All Forum Posts by: Kyle Roberts

Hi Everyone!

I recently purchased my first property, a single-family home in Richmond, VA and am planning to house hack. I'm trying to figure out how to set up the banking for managing the property. I've heard it's best to get a separate bank account from your personal account. However, do I need to pay my mortgage through this account? What about repair and maintenance expenses for the property, as I've read online you need to split those based on what is for the "rental" portion of the house vs the primary residence portion of the house. Can anyone who's managed a SFH house hack provide insight on how they managed the finances of the property?

Thanks in advance!

Kyle 

Hi everyone!

I'm looking to purchase a house hack as my first investment, and I keep seeing more opportunities with SFH rather than MFH. Have you ever house hacked a SFH and how was your experience? What area were you in and did you feel there was a steady supply of good tenants? Did you find most tenants wanted short term leases and furnished rooms? How much were you able to charge for a bedroom?

Also, I'm new to the Richmond area so shoot me a DM and let's connect!

Hey Everyone,

Thanks for all the insight. I talked to a PM who does short term rentals in the area and she told me she stays away from mid term as most tenants are looking for steep discounts for extended stays. I also looked into tenant rights and it takes on average of 2-4 months to evict in Richmond. Based on that duration, even having to evict one tenant would be detrimental to the performance of the deal. I didn't see anything about what the tenants rights are if I were to live in the property, so something to look into in the future. However, I think you are all right. This is situation where I am trying to justify an under performing property because I want to buy a deal. The numbers do not work as a mid term rental and really don't work as a long term rental. Thanks for keeping me honest! On to the next lead.

Hi Everyone,

I am currently looking at a potential house hack in Richmond Virginia that I plan to Airbnb parts of. However, the property is in an HOA that only allows minimum 30 day short term rentals. The property is in a great area and I see other properties nearby doing great numbers on AirDNA. I looked into these properties on Airbnb and saw that they do offer 30 day stays and the asking price for the stay looked very attractive for me as a host. However, they are able to be rented for less than 30 days as well. I wanted to see, has anyone bought a property that could only be used for STRs longer than 30 days, and what was the outcome?

For more context, I did look into renting to a travel nurse and with that revenue I would be cash flowing negative $1400/month. I pay rent of $1550 right now, so I would still be coming out slightly ahead. The ROI is very weak in this scenario.

Any thoughts would be great. Thanks BP Fam!

@Alex Forest I would prefer to house hack a multifamily, but a single family house hack seems like the easier option. I want to be within a 20 minute drive of VCU so the Forrest Hills area was definitely interesting. I'll have to do more research on the Henrico area as a lot of people have recommended it. 250k for a single family home is very affordable. I'm in Raleigh, NC currently and I feel like I couldn't find anything besides a beat up 2bed/2bath townhome for that price. Do you own all of your rentals in Henrico? How have those properties performed for you? 

@Nate Bell Thanks for the advice! I think that's a great point about the garage. With multiple people all moving furniture I will likely need some additional storage. In your experience have you ever charged for the extra storage space? I have heard of people charging extra for use of a shed, but in most cases they did not live in the property. Researching Richmond's major employers is still on my to do list. I'd like to be close to VCU so it may also be possible to find post doc students who are looking for a cheap place to rent.

@Taylor L. Thanks for the input! It seems like everywhere is competitive so I'm trying to find a way to stand out. On the offers I've made to date I've done minimum 10% over asking, 15k  due diligence with no contingency. I still didn't win on either property!

I've seen AirBnB's available so I didn't think to look much into Richmond STR laws. Thanks for brining that up, I'll make sure to do some research.

Hi Everyone!

In August I will be moving to Richmond and I would like to purchase a property to house hack. This will be my first time buying a property and my first investment so I have a few questions. First off, have you ever purchased a house hack in Richmond, and what was your experience like? 

Also, I noticed that some Richmond homes have basements, have you ever purchased a property and turned the basement into an AirBnb unit or additional bedroom, what was the outcome? 

I am looking to purchase a home with as many bedrooms as I can afford (likely 4-5)  to give myself the best chance to break even vs buying a two bedroom property.  However, I have had issues identifying properties with parking for that many individuals. Has this ever caused a problem for anyone?

Finally, I am looking for general recommendation on areas to look for properties. I currently live 3 hours from Richmond, but was able to drive through it last weekend on my way back from a trip up north. Areas I liked were Forrest hill, West Over Hills (areas generally south of the James River). I've also heard that Church Hill has seen quite a bit on gentrification and may be a good area to look at. What areas are you looking to invest in?

Also, in your experience, when should you start to make offers on properties to land one before you plan to move? Ideally, I don't want to purchase something and have to pay current rent and a new mortgage for a few months but if that is the case due to high competition I can manage. 

Thanks in advance for your input! I am looking to connect with local Richmond investors, agents, contractors, property managers, and lenders so please feel free to reach out and lets connect.

Sincerely,

Kyle

Hi Everyone,

I posted two weeks ago about creating a mastermind / accountability group. For some reason biggerpockets took down my last post so I am trying to restart the thread. If you reached out to me via private message about the mastermind/accountability group I've tagged you below to let you know I am planning on having another meeting this Thursday (7/15) at 7 pm! 

This meeting will be a lot like the last where participants ask questions and anyone can provide input. However, thanks to @stevenwilk we will have a guest speaker to start us off! The speaker will be Steven's friend Matt who is going to tell us about his experience acquiring a 20 unit apartment building in Troy, NY.  This will be a great opportunity to network with other investors as well as ask questions that may be holding you back from getting your first or more deals done. Please let me know if you are interested in going so I can direct message you the zoom link. 

I hope you all can make it!

Thanks for advice everyone! It seems like Durham is an expensive and highly competitive market where acquisition decisions need to happen very quickly. Not exactly ideal for a new investor. Does anyone feel that the markets surrounding Raleigh are less competitive (Wendell, Zebulon, Knightdale, Wake Forrest, Apex etc) or is it more of the same until you get further away and into those secondary markets? 

Thanks again for all help!