All Forum Posts by: Kevin Harrison

If I were you I would rent for a year in the cheapest place you can stand to live in if you don't want to stay with your parents. During this time save as much as you can for a down payment and keep your eye out for some good deals, and then when you do find a good deal you will already have your money saved up and can pounce on it immediately. So what if you lose your security deposit? (I know this is bad form since many of us are LL's but that what the penalties in our leases are there for). Or if you can find somewhere that is month to month then you wouldn't even have to break your lease.

Don't forget to put in some sturdy bedroom doors and a keying system you can control for both the front door and each bedroom if you are going to rent them individually. You are going to want to re-key the front door and the room door every time a tenant moves because who knows how many copies of you house key they made for extras for friends ETC. Might even want to put some language in your lease forbidding copies, not that it can really stop anyone. 

Not that this really has anything to do with the rehab but you should also spend some time thinking about how your are going to allocate use of common areas and the kitchen. Reasonable times of use, cleaning up after yourself, any areas of the property that are forbidden (IE garage or attic), are they going to bring their own dishes or are you going to provide them, maybe even something about "quiet" hours. These are all things you are going to want on a signed lease addendum before they move in.

After living in japan for 3 years I can tell you that this tenant will most likely take great care of your home though. I cannot remember a single dirty home we visited from the time we lived out in town (off base) in Yokosuka. Although this was 15 years ago so I don't know if the same applies for this younger generation. If this applicant is from any kind of city though I can almost guarantee you he has never had a yard, or not enough of one to worry about at least. He may be asking for landscaping to be done because he has no clue how to do it.

@Nate Watkins is right. In GA (Where I primarily invest) basements are not all that common or sought after, where as in VA where I live, if you don't have a basement the house is considered much less desirable. I invest in Augusta though and don't know much about Jonesboro, you should look around on Zillow and see what other homes are selling or sold for w/ basement, w/o basement, finished, unfinished etc. This will give you an idea of what the market is like, also you can call the agent who sold you the house (and just got a nice payday off of you) and see what their opinion is on basements in the area.

No, you're doing the math backwards. You need to divide the price by the NOI. ex $41,650/0.085=490K where as a 10 cap would give you 416.5K and a 12 cap would give you 347K.

I know this is the internet age but have you thought about doing some old school advertising? go to the school admissions office and see if they have a board you can post some flyers up on, talk to the admissions people and explain what your offering. If for nothing more than to put that bug in their head, maybe they will send some people over to look at your flyer. Just for good measure I would post a few more flyers around campus at the different dorms and event places. I would do this again at the end of each semester as well since typically that's when college kids will start planning where they are gonna live next year.

This is all very situation dependent. I have heard of people renting out detached garages and storage sheds before but it has to have the right set up. If this is say, in the backyard of the home I would definitely not do it. As a renter I wouldn't want someone else to have access to my back yard and to not know who was on the property. If this is a bigger property, or in the city where there is very little privacy anyway then its a possibility.

You really just need to look at a few things. 1) would you be comfortable with a stranger coming and going as they pleased with where this shed is located on your property if it was you living there? Is there enough demand for someone to rent this shed or is it going to be people constantly in and out? How much is this worth a month to you Vs. how much will this make your renters uncomfortable or want to look for another place?

If this shed is out of the way and away from the main house then go for it, just make sure you make the tenants of the home aware of it before they sign the lease.  

Yeah. They have never said they were right but this does give us a good talking point when you get that one homeowner that is stuck on the zestimate number.

@Linda Weygant, this is the most concise and easy to understand explination of depreciation recapture I have ever read. thank you.

Because an appreciation play is akin to gambling. You most likely will not get a whole lot of people saying go for it from BP, but if you want to do it and you are still CF positive after you cover ALL expenses then do it. Worst case scenario you learn a comparatively cheap lesson by just having a low CF house with too much dead equity in it. Best case you make a tidy profit.