All Forum Posts by: Kevin Wood

Delano was placed under contract today at 440k. Drew is still available offers due by Friday.

Both properties have offers of 425k. Contracts due by Friday.

We haven't had any of our filled leases leave. We just acquired it last May. It's in Third Ward so will have similar turnover to the other multifamily in the area. You should be able to get 30 year debt on these and lower than 8% unless you have poor credit.

No I buy apartment buildings in Houston only and got this from a seller who was selling their whole portfolio so I filled most of the units then put it on the market.

Depends what terms are.

Hi all,

I'm a long time bigger pockets member. I acquired 82 units from an investor last May. As part of that I picked up two four plexes in third ward. It's just a couple miles from downtown and in a gentrifying area. I'm listing both of them for $449,000 a piece. Wanted to post the properties here in case anyone is looking for a house hack investment opportunity. You could live in one unit and rent the other three. Reach out if you want more information.

Avg rents: $725

Year Built: 1960s

Heating/Electrical: Window Units

It's priced based on comps in the area. If you buy both I would be willing to come down in price.  Feel free to reach out with any questions.

@Kim Meredith Hampton I've asked for them to call me multiple times. I don't pay for appfolio+. The customer service pre-covid was excellent and we would get called/issues resolve same day. Now it takes multiple days. If we want to talk to a person we have to go through the help menu and do the chat. Then we get assigned to a stock customer service person. That person then connects us to the customer help person. When we call we are on hold for a long time (last time was over 2 hours). Then we are told that they will look into the issue. Sometimes it can be three days before we receive a call back. 

With charge backs we are just told "sorry we didn't win". I know we have the files necessary to win the dispute on appfolio (we upload them for this purpose). As a property manager yourself, I'm sure you wouldn't want to approach an owner about 3 months of charges from 6 months ago and ask for that money back without any documentation. I still have never gotten an answer from them. I've tagged them on twitter, facebook, and now BP. I am guessing I'm not the only one who is having this issue. 

Having worked in payments myself my guess is that they are not actually providing any paperwork and are just blanket disputing every charge. At this point I've never gotten any communication on their process or actual feedback on a particular dispute I've "lost". No one from appfolio who actually knows their process has called me.

I am an appfolio user and have been for 5 years. We are based in Texas so generally a very friendly landlord state. We currently manage about a thousand doors and pay Appfolio many $1000s per month in fees. I don't know if it's due to Covid, but I've gotten larger number of chargebacks (about 1 every 2 months) in the last two years. I have 1000 doors under management so this doesn't seem like a lot, but it's a hassle because often the disputes take months to resolve. Going to an owner and explaining to them that a tenant they were paid out on for months or even on a property they sold has won a charge back isn't a conversation any property manager wants to have. In many cases the tenant is no longer in the unit and issues a charge back once they've moved into another property. I lost one dispute in 2020 and so with an attorney/research we made sure we had everything we needed to win any dispute in Texas:

- We make sure the individual paying is on the lease. If not we don't accept that payment.

-We run a credit check and keep it on file to verify the ability of that tenant to pay.

- We take a photo of the individuals driver license to ensure they are the ones renting/making a payment

- We confirm through text message from a validated number of that tenant that they in fact did make a payment on credit card if its done

Our lease language notes that rent is non-refundable. We even had an attorney review our lease language and what we collect to ensure we couldn't lose a charge back dispute. There is nothing else to my knowledge we could do to provide additional id verification or confirm the individual paying is the one signing the lease. They even come pick up their keys in person with their drivers license.

Last month we got a chargeback notification saying we had lost a charge back. Our team called Appfolio. I was in the office. We were on hold over 2 hours. No one could dismiss us with the "sorry we did everything we could line, because we built our business so it couldn't happen." We then finally got connected and talked to someone who stated they would look into it. We never heard back from them. Finally someone emailed someone on our team and said "they did everything in their power to fight it and lost." Again not going to take that for an answer.

I asked them to disclose the communication. After all they are not the payment processor, but they do hold the end user (ie. my company) responsible for the charge back. They have to show us what steps they took. Imagine going to a landlord that sold his property 6 months ago and asking for a $1000 check. It's bad for business. That is what Appfolio is forcing property managers to do. We asked for confirmation that the documents listed above were provided and never heard back. We still have not been called on this open ticket and it was shut due to "inactivity". I responded back by email to re-open it and never heard back.

Today 2 months later I get another charge back. I explain the situation of not hearing back on the last one and again for this tenant provide all of the above. I even attach it to the payments email so the payment help desk can see it himself. It was for a property that was sold in May. The charge back was well outside of the 90 day window and not even valid. I asked Appfolio to please again provide the communication with the previous tenants bacnk so I could show the owner. In this case the owner sold this property in June and it was for $1000. Me just emailing them a stock form isn't how I want to treat customers. We need to document just for the fact we may need to file a civil judgement on this tenant. Instead of answering the question or responding to the documentation I provided they threatened to turn off my payments for my entire company. I spoke to some other owners and they have been seeing similar patterns. They have documentation and Appfolio says it was a failed dispute. 

I worked in payments for 12 years including when I got started in real estate (and was on the bp podcast). If Appfolio is actually not disputing these charges with appropriate documentation and telling property managers they are doing so it's costing owners 1000s of dollars. 

Is anyone else doing the above and losing disputes?

What payment solutions are actually doing what they say? Myself and a large number of social media followers are looking.

Thanks for the mention @Cody L. In truth the answer is that your best returns are going to be as an LP working with a syndicator. You need to focus on your highest ROI activity. Research a few syndicators who's model you like in a market you like. I do Houston only because I grew up here and I like the economics of the market. Some tips to get you started:

- What markets and asset types does the syndicator purchase?
- How do they structure their LP deals?
- What is their investment philosophy?

For individual deals:

- What growth rate are they using? Is this consistent with their market?

- Do their rent comps make sense (quick web search)?

- How experienced are they with that particular type of asset?

- What is the internal rate of return and how is it paid (from cash flow?, from a sale?)

- What is the exit cap rate they are predicting? Does the syndicator need to sell to get your money back?

There are some good books on how to review deals as well if you do an amazon search. I haven't read any, as I syndicate myself, so you'll need to get some book recs from others.

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