All Forum Posts by: Ken M Middleton

@Michelle Jezycki So sorry, as I completely missed your question at the end. No, we do not. We live about 2 hours away. Any advice for this?

KMM

@Drew Sygit and @Michelle Jezycki, So sorry I did not get back to you earlier, but I did not get a notification for some reason, and I thought nobody responded to this!

Thanks so much.  Both of these posts were extremely helpful, and we appreciate the advice and well wishes!

You two rock!

Investment Info:

Single-family residence buy & hold investment in Phenix City.

Purchase price: $85,900
Cash invested: $27,341

1st investment property. Purchased for 85,900. Pretty much move-in-ready but had to do about 5600 in cosmetic and electric work; Renting for $850/month and self-managing for a monthly cash flow of $189.

What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

We were really looking for something rather easy for our first buy. We didn't want to have to do too much rehab work before being able to move in a tenant.

How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

We found it through searching on-line with Zillow and Realtor.com.

How did you finance this deal?

Convention financing with 20% down.

How did you add value to the deal?

We improved some bad electrical work (a two-pronged system that wasn't grounded) and did some light cosmetic paint as well as added safety features in a few areas.

What was the outcome?

We were able to rent it out for $850/month.

Lessons learned? Challenges?

You have to make sure to double and triple-check the SOW that you sign off on with your contractor.

Even though you know you talked about something being included in a certain price, if it's not on there, they will charge you extra based on it not being on what was signed off on.

Did you work with any real estate professionals (agents, lenders, etc.) that you'd recommend to others?

Yes. Tiffany Macmanus in Columbus was great.

Hey BP family,

My wife and I just closed on our first home and are close to having it rented. We have decided to self-property manage at this point.

With that being said, we are looking for guidance as to what type of handyman we should reach out to and establish relationships proactively to handle issues as they come up.

I am thinking an electrician, plumber, and generalist would probably make sense, but I'm sure there are a few more to add to that list.

Can anyone share any insight here?

Thanks for everyone's help in advance!

KMM

@Joe Splitrock Nice. Had no idea about Rently. Thanks for suggesting and your insight.

@Colleen F. I see where you're coming from. Thinking through a number of options here and there definitely appears to be a lot of moving parts. I appreciate your insight and guidance. 

@Theresa Harris Thanks for taking the time to respond. Sounds like you have a pretty solid PM company in your area. I'll look around here to see if I can find a similar deal. Thanks for responding again!

@Mike Dymski It does seem to make it more challenging. 

It definitely was something that caught me off guard because as I used the BP calculator to analyze deals with the 10% PM monthly charge, it doesn't take into account the placement fee of one month's rent. This makes a big difference when trying to analyze the true cash flow of a deal. 

Seems like an opportunity to add this if possible @Brandon Turner

@Linda S.Thanks for taking the time and that's a good idea in regards to paying for the screening and maybe self-managing. I'll explore that.

@Laticia Braxton Thanks for the warning. I will absolutely do so!

@Grey Stone That was something I was thinking about as well! Will think through what that would look like. Thanks for the suggestion and for answering the question about the lock box!

@Nathan Gesner Makes sense. I was just thinking of that. Took a few calls today that turned out to be a bust and immediately thought "This probably isn't worth my time." Thanks for the insight again!

@Nathan Gesnerand @Drew Sygit thanks for your advice again.  

So just to be clear, are you saying that investors should ALWAYS use a property management company, or are there situations in which it would make sense for a new investor to manage it him or herself?

@Nathan G. Okay. Thanks for responding.