All Forum Posts by: Kelsey Porter

I would suggest revisiting your original lease, as well as what others have shared here. If the property was indicated on the lease as vacant, and he has no signed proof of any other agreement about personal items being left behind, those things he listed are not your problem, and not "punishable" unless identified in the lease agreement.  

I think it's wild that he can even remember small things like a spatula and spoon two years later! It sounds to me like he's just trying to come up with any excuse to not send deposit back to you...

It sounds to me like you don't have disdain for real estate investing, but you do for the hustle of owning/managing several single family rentals. If I were you, I would consider two things:

1. Push through this, find new, better management systems/company, and know that someday it will get easier when the kiddos aren't needing you so much and the homes will appreciate over that time even more!

OR 

2. Cut free of your "golden handcuffs" with the minimal interest rates on these properties and sell them all (or the biggest headache properties) and do a 1031 exchange into a bigger property or package of multi families where the cash flow is better, numbers make sense, and you can streamline property maintenance and management rather than having 6 different single family homes. 

This is why our buy-box is only multi family properties! I self manage our portfolio and know that life is probably going to be different if we have kiddos someday/my primary job really takes more time/energy out of me. 

Systems and SOPs are KEY! You have to enjoy what you're doing and if you don't, find a way out of those tasks/activities and into something you will. 

Location, location, location. When we personally travel and rent Airbnb's we try to stay within walking distance to stuff we want to do as much as possible! The only time my other half and I argue is when we are stressed out driving and parking in a new city we don't know well...so we avoid it!

That being said, as stated by others, it sort of depends on your market. If you are in a city or area where driving to things is nearly a must, I don't think it's that big of a deal. If you are in a location where your competition in the STR market is allowing people to walk to their activities, then that is a must.

Like others have already said, it doesn't matter if things are new or used. What matters is how they look, photograph, smell and feel. If it's cute, functional and comfortable, your medium term renters will not care about where it's from. 

Make sure you get professional photos. For only a couple hundred dollars, you will own those pics for the future and unfortunately (and fortunately depending on how you see it), most people on furnished finder don't take professional photos so that's an easy way for your place to stand out from the start. 

Homegoods is awesome for affordable, trendy, unique pieces. I love the beds and mattresses we get off Amazon for ours. Bed in a box with a memory foam mattress pad seems to get us a lot of good feedback. The At Home store is another favorite of mine if you have one in your area I highly suggest. Kind of more of a one stop shop since At Home is so huge. 

I wanted to reiterate the blackout curtains in every bedroom. Absolute MUST. Our travel medical professionals also love a good easy to use coffee pot, bedroom fan, toaster, crockpot and fully stocked kitchen over all. 

Good luck!

This all completely depends on your goals for your portfolio. 

Since you are planning to live in it for a couple years before renting it out (what I suggest doing for sure...primary residence loans are the EASIEST ways to acquire rentals when you are getting started), I would go the route of putting you both on the loan if that's what it takes. 

You are worrying about the conventional loan limit way too soon and down the road, who knows if that would even be a concern for your portfolio anyways. 

I say keep cash on hand for the updates/upgrades you want to do while you are living in it and put as little down as possible as long as you are comfortable with what that monthly payment is in the meantime. 

Once you are ready to rent it out, 75% of the future rental income on a lease can be taken into account for your future pre-approvals so you ideally won't run into this issue again and will either be wiped clean of this house's debt on paper or with any luck it will actually count as income for you! (i.e. if you rent it in a couple years for $1k/month to your tenants, lenders will view that as an income of $750/month on paper)

Hope this helps. I consider this a form of "house hacking" which is the easiest, most efficient way to get started in REI so great plan!

If you are looking to house hack (which I highly suggest doing so as it's the BEST way to get started in investing!), you can totally use conventional and FHA financing on properties with under 5 units. They bonus to FHA right now that I'm seeing as a realtor is that the rates have been consistently a little lower than conventional, which isn't typically the case. FHA has a little stricter requirements in the sense that the appraisal has more of an inspection vibe to it than conventional. With conventional, you can put as little as 5% down. With FHA you can put as little as 3.5% down. Just kind of depends on your personal financial situation and how much you are ready to put as your down payment.

Like others stated above, if you are not planning on living in one of the units or bedrooms and truly house hacking, then this financing isn't an option for you. You will have to go the other routes listed above OR go conventional under 5 units putting 20-25%+ down or go commercial if 5+ units. 

So which one is better? Just depends on your goals, situation, what you intend to use the property for, what the current rates are, etc. In 2020 and 2021 I had a lot of buyer clients switch from their original plan of going FHA to putting minimal down and doing conventional because they felt like they kept losing out in multiple offers with the FHA loan, since like I said above the appraisal can be tricky. HOWEVER, most of the country isn't in that market environment right now so that may not be something to consider. I'm seeing multiple offers in the midwest markets I serve right now if a house is superb, but nothing like the 30+ offers my sellers were getting in 2020 and 2021.

If I were you I would consider house hacking (moving into one of the units or bedrooms) and pricing out what FHA v Conventional looks like. Nearly any lender should be able to compare those two loans for you.

Hope this helps!

As everyone else stated above, it all depends on your location. Does your area have any high level trauma hospitals? Would your home be a good fit for a couple nurses or other medical professionals? Are you under 15-20 min from said hospitals. I recently heard hospitals with 350-400+ beds are a good indicator of medium term rental friendly city. 

Other medium term needs include new people moving to the area from elsewhere that don't have their next house yet, new construction, other traveling business professionals. Does your location favor any other these? If so, furnishing it and renting out 30 days+ may be the way to go.

Speaking of furnishing, depending on your square footage, bed/bath count, etc. are you comfortable leaving most, if not all, of your furniture behind and will it suit a furnished rental well/photograph well? Or do you have the extra funds right now to take you furnishings with you and get new stuff in there? For our 2 bed, 1.5 bath units we rent short & medium term, it costs us about $10-12k in furnishings. Just something to keep in mind. 

You can certainly make more rental income from short and medium term typically (depending on location like stated above and some other factors), but I will be honest, it's a ton more work whether you are self managing OR even hiring out. Even more of a business than long term rentals from my experience owning both. 

Hope this helps, good luck!

STR & MTR host in the Des Moines, IA area here! I agree with all the prior comments. Mostly depends on seasonality in your area. There are some months where we know we are priced perfectly and sit at over 90% occupied, and then some where it doesn't matter how low we make our prices, there just aren't as many people traveling to the DSM area. Our "HOT" months are July & August. Tons of events bringing people through town mostly from other midwest areas. The State Fair is really our only "surge" pricing time of year in general. We have been transitioning our winter months to block off times for travel nurses & other people that need 30 days+ to fill in our gaps. Then, in summer, we are keeping them true STRs. Hope this helps!

We conduct quarterly pest control services at our rentals & so far, they are great! Especially in Midwest markets in the spring time, its a great way to prevent ant issues. Even the cleanest tenant that has a back door off a kitchen seems to have issues from my experience. 

I meet our pest control guy out at the property (with timely permission from the tenant) and follow him around while he sprays. I also feel like it's a good way for me to check in on the property in an appropriate way & opens a line of communication pretty regularly throughout the year with my tenant in case something is malfunctioning or not working right. I self-manage our properties for some background and don't mind the additional managing that this brings. 

I'm going to also suggest TurnoverBnB! Great experience thus far