All Forum Posts by: Jim K.

I'm going to go with false ones here:

1. "Don't be a landlord, you're going to be unclogging toilets in the middle of the night." I have yet to unclog any toilet but my own in the middle of the night.

2. "You can't find good tenants in cheap properties." No, incompetent landlords just don't know what to look for, how to look, or even what they're looking at.

3. "Make sure your tenants have good credit scores." I could write a book on how misleading FICO scores can be down in C-class, and why.

4. "Don't buy old houses that are money pits, stick with stuff that's less than 40 years old." This is wildly untrue in Allegheny County, PA, where the absolute best-built single-families went up just before the Great Depression and the shoddiest tract builds in the county went up from 1970-1990. Once you properly square away a well-built Depression-era property in Pittsburgh, it stays squared away reliably much more than anything built during the Steel City Crapshack Era. You just have to know what needs to be done.

5. "My numbers are right and the home inspection looks good." Again, this is very much a lesson learned from C-class investing in old urban properties in the Rust Belt. Your numbers are simply not worth the paper they're printed on if you really need to rely on a home inspector to tell you about the property's build quality and condition. A home inspector should be a failsafe. You have to know something about housing if you're going to make money in housing.

6. "Work on your business, not in your business." First, know your business. You can work on ignorance only so long before it breaks you into little pieces.

7. "Get three estimates." When you are actually IN this business, you need to have trusted associates to work with. You need guys who are always THERE when you need them. You pay all your contractors WHATEVER THEY ASK FOR, and if they're not damned good at what they do and know exactly what they're worth, they're not worth working with. ESPECIALLY WHEN IT COMES TO PLUMBING AND HVAC. You will never lose more money than you will skimping on these two trades in your portfolio. After enough time in this business, most especially in C-class, you will worry routinely that you're not throwing your plumber or your HVAC guy enough work.

8. "(Pick-a-minority) tenants are the worst." The absolute worst tenants I've had have all been white, native-born Americans. There really is a level of insane entitlement, a height on Mt. Bull***t, that only white people can reach while everyone else languishes at lower altitudes. I've seen an overwhelming amount of utterly freakish craziness up close and personal, and I can confidently bear witness that white people always end up being the freakiest freaks of all.

@Dan McGrew

No offense, but I think you're just too gullible for real estate. You should accept it and move on. I have been both formally diagnosed and medicated in the past for paranoia, and I feel I'M BARELY PARANOID ENOUGH for real estate.

@Raj Balakrishnan

Pretty much every county and every state has its own computerized public records system. It pays to start learning how to use these systems, so you can conduct your own eviction searches and local criminal checks before run national checks on people. What the national paid checks run by credit agencies are really good for is credit histories. Housing and criminal histories are not really their strong suits.

Quote from @Jonathan Greene:

It's because they are looking for get rich quick, not buy real estate and wait. Most of us know the drill, but they want to pay for hyperspeed, but also not do any of the work. I don't love the programs, but anyone who spends the money can succeed if the network and do all the course work, even the bad programs just have replicated material.

I think a really big part of why people go to the gurus for glorified spoonfeeding is "uncertainty avoidance." Since we're ten pages into this thread it may be safe to show a little book-learning and mention cross-cultural psychology and Geert Hofstede. Some people will simply do anything to avoid the feeling of uncertainty. Of all European cultures, the Greeks seem to have the most pronounced tendency for this, which is why I think I've spent so much of my life battling that feeling in myself.

I've messaged the OP.

This really ended up being one of the best posts of last year, and in @Jake Andronico we really got a good example of someone giving back and telling it like it is.

Quote from @Jay Hinrichs:

Quote from @Bill B.:

@Jay Hinrichs

@Jay Hinrichs @Russell Brazil

I thought I had heard the same about Portugal eliminating golden visa. A little research says:

Turns out they just eliminated real estate from qualifying… You know. All their Housing shortages are because of those foreigners. So you have to buy a business or invest in a fund  don’t think I could have learned Portuguese anyway  do you have to learn Greek for the Greece program?

https://portugalbuyersagent.com/portugal-golden-visa-ending/....

 @Jim K.  I believe Jim K does on line tutoring for those that want to learn Greek !!!  I would certainly use Jim as a resource though if one wants to buy in Greece :)

 That was just for my nephew, Jay. A few years ago, as a member of the Mormon church, he served his mission out there and dedicated himself to becoming fluent and understanding the culture. We met every week online.

Quote from @Russell Brazil:

Quote from @Bill B.:

@Jay Hinrichs

@Jay Hinrichs @Russell Brazil

I thought I had heard the same about Portugal eliminating golden visa. A little research says:

Turns out they just eliminated real estate from qualifying… You know. All their Housing shortages are because of those foreigners. So you have to buy a business or invest in a fund  don’t think I could have learned Portuguese anyway  do you have to learn Greek for the Greece program?

https://portugalbuyersagent.com/portugal-golden-visa-ending/....

 My understanding for the Greek golden visa is you just have to spend 250,000 euro on a real estate purchase. No language requirements.

Really, Russell, if you ever need to know anything, I lived in an Athens suburb from 2000-2007, and I have lots of family over there. Yes, it is a $250,000 investment currently. If you buy near the two largest cities Athens or Thessaloniki, or any number of touristy areas, practically everyone speaks English.

If you do want to learn Greek...Portuguese, like all the Romance languages, has a lot more cognate words with English and makes a lot more sense for most people. Greek can be tough, and plus that, with only 14 or so million real native speakers worldwide, it's a lot of linguistic learning investment for not a lot of return.

Quote from @Don Konipol:

I hate taxes too, but when Airbnb went from a way for individuals who had extra room to share the space to a BUSINESS, they attracted the attention of authorities who now tax them the same as other hospitality businesses.  If Airbnb was paying a higher rate than hotel/motel industry that would be a cause for concern.  

But this brings up an interesting point. When my daughter started a STR company in NYC in 2013, most bookers were people looking for rooms that were cheaper than comparable hotel rooms. So price was the differentiator. It seems like now the differentiator is offering a place larger, and nicer than a hotel - motel room. We rented a house located on a pond in the Catskills for the last week in July. With 3 adults and 2 kids we could have rented 3 hotel rooms, or perhaps 2 hotel suites. But this 5 bedroom 4 bathroom house with swimming pool and everything else was well worth the price differential.

Yes, Don, of course taxes are taxes, and they are as unavoidable as death and dumb real estate policy decisions by our local socialist-leaning government. But how do I need to work with the 14% rate in Allegheny County versus what looks like 7% in Butler County, just to the north of us, as well as the other six counties that surround this one and collectively make up the Greater Pittsburgh MSA? What are others doing in the space here, given the hiked tax? What makes sense with this tax and what doesn't? I need the local skinny, as I am new to local Airbnb. I need to understand the contrast I have to make as being taxed much like I'm in Europe on contrast to all the surrounding counties, which offer more reasonable tax rates.

Quote from @Andrew Steffens:

Quote from @Jim K.:

Quote from @Andrew Steffens:

Is this the same that hotels are taxed or just STR? Pinellas County FL is 13% Total - 7% State and 6% Local Tourist Development Tax. I think most places are in this range

 I don't know. I'm trying to find someone who's been through the grinder here in Allegheny County. Because Pittsburgh seems to be taxed at an even higher rate than Philadelphia.

 While I am no proponent of taxing, what is the concern?  The guest pays this on top of accommodation rate.  It should be equal to what is paid at hotels and is seemingly in line with what I have seen across the country

 I want to verify what Airbnb told me here, and ask what other Allegheny County investors have experienced regarding this.