All Forum Posts by: J. Martin

@Kyle Zaylor , @Erin A. , @Daniel S. , @Charles Ma,

and any other friends/investors you would like to bring.

Looking forward to it!
I'll also be scheduling a meetup in Santa Rosa in the next few weeks since I'm working up there if anyone from up North is interested, but can't make it down to Oakland..

@Sam McClellan , @Jaren Barnes

@Andy Kaufman , @Arron Sweeney , @Sarah Lam , @Michaela G. , @Pete Tam , @Sam Magi , @Chris

@Chris Music undefined

Thanks for everyone who posted so far, and looking forward to seeing everyone there. There are a few other people who may want a head's up, so I'm going to do some tagging..

First of all, I'm hoping @Account Closed would be able to make it to one of these meetups if he's in town..

and...

I might add that I get about $1.40/sqft/mo on my apts, so it may be more justified here than if you are getting less than $.75/sqft/mo. If 1 unit is vacant for 1 week, that costs me $275. But I can do some cheap upgrades to differentiate my units from the 8/10 units around me that are consistent with all the other houses in the neighborhood - which cost me even less than 1 week's vacancy, most of which will continue to add benefits after they leave.

backsplash for kitchen or around vanity top (<$100), matching light fixtures (~$10/apiece), clean the unit and underneath the sink thoroughly! ($50 or elbow grease), interior doorknobs if the old ones have flaking or deteriorating look (~$8/apiece), a few snake plants for the interior/exterior (<$15 - impossible to kill).

If anyone wants to chime in and cheap upgrades that have some bang fort heir buck..

I will second @John Chapman on this one, although others have a good point too. You don't want to overimprove. But to me, this means you don't want to make marginal improvements that aren't worth all the added financial - direct and indirect costs. One of my first real estate agents (back when I used one) taught me a lot about "pride of ownership" and what kind of tenants you get, especially in lower-income areas.

I have received significantly higher monthly rents, and better-quality tenants than the average tenant in my lower-income neighborhood in the Bay Area. There's not only the increased revenue. But I think over the longer-term, I'll see less turnover, shorter vacancies when I do turn over (2 days vacancy on last unit turnover b/c I worked with the tenants to show the unit in their last month), less volatile tenants that can cause damage/eviction costs, etc. Plus less headaches for me since I landlord all my properties.

I also agree that having at least one nice feature helps get the unit rented. One of my rehabbed units had a beautiful tiled shower before I started. The other had a vanity needing replacing, so I shelled out an extra $80 for a nicer-than-neighborhood espresso vanity and medicine cabinet. I always put nice-looking vases I got for nothing at goodwill with fresh flowers from the property/neighborhood in them, in the kitchen and bathroom, as a finishing touch.

One woman fell in love with the bathroom with the shower and not having tenants below in case of noise w/ child (garage below). Another fell in love with the vanity and mirror setup in bathroom and big closet in master in the other unit. Both smelled the flowers in the vases. But the upgrade costs practically nothing relative to the benefit in this case.. Countertop upgrades, laminate vs carpet, buying nicer used appliances rather than crappy cheap new ones (if you already have to replace these..) can all make sense IMHO.

Likewise! Feel free to bring a friend if you know someone who is interested!

We're magic!! lol

Enjoy the site!

I really appreciated @Joe Fairless' posting on a different forum about investing in emerging markets when others were talking about investing out of state. Who else out there is investing outside of the US and Canada? Those that live in foreign countries, feel free to jump in also about your area.

"Hot" places like Singapore, Hong Kong, China?

Places out in the jungle in South America or Costa Rica?

Condos in beaten-down areas of one of the "PIGS" or whatever the last acronym was?

How did you get involved? How did you choose the country? (or did it choose you?) Do you hedge any currency risk? How often do you get to go visit your property?!

I have a similar question on this topic if @James Vermillion doesn't mind helping me out.. I have only a fraction of the colleagues you do, but still see quite a lot of activity from all these colleagues I am automatically "following."

Ideally, I would like to more closely "follow" my local colleagues in the Bay Area. Is there any way I can "follow" these 30-40 local members, in addition to being a colleague, so I can look specifically and exclusively at their activity? - rather than EVERY colleagues' activity? Or some way to filter only specific colleagues' activity?

Don't get me wrong - I like many of my out of state colleagues. But I like to know what people are doing around here. I have all my local keywords set for cities around the area. But I don't have enough extra keywords to set keywords for each of the 30+ colleagues I would like to more closely follow..

I can't even imagine how James, @Joshua Dorkin , and the other moderators "follow"/monitor the activity/posting of the colleagues they like to most closely follow - with thousands of colleagues. For Josh, the activity must look basically like the "recent forums" tab on BP! Appreciate any advice. Thanks again for the awesome site! Meetups are going great in the Bay Area every month!