All Forum Posts by: Krista Dodson

Hello, All. Sorry for the delayed response. I've been away from my home computer for a week and my phone won't connect people's @ directly, so I thought I'd wait. 

Wow, thank you all for your awesome input!  

@Natalie Schanne & @Michelle Krupa- I don't think we'll move back, but I agree with you on the appreciation. We're on S. 6th street in just off of Glebe, so it's pretty prime real estate and we haven't had a vacancy in 10 years. We were thinking about just doing a Refi, to refi into an LLC (it's currently under our personal names), but I think I'd rather leave the equity where it is and let it grow while utilizing it in other ways.

@Taylor L. - I've been thinking about investment philosophy a lot lately. My ultimate goal is cash flow, and passive income. But while I'm still learning ropes, I really want to get my hands dirty, so to speak. I want to learn landlording. I want to learn dealmaking. I want to learn birddogging. I want to learn rehabbing, etc. So at the very least, I will know the ins and outs of the business when I'm counting on others to do it for me. What I don't want to do is to rely on people that I don't know very well to lead me in a direction that isn't wise just because I don't know any better. My strengths lie in educating myself, reading reading reading, meeting new people and creating relationships, and a desire to get my hands dirty with a rehab. So I think what I really need to do is to get into some strategic partnerships to learn all the aspects of the business, while growing our portfolio.

So long story short, I think as far as Arlington goes, we're going to treat it as a retirement account and leave it alone for a while and just borrow the equity out of it on a short term basis to jump start the rest of our business. Thanks again, all of you, for the fantastic input, and for getting my brain working in the right direction.

@Erik Andersen, great choice. I look forward to hearing here on BP how it all turns out.

@Cliff H., GREAT spreadsheet. Thanks for posting!

Good morning.

We own a SFR property in the the very sought after Arlington, VA area, that we are currently renting with a $900 monthly cash flow, after CapEx holdback, P&I, T&I. We are self-managing with no issues. We have about $300K in Equity in this house, and the mortgage is on a 4% interest 30 year note with 26 years remaining.

We moved to Richmond, VA several years back, and are beginning our real estate investment journey into rental real estate in this market. We are specifically looking to BRRRR, refinancing all in. In finding cash to invest with here in Richmond, we are looking at several options:

1 - HELoC on the Arlington Rental Property - will be able to get approximately $200K-240K in buying power at 6.25-6.5% interest only payments.

2 - Sell property in Arlington - Cash out $300K, use this cash to purchase property down here in Richmond. 

Thoughts??

Any other strategies we haven't considered yet?

Wow! Congrats. Looks like you're well on your way to your goal. Thanks for posting. I loved the way that you laid out each property. It gives me some good inspiration on how to lay out our investing plan.

Hey, @Erik Andersen, be careful how much you put into a home warranty. We just purchased a rental property this last summer with an ancient HVAC system. We made sure that the seller had a home warranty in place to cover these costs for when they went bad. What we found is that the warranty company wouldn't replace the whole system. When the Furnace went bad, they would replace only the furnace. Not the ancient ducting leading to and from the furnace. Not the fittings that would have to be upgraded in order for the furnace to be reattached to the house. Not the flue inspection that would have to be completed in order for the replacement to happen. Not even the attached cooling system (which was also 35 years old and not working), etc, etc, etc. In the end, it was going to cost us $2200 just to pay for all the add ons that the warranty company wouldn't pay for to replace just the furnace. That didn't take into account the cooling system, replacing ductwork, OR fixing the issues that may have been found in a flue inspection. We opted for the buy out from the company in order to just replace the system ourselves, and ended up with a $478 buy out. WHAT!? That's right. They would have paid the installers only $100 to install a furnace that they as a warranty company with all of their big buying power only cost them $378. The new system I had installed cost me $7500. Ugh.

So on that note... Instead of spending $$ on a home warranty (which, unless you buy the much more expensive maintenance warranty will NOT cover maintenance), I would suggest just putting cash aside each month for CapEx. It will cost you less in the long-run.

As far as property management, usually your property management fees are only taking into account the paperwork on the property. They do not include maintenance fees. Any maintenance that is done on the property is still paid for by the owner. The Property Manager just acts as a go-between, so that the owner doesn't have to actually attend to the property when maintenance is being performed, they just receive the bills at the end. So if you're close to the property and plan to do the tenant screening and advertising, my opinion is that it would be much easier and less expensive to do it yourself.  

Hope this helps, and Good luck!!

Thanks, @Charles Huang. I accidentally sent a colleague request, before a message. Haha. So now it won't let me send a message. 

Need a good handyman for a rental in Arlington, VA. Also looking for a chimney sweep. Every one I've worked with so far has been a crook. Any recommendations, friends in Northern VA?

Looking to build my bookkeeping portfolio. Specifically looking for clients who are looking to establish best practices in financial processes in order to scale their real estate business to greater heights. Initial consultations cost $50 for an hour consultation. Services offered at $50/hour of work completed. 

I have a Bachelors from Virginia Tech in Accounting, and worked for one of the large National Accounting Firms out of college. I worked for 5 years in public auditing, serving some of the largest Real Estate companies in Northern VA and Washington DC. After that, I worked in finance and accounting in many large firms in the Northern VA area, including a large REIT in Bethesda, MD. I left the workforce 13 years ago to raise my children, and am now staging my come back. I am in the process of reinstating my CPA license. In the meantime, looking to take on Bookkeeping clients.

I, too, am a real estate investor, with two buy and hold real SFH investments. In entering the Real Estate market, I am looking to learn as much as possible about the flipping and rehabbing side of the business, and as such, would love to work with some Rehabbers to learn more about the processes.

I live and work in the Richmond, VA Metro area, although, am willing to take clients online, via Skype, Dropbox and Quickbooks Pro Cloud.

I'm beginning the lead generation side of my business and going to start driving for dollars, to get a better idea of neighborhoods we would like to be situated in, etc. Where can I find a good map to use? The county assessor's map online won't print in a way that is usable.

Thanks, @Jayson H., for your honest feedback.