All Forum Posts by: Kelsey Folger

@Nina Granberry we have betterment investment accounts to save up for capeX and repairs,. After saving for those, I also transfer a percentage of profit each month into our household checking account to spend on family stuff, kids, etc.

I also recently read the book profit first, that was very insightful with how to handle cash flow going forward. We have young kids right now and so we are choosing to supplement our income from W2 jobs with some of the money we earn from our rental business; we’re not rolling all money into new properties. Profit First was a really insightful book. 

@Todd Pultz I agree. When we bought our building with inherited tenants, we chose a local bank that they could walk a few blocks to to deposit rent. Then they can use any method of payment (ach, check, cash), just gotta get it to the bank. A few of the tenants dont have bank accounts.

@Joy James just an idea, but I would maybe see if they’d be ok if you contacted someone at their church. If they really are struggling, maybe talking to someone at their church would help in trying to get additional assistance and cutting out the middle man (them). Just an idea.

@Colleen F. Thanks, we plan to get a mortgage as soon as the seasoning period is over. We had wanted to put new siding on beforehand, but this rehab has been too expensive already.

I think it was you that suggested adding closet doors... the next day my husband went out and bought doors for all 7 bedrooms and he’s installing the last one today. 😊 Thanks for your advice.

@James Hamling I like your perspective and I agree that making it “cool” would be a great tip in the future. This is a public university in northern Michigan, so there’s not a whole ton of showy, rich college kids that choose to go to the school (from what I can tell). Although there are some nicer, newer apartment complexes near the highway, our rental is “downtown” where the houses are old and not usually updated.

We also ran out of money (our fault) so sinking a lot more into the property would have really been a bad financial decision at this point. We just wanted to stop the bleeding, per se.

Many people had said to try renting by the room or do Airbnb, but that didn’t pan out in the end. Although maybe in the future.

After all the expenses and reserves and PM, we should still cash flow around $400 per month this year, thankfully. The cap rate is around 7%.

@Mindy Jensen I’m a homeschooling mom, so real estate is my hobby and my “job.” I use the coin-op laundry money to pay for cleaning help biweekly.

We have 4 very young kids, so mostly we enjoy low key family time. Spending time at my parents cottage, thrift shopping, gardening with my son, and listening to the BP podcasts while making dinner or washing dishes. Would like to get chickens or bunnies someday soon.

@Kelsey Folger it looks like we are finally there! What seems to have worked is posting on Facebook Marketplace and the Fb groups popular in that city. I had to continually drop the price until I got around 5 inquires per day.

When we bought it we planned on $1500-2000 per month per unit... And the property manager is signing a lease tomorrow for $1,100 per month per unit. Not exactly what we were aiming for but I’m so thankful to finally be “done” and hand it over to the management company.

@Daron Williams we started investing a year ago and “having a better life” is not guaranteed by real estate investing. If anything, there’s been more stress, more ups and downs, more insecurities as we try to build a business together. I would say work on your marriage and yourself first, because “having a better life” in real estate is certainly going to take a while. Years.

@Jacob Lapp I think it’s great that you want to help people.

If things become overwhelming, I would have your short-list of great books to refer people to, podcast episodes, Facebook groups, YouTube accounts that have helped you, etc. you want to give people tools to succeed and learn, not just hold their hand. In the end they’ll have gained a great knowledge base and seen where to get the answers from in the future.

Thank you, this makes me feel a bit better! We went into this deal with less reserves than we would have liked... We closed with cash instead of a mortgage because the financing was taking too long. I really hope the market starts to look up in the long run, and that we didn't buy a college rental in the "end of an era" of traditional, in-person classes. Only time will tell, we're just trying to avoid absolutely going broke this first year.