All Forum Posts by: Jeff F.

Hilariously, I figured i'd go over there tonight, take some quick pictures and just post those. If only this property were that easy. 

Most important, a few pictures (The "before" pictures are earlier in the thread, here)

Unit stats

Rent: 625/mo, 1 year lease

Rehab costs - still tallying but this included some structural work & a lot of building wide plumbing - 12k+

Kitchen:

Bedroom: 

Bathroom - I went with a black floor (Allure) and i really like how it turned out

Living Room:

And now to add to the hilariousness of this property. 

Those of you long time readers will recall the tenant who was angry about me taking over "his" shed, and then unplugging the space heaters he had put in there so he could feed many many cats that were living in "his" shed. He doesnt seem to have a firm handle of things at times, and today one of the contractors (there are 2 different ones on site at the moment) heard him screaming outside that he was going to burn the place down. I do not take this as a credible threat, but if any of you have any ideas on how to handle this other than a stern letter, I'm all ears. He is month-to-month so i can get rid of him asap, but i'd like to keep taking his money and lower what I have to put in.

Another update should come soon, as the studio (which was called heroin nest by the contractor working in there now) is about 1.5-2 weeks away from competition.

Thanks for reading. 

I had planned on updating this every month or so, but I got quite busy and there wasn't a whole lot of big progress to report, so I wanted to wait until I had something good. 

(Pictures later tonight, I didnt get any yesterday)

Key take-aways for the tl;dr set:

• focus on one unit at a time. being forced due to plumbing issues to work on multiple ones at a time increased the time it took the building to start producing 
• Go for the low hanging fruit first - energy & water efficiency first. Doing that lowered the amount of cash i had to put in significantly. Whatever bills you HAVE to pay, make the tenants pay or make them as low as possible
• Move on quickly if needed. My initial contractor was busy and very slow. I've found someone else and progress has moved at a breakneck pace compared to earlier this year
• it's better to have a group waiting for a tenant to vacate than an empty unit for a group to work on

Since the last update, the siding and windows are all installed, and look great. It was a LOT of money, but @Bill S. was right - it needed to be done first. Im glad I did it that way. 

As for the problem tenant that didnt get their lease renewed, that was a mistake on my part. I expected the rehab to go faster than it has, and unfortunately that unit has sat empty since may 1 and no work has been done on it. This was a dumb idea. Thinking back, I had plenty of other things to do for the workers even if I didnt give them their 30 day notice until the other one was completely finished. This mistake has cost me (to this point) close to 3k. Live & learn i suppose. Definitely not a mistake to wait until next time. Thankfully, they did not do much damage to the unit. 

The structural issues were taken care of but unfortunately delayed my timeframe quite a bit. My timetable of 1 month per unit is completely out the window. Obviously this is something that I can learn from next time, but it is what it is. 

So on to the good news update: Unit 7, the one that the workers have been focusing on is finished and was rented for 625/mo (i worked my BRRRR calcs on 600/mo for the 1 bed/1 bath units). The new tenant's lease starts on october 1.

The studio aparment should be done in 2 weeks or so, and im not sure where to price that quite  yet. 

I'll be heading over later and will take some pictures of the recently rented unit & the exterior and will post later. 

The property management team has been fantastic, and is literally the best 150$/mo I have spent in my life (or close to it)

OK, I need to take some pictures today then will post a full update tonight. The saga continues, but this time has a dash of good news. :)

@Mindy Jensen I will be there, but a guy named bryan has been heading it up.  Our meetup link https://www.meetup.com/Cheyenne-Real-Estate-Investor-Group/

Hi Josh -

I can give you a name for laramie, feel free to inbox me

Jeff

Hi @Kristen R.

Welcome to the area. We have a (sorta) active group, and have just moved to meet-up to arrange our meetings. 

https://www.meetup.com/Cheyenne-Real-Estate-Invest...

I own 11 units in cheyenne here, feel free to pick my brain anytime you need.

@Bernard H. - you should be able to refi off the one in your name (purchased in 2015) pending you now have 20% + equity. 

Fantastic job! And I do agree that lawrence ks is a pretty neat town. 

Hi Chris - 

I did this, and started last year. since you'll be house hacking, take advantage of that fact. Even if YOu have the money, do FHA and put as little down as possible so you can keep dry powder available for the next deal. You'll probably see many good ones once you start working. Dont worry about PMI, you wont be paying it anyway.

You dont need to go for a knock it out of the park deal, just a solid one that will zero out your living costs and put a bit of money in your pocket. 

Congrats!