at Roeser accountancy for a while now and I've been very happy with them.  They are in the river park area.  If you call them feel free to let them know I sent you!  Good luck!  Feel free to let me know if you need any other recs. 

Hey @Abhishek Joshi, good questions. 

I think managing at a distance is fine, as long as you can get to the property once a month to check on it.  Sometimes issues can go unnoticed and get much more expensive if you can’t see the property physically for long periods of time.  If you have all your vendors ready to go ahead of time and ways for them to get into the home if the tenant isn’t there you should be ok. 

It may be hard to find a management company that will rent out the property without doing the management, so I’d try and find one before you make the decision to self manage at a distance. That seems like an ideal situation if you are going to manage at a distance but it could be hard to find since managers like to do full management not all-a-cart. 

It’s good to screen tenants with all the standard checks, however I put the most stock in rental history.  For instance if someone has a really low credit score but their previous landlord said they were an ideal tenant and they passed income requirements I may take them.  But someone with a high credit score without previous landlord rec’s or bad rental history may not make the cut for me. 
good luck!  Feel free to DM me if there is anything else I can help with. 

hey Jerome, we've had a lot of great success on Facebook marketplace, lots of people are using that for all kinds of things, it's pretty much the new craigslist.  Speaking of that, I'd probably try craiglist as well since it's free.   Because we use Buildium it shoots our vacancies out to all the big sites like Apartments.com, Zillow, etc.  We don't like to leave any stone unturned. 

I'd probably try FB marketplace first and see how it goes, then if that doesn't help look for a good advertising platform like buildium (which is probably too robust of a tool for what you need right now, but something with just that advertising feature).  But I think that considering the area you are in FB marketplace will likely get it done. 

Good luck! I'm always happy to help, feel free to shoot me a message if you have other questions. 

what's up mike, we have quite a few in our office that may be able to help you out.  feel free to message me with what you are looking for and maybe we have a fit for you.  Have a great day!

@Anthony Ingua, good luck!  always happy to help

good luck @Anthony Ingua, I'd be tempted to use a more professional screening process at first, only because you are a first time landlord.  Once you get a little experience and have learned a few things from using tenant cloud, etc... it may be easier to screen without paying extra fees, but that's just me, I like infrastructure when I'm new at something.  

Above all, in my opinion, rental history is the best indicator for finding a good tenant so don't forget to ask for previous landlords numbers and get references from them.  Good luck!