All Forum Posts by: Kelly Maguire

Thanks for sharing your experience. We've got our eye on a property that is supposedly going up for sheriffs auction soon, and I've been reading up on it in the meantime. I usually work with a real estate agent, and he's offered to come with me just to make sure I don't end up doing something stupid, but it's still an intimidating process.

It just depends on what your goals/needs are. I tend to be under 2%, but I'm focused on a very specific geographic area which has already seen a fair amount of gentrification, and I am not necessarily looking for a ton of cash flow.

Thanks @Zachary Paul. If you've got an electrician who's reliable I'd love to hear about them, I've got a whole bunch of knob & tube and a questionable looking breaker box that need replacing. So far I haven't found an electrician I'm willing to use more than once.

I'm 50/50 on whether I think the new complexes will bring more high end renters... or just totally flood the market. The good news for me is the newest one (I forget what it's called but you can see the new water tower from 76) only goes up to 2 bedrooms, and both of my properties in the area are 3 bedroom houses. I'm hoping I can appeal to people in that same high-end market who want a little more space to call their own. 

Welcome, @Ricardo Whittington! There's a ton of information to be found on the forums, and on the blog. The BiggerPockets books are also really well organized and useful. Most of the information that's in them can also be found on the site, but in my opinion it's worth the purchase price to have the information organized for easy reference. 

What part of Philadelphia are you looking in? I'm a buy & hold investor focused on NW Philly and always interested in networking with people working in my area.

I think it's probably not as much of an embarrassment as you think. I've had sellers balk at my offer, then come back months later ready to bargain. Of course if she's not particularly interested in selling at all that day may never come for these properties, but if you move forward with your business and build a decent reputation for yourself she may be more likely to contact you in the future if she does decide to sell. 

There are mini-split systems where the blower unit is hidden inside the wall or ceiling, with the vent flush to the drywall. I know LG makes one. 

Multiple types of flooring on one floor is pretty normal, just make sure you choose nice looking transitions (none of those brass metal strips). We have carpet in the living room / hallway, tile in the bathroom, and then vinyl plank (which looks like wood) in the kitchen and bedrooms. We opted for vinyl plank because it's a vacation home in a flood zone and I needed something 100% waterproof. It's very obviously fake, so I wouldn't use it in a flip, but for a rental it's great. Once you throw an area rug over it the stuff looks pretty nice.

The rental property calculator (https://www.biggerpockets.com/buy-and-hold-calcula...) is useful for this, but it sounds like you'd benefit from reading "The Book on Rental Property Investing" (sold here and on Amazon) which goes into a lot of details about how to evaluate a deal. It's easy to miss stuff the first time around, and for that reason I ended up paying a little too much for my first rental. 

I failed to factor in capital expenditures (aka improvements over time, not just maintenance) and property management. Even though I self manage my properties, it's important to factor in the cost of management because it's my time being spent and I don't want to sell myself short.

It's also not a great idea to bank on the area improving dramatically. I'm seeing some decent deals in my neighborhood now even though the neighborhood is seeing a lot of high end development, because people paid way too much for houses in 2008 and need to unload them.

I work in the wedding industry. The big limiting factor for wedding rentals is that most people want to have a wedding on a Saturday night, and there are only 52 of those in a year. Most weddings are concentrated in the spring/summer, so you end up with a much smaller number of dates to actually work with. For a higher end venue (the stuff in the $5000+ range) in my market the rental fee will also include cleaning, day-of planning/setup, and valet parking.

Sunday brunch weddings are starting to become increasingly popular for this exact reason. Everyone wants a pinterest-perfect wedding, but not everyone wants to shell out $4k just for the space.

The last puzzle piece to the price is that wedding parties can be some of the neediest customers to work with, and it's not like you're going to get a lot of repeat business. In fact, friends of the bridal party often won't want to rent your space specifically because they've already been there for a wedding.

It's still a viable market I think, but you have to realize you're not going to get that $5000 price tag 365 nights a year, or even 52.

I had guinea pigs as a kid. Assuming the tenant is reasonably responsible (sweeps up the hay that escapes the cage, cleans up any accidents) they shouldn't pose any problems. We had one of those plastic kiddie pools that we used as an "exercise pen."

Thanks everyone!