All Forum Posts by: Kristina Heimstaedt

Take the money and house hack in your new location!!!  Managing at a distance can be a major pain especially if you want to do it yourself in place of hiring a property manager. Buy a duplex in your new town and rent the other unit. Maybe you will decrease your costs so much over time such that you can begin to fund a future location. Get the snowball rolling!!!

If they aren't giving you enough information, let them know. They can't provide better service if you don't let them know. If you communicate what your expectations are and you still don't get what you want, then dump them. As an agent myself, every client is different. If my clients don't tell me what they want, I don't know. Help them do their job by telling them exactly what you're looking for which could be a variety of things. Maybe you want a particular cap rate, maybe you want a vacant property, maybe you want something where you could add value, maybe you want more than 4 units. We don't know until you tell us. Investor is a broad umbrella. Help them help you.

@Michelle Elsaid In Newport Beach everything is pretty expensive and we end up with many room mate situations. As long as they can jointly qualify, you should be fine. The additives that we've used that have made the entire process smoother are the following:

1. Rent is to be paid in a single payment every month. You don't want to get money from one, but not the other and then try to figure out how to apply a late fee. If you can make roommates police each other, it is significantly easier to manage especially for accounting.

2. I also require that all communication must be in group format, which is typically via texting. I once had a couple living together, but I was communicating with the boyfriend for the majority of their residency. We had some complications at renewal and considered not renewing their lease. The boyfriend was not handling himself well and it was getting a little ugly. When the girlfriend found out how her boyfriend was behaving and what he was saying, she was completely disgusted. 

I also had another situation where one roommate said that I said that his girlfriend could move in. I had not had such a conversation and as a result, he and his girlfriend ended up moving and getting their own place and the remaining tenants found a replacement and my vacancy remained at zero.

I'm personally a huge fan of renting to roommates because it is very rare that all want to move out at the same time and instead they typically just replace the one that moved out. It's a great way to have low vacancy.

Get in touch with a local Title rep and have them walk you through it. It's their job to be able to decipher these. I had clients who were in escrow on a property that had an easement. I called the title rep to get an idea of what the easement was. They sent me a picture and were able to explain that it was a telephone wire that passes through the back air space of the property. If "it's all Greek to" you, get in touch with a rep who speaks Greek.

Find a contractor that you'd actually like to do the work. Once you find one, get a price per square foot for the first place and give him two places at once. You ought to save on costs as a result for the volume deal and increase the number of places you have available sooner rather than later.

Structure is important when dealing with tenants. Your bank doesn't care what you have going on when your mortgage is due. Just tell them that you have no problem with moving in early, but that you have a daily rate (whatever the rent is over the course of a month). It is what it is especially when working with a bank whether you own the place cash or not. Property taxes, mortgage, landlords have expenses too.

that's the problem with agreeing to fix anything in escrow, the deal never really ends. If you never agreed to anything, you'd be out all of this responsibility. Take the learning lesson and move on.

That seems risky given that Bitcoin prices fluctuate and it appears to be really out of favor currently. 

I've used both Buildium and Appfolio. Buldium was great for tenants to be able to submit rent as well as any maintenance requests. I know it's more, but Buildium allows for more properties as well. I'm not sure about electronic leases. I personally use dousign for electronic leases and just absorb the PDF into each propertys' account. However, it also allows you to market from their program as well such that as soon as a property goes vacant, you can click a few buttons and it's back being marketed through the major sites. 

Appfolio is more appropriate for 50+ units. 

If you haven't seen the latest in Vinyl, I suggest checking it out. I actually started using vinyl because my plumber put it in his house. He showed me a sample, and banged his tape measure against it. The product was completely unscathed on top of the fact that it is WATERPROOF. Companies are applying the same concept of laminate to vinyl. It's a little more than the cost of laminate, but it's the best product for durability and design.

Be careful though. I have a vinyl that didn't have a base that gave it a flatness so when I put it in my condo it separated and gapped a bit because the place isn't perfectly level. Whether it's the subfloor or the product, something needs to be perfectly flat so you don't end up with gaps. Otherwise, I think it's the best product in town and looks great!!