All Forum Posts by: John Knisely

@Robert Cioffi I am a Realtor and Landlord in Delaware county. Feel free to message me if you need any advice or help. I use Zillow, Apartments.com and Facebook marketplace as the primary 3 sources to find tenants. Both of those first two offer applications and tenant screening. I recommend doing some additional due diligence on top of what they offer as well. Best of luck!

Hi Candace! I'm a househacker myself and work with a lot of househacker clients. Shoot me a message, happy to chat and help you get up to speed.

I would have your agent preview the property for you first whenever possible and shoot a video inside and out to send to you. You may be able to rule out properties and save yourself a lot of hassle. If you are making offers with inspection and/or walkthrough contingencies you will have the opportunity to visit the property once under contract. In such a competitive market though it will be tough to get offers accepted on MLS listed properties with "extra" contingencies and some listing agents may convey some caution to their clients if a buyer hasn't toured the property prior to offering. Many of the 2-4 unit properties in the Philly suburbs sell within the first 2-5 days on market too, so speed is important.

As @Stacia S. mentioned this is actually low if the property is in Philadelphia due to the transfer tax (2.14% on your side as the buyer, 2.14% on the seller side). There is no transfer tax discount for different loan types or for first time buyers. Most suburb municipalities are at 1% although there are some 1.5% transfer tax ones . Also I would estimate closer to $1500 a year for Homeowners Insurance, especially on older stone/brick buildings. Most local lenders do have an origination fee in the $1000 ballpark. Title policy cost is only dependent on the sale price and if you get a standard coverage policy or enhanced, otherwise it does not vary from one title company to the next. The soft costs like notary fee, doc prep etc. will vary slightly from one title company to the next.

I typically don't view escrows, reimbursements and prepaids as "closing costs" for property analysis sake of a long term rental because these are costs you owe as part of the annual and monthly cost of ownership, not transactional fees. They are just collected in advance at settlement to establish your "piggy bank" escrow account for the future payments. They are out of pocket costs owed at closing though so it is important to know them and factor them into your cash outlay.

@Chris Huang I don't have personal experience re-zoning in Philly. I know its one of the harder directions to go in terms of zoning out in the suburbs though. Municipalities don't look as favorably on small multifamily and generally neighbors to the property are more resistant to it.

Hey Chris, I will message you a zoning attorney I know from Media. Unsure if he has worked in Concord Twp but may be a good starting point. I am on the zoning board in Media and would recommend talking with the code enforcement department to see if they will offer any names of the usual attorneys they see at their zoning board meetings. Perhaps you can also look through previous zoning meeting minutes to see if its documented what attorney represented the applicant.

Lending guidelines have changed since then. Freddie Mac used to have a conventional product that was 95 or 97% LTV for 1-4 units. That is probably what you used. I believe around February of 2020 they changed that product to 15% down minimum. FHA 3.5% down is probably your best shot unless you are VA loan eligible. FHA is not that much more trouble unless the property is very banged up (chipping paint, safety hazards etc). I will say it is harder to compete with multiple offers while using FHA on multifamily, but in terms of minimum down payment that's your best bet.

Is there a full bathroom on both floors? Could the cabinets be Uninstalled before the appraisal? If it's listed on the multifamily MLS portal and RM1 zoning my gut feel is that an appraiser would want to treat it as a multifamily.

Rentwell is my go to. They are in the city and suburbs and have a pretty big portfolio under management, so they are very experienced.

Using it to pull actual Sold comps in the absence of MLS access or an agent willing to pull comps for them, good starting point. Relying on the "Zestimate" as an indicator of value...bad idea. A few of my properties Zestimates are a solid 30-40% lower than I know they are worth based on adjusted comp evaluation. And I've updated the specs and features in my owner dashboard too.