All Forum Posts by: Robert Klisak

Congratulations on moving to Portland! 

There is lots of solid advice here so far on this thread.  I agree that finding a month-to-month rental at first would be the way to go.  In the market up here, you can't expect to buy a property quickly; let alone find one that's a deal.  Renting first would give you time to get to know the area as well search for properties.

You can find a duplex on the outskirts of town for $280k; I recently purchased a completely remodeled duplex in Oregon City for $280k I have great tenants and it is cash flowing nicely.  It's only 30 minutes to downtown Portland, which is nothing if you're coming from LA.  Zip code for Oregon City is 97045.  I would also consider looking into these zip codes: 97018, 97267, 97222, 97068.

I personally would not want to live in Vancouver.  While I do think you'll see some nice appreciation in the long run, the traffic is simply unbearable if you have to commute to Portland everyday.  My colleague lives there and is constantly stuck in traffic and late. Last week the bridge was blocked due to an accident and she just couldn't even make it into work at all.  

I hope this helps and please let me know if I can help any further, good luck!

@Roger Vi OP said she needs cash to purchase her next property so I'm suggesting to keep the tenants in until she purchases her next property and then evaluate how much cash has left over and can put into the units. I'm not suggesting she use the future rents to pay for repairs, just what's left over after her next property purchase. 

As for paying tenants to move out. Obviously, from a business perspective it isn't ideal to be paying tenants. But in Portland you have to give 90 days notice to raise rent or kick tenants  out. I'm suggesting that she could pay them to voluntarily move out early if she was didn't want to wait the 90 days or just to feel better personally about not kicking/forcing out low income minority tenants. Additionally, paying tenants to move out can ensure that they don't destroy the unit before vacating. 

I've never personally paid a tenant to move out but I've thought about it just to make it a win win for everyone. After all a couple hundred bucks in the long term of the property isn't really that much. Especially,  if it makes you feel better about supporting a family and ensuring minimum damage to your property upon move out  

I personally would avoid section 8 as well.  

Sorry if my first post wasn't clear, does this make more sense?

Sounds like you have a pretty good plan. I would wait until you buy your next property before raising rent again if you're worried about them moving out and having to do repairs.   see how much $ you have left over to do repairs once you purchase your new property. Then raise rent again on them and if they do decide to move out, do the repairs and  raise the rent to market value. 

You could always offer to pay them a couple hundred to move out and leave the place clean if you don't want to feel bad about kicking out minority low income people. Us portlanders are too nice sometimes :)

I was actually very curious about this myself.  Does anyone have any insight towards this?

My dad is an architect, said he would make me some plans for free, I love the idea of building new construction VS trying to flip an older house.

@Say Teoh What custom homes websites were you looking at? 

Hi sherry! Welcome! Portland is super hot but I would recommend finding a solid duplex in the suburbs or east Portland. I have a client that is purchasing a duplex in Gresham for around $235k. the trick is to just make sure it cash flows. You're bound to get the appreciate in the long run. I have two duplexes in Oregon city and they both cash flow and are ripe for appreciate. Especially once the blue heron project gets under way. Let me know if I can help in any other way!

this is great. I missed the last meet up. I can't wait to meet you all in person. Thanks for organizing this!

Hi Ian,

I'm a real estate investor and realtor in the Portland Metro area and I am also currently looking for an investment property in this area and I have to say the market is really really hot right now. Just to give you an idea, there was a four Plex that came on the MLS the other day for 500k in St. John's and went pending within 48 hours.

I know a couple really good commercial brokers in my office. Let me know if you want me to put you guys in touch. 

Take care and good luck!!

Originally posted by @Greg Kuchan:

I just wanted to throw out there how great of a resource Bigger Pockets is. As a property manager and a new real estate agent,

Amen, I second that as well.

I just recently got my license too, how has that been working out for you so far?

Originally posted by @Michael Woodward:

@Josh Rowland I think your approach is an excellent way to get into real estate. I started my real estate career with fix and resell (I hate the word "flip"). I had a lot of success without my license but there were also a lot of frustrations with the agents I was using. I needed to be able to do some intensive data-gathering but it was extremely difficult to find an agent that understood what I was looking for and could provide the data. Part of that problem was my fault because I didn't know what to ask for because I'd never seen the inside of the MLS. The other major problem was that I wanted to be part of the negotiations during the sale of my houses but that's almost never allowed. Without that, you're at the mercy of your agent's ability to close the deal. I finally put the necessary time and effort into getting my license in 2014 and have been extremely happy that I did!  You'll have access to people and information that you can't get any other way. It's been an enormous benefit to me.

The way I chose my agency was a combination of things.  The first thing I did was search the local real estate board website for agents that consistently won the top sales awards.  Then I searched all the listings in my local area to see which agency had the most listings. If you find an agency with a lot more agents and listings than the rest, there's a pretty good chance that you've found the best one.....but that's not always a guarantee.  Sometimes you'll find that a smaller office actually has more sales than the larger firm.  

How do you find a list of listings with the listing companies if you dont have your access to the MLS?