All Forum Posts by: Jonathan R.

Quote from @Audrey Lampers:

Wow. So this guy is an idiot and a moron because he has a mental illness? Unbelievable. God forbid a family member of yours develop some type of mental illness or an agent parent gets dementia and has to deal with somebody that lacks as much compassion as you do. That's just wrong. Since he does it once a week for an hour I'm sure if the other tenants would get the information that he has an illness and if they could just tolerate it for 1 hour once a week they might. Not everybody is cold-hearted and cruel.. now I see it's half hour once a week.  What time is he making noise? During the day? 3am? We had a neighbor that had psychotic episodes about once a month for maybe an hour.  He would yell at imaginary people.  Our bully property manager was able to get him out. Illegally, but the poor guy didn't know his rights. Thing is, the neighbor that did the most complaining would watch a basketball game once a week with surround sound and play it full blast have a house full of drinking loud family members and then shoot off illegal fireworks after the game if his team won. It lasted several hours, almost caught my house on fire when a bottle rocket landed on the roof and was much more of a nuisance in my opinion then faint yelling in the distance of a guy with psychosis. By posting this back and forth conversation you are discriminating against this person that has an illness. And to the person calling him an idiot, a moron and Section 8 tenants Misfits, you are too. Like I said previously, God forbid you get dementia or someone in your family gets it. You people are cruel.

Thank goodness this situation was resolved years ago. Guy got into physical altercations with neighbors too after this post was made years ago. He no longer lives in one of my units for clear lease violations. Shoot me an address of one of your properties with a good contact number and I’ll surely pass the info along to him, I think I still have his number in my phone.

Quote from @Meg McGath:

Quote from @Jonathan R.:

Originally posted by @Patti Robertson:

@Greg M.-Noise is VERY difficult to evict for.  In most municipalities you have to meet a certain noise level, which has to be measured. If the cops are called and the tenant gets a disturbing the peace charge, you have some ammunition, but they generally won’t arrest for that without many, complaints.  You could then probably get possession for a law violation, but only if a Judge agrees. Sorry, but you can’t just evict someone because of noise. You need to wait until there is a concrete lease violation that is presentable to a Judge.

 You are very wise. Interestingly, I may have a solution, perhaps a sfh instead of a duplex. I have one about to be finished that might be perfect, I'm still evaluating him day to day, certainly to make sure he isn't destructive to my property. I might have a street perfect for him where he can be a bit loud, though I won't tell him that. :)

You realize these posts are PUBLIC?? Like if you did do anything to your tenant I now have proof with screen shots. 

 What helpful advice would you have offered on this thread? How many rental properties do you own?

I do well in Wichita in C and D areas. As mentioned, cashflow is king but appreciation hasn’t been decent, it’s been flat out fantastic my friend. I like sub 70k deals in Wichita, rent is similar to B areas. One rental at a time, you can do it if you want! 
I’m over a dozen units in 5 years. ;)

Not changing jobs. Not taking on too many rehabs at once, instead selling if I’m a bit nervous because the market is still hot to make sure I have enough cash for rehabs and reserves. Waiting for there to be actual deals, like when I could get people to almost give me their houses because they were such a burden. Then pouncing.

I would stick with your local market. I invest in Wichita and it is fantastic for cash flow and has been solid for appreciation too. No guarantees in life on the appreciation but cashflow will likely remain strong. I suggest you buy the first rental in cash, learn how the business works. Do a second one in cash. After that perhaps consider some leverage. Leverage is more of an advanced real estate technique I think.

I would not get comfortable with your active income. Get that money to work asap. You have to play offense with your money and play with a chip on your shoulder. I have 15 units (most 50-50 partnerships) and started with next to nothing 5.5 years ago. Finance is a war. Comfortable is say six figures in truly passive income, I’m not there yet either. You can do it. Best regards.

@Chris Clark This is your guy.

I just went through the process in Kansas, wasn’t bad. Took about two months but I wasn’t proactive about it. If they need you to redo something they’ll call you. If you have to call them back it will go to a general voicemail where you leave a message and they call you back. You’ll get it eventually. 
During the process the question you want to ask your tenant is how much can you pay? Try to get as much as you can while you wait. 

Originally posted by @Ryan Barrett:

@Jonathan R. Thanks for the advice! I bought my house for $155k in Dec 2019, and it's appraised at $185k now, with minimal work done to it on my end, or at least for anything of resale value. In your opinion, how inflated is that? Just trying to figure out the risk of a potential HELOC.

I’d quit thinking about equity sitting in your primary house as something that comforts you. That is dead money and you want it out of there as soon as possible. At least you do now to get started in real estate investing. I used a Heloc on my primary house to get started in real estate (on my 2nd deal), I was only able to borrow only 12k at the time but I took it anyway. Heck, I started in this game after buying my primary house with only a 7k tax return, a loan on my 20k 401k, a 10k unsecured loan from a credit union, and a credit card I opened at Home Depot. 5 years later I’m invested in 11 units in total and none of them have debt attached to the property (not that I don’t want to put loans on some of them because I do and I will) so do I really care that my primary home has max debt on it? Heck no, I have 11 other places I can live without debt if push came to shove. 5 years later and my primary is worth even more now, I can pull out more equity if I chose to. 
You are going to be broke getting started, that is just a reality. But do you want to be broke now and trying to improve your life or do you want to be broke 28 years from now when you write your last check for the mortgage on your primary house after working a job that whole time with no other properties to show for it?

I also would not shy away from a property that needs work. Value add is often how you find a good deal, the masses want turn key. Don’t do this now until you close on the Heloc but after you do you can get like a $5,000 credit card at Home Depot if you need one with very little effort, my credit has never been extreme wonderful and they’ll throw money at me. I have zero mechanical ability but when I bought my first rental I didn’t care if I had to watch YouTube videos and rehab the property myself, I just knew I needed in the game and would somehow figure it out. How can I? I’ve put a good deal under contract for 30 days knowing I had no money but didn’t care because I knew I could ask myself that question and would somehow figure out how to close on it within the 30 days. Powerful stuff. You are powerful. Go make your dreams happen. Good luck. 

I’d get the Heloc. If prices go down like you said, your home equity will go down too. So a double edge sword there. I’d buy in Wichita. Where else are you going to put your money right now? Real estate seems like the safest play on the map. Find a good deal that cashflows. We might be in the early innings of a real estate supercycle.

Buy. Borrow. Die. Explanation: Buy-You buy an asset, start a business, or inherit a fortune. Borrow-Rather than selling the asset you let it appreciate over time (If you sell you pay taxes on the gains). You borrow against the asset to continuing buying more assets. You live on borrowed cash. You keep your income as low as possible for tax purposes. Rather than paying yourself a salary if you own a business, you borrow against your assets as that money is tax free. Die-You work with an estate planner to pass along your assets to your heirs so they can rinse and repeat.