All Forum Posts by: Kyle Mack

be there or be square

Wouldn't a special assessment also pop up if there roadwork or sidewalks built on your street?

Hey Pat, welcome to BP and I'm glad you took the plunge to introduce yourself.

Yeah, as you mention, I'm a big fan of rentometer and think its usually within $50 of market rents.

Also, as a first property, for me, it was very convenient to have a rental very close (next door in my duplex). As a newbie getting started, I'm glad I didn't have to deal with the added stress/time of traveling TO the property. Obviously, on my next property, I'll have to branch out a bit, but it will definitely be fairly close to my home. Even if I had to pay slightly more for a property, it would be worth it. Maybe its that Milwaukee mentality that a 20 minute drive is super far away.

wow, that first bathroom picture...what happened for it to get like that? Was someone living there when you put it under contract or had the house been vacant? Are you able to share numbers on the property?

 There are A, B, C neighborhoods all over...and that's kinda vague. There are all types of neighborhoods on all sides of town. I personally invest on the NW side of MKE, but I would suggest coming here for a visit to get a good feel for milwaukee.

Welcome to BP. Yes, there are monthly Milwaukee meetups, which I highly encourage. Coincidentally, the meetup was last night, but they are usually the last Saturday of the month. Like others have said, set your keywords for Milwaukee to see plans for the next meetup or check it out on meetup.com

If you are strictly a cashflow investor, wouldn't you see an under-performing market as a good thing? Nationally, rents are rising, but if home prices in your area are going down, that would mean that you can get houses that will rent more for less money, therefore increasing cashflow.

I think Mike Butler was referring a bit to SFH properties, where a tenant might have a bit more responsibility, e.g. paying the water themselves or shoveling snow/cutting grass. @Dawn Anastasi  @Matt Lake In the book, he gave a specific price/ color criteria (any greys/creams/whites under $3 per sq ft, for example). The last caveat for the tenant is that THEY pay installation. @Account Closed , yeah those are good examples of possible homework to give a tenant.

Lately Ive been reading "Landlording on Autopilot" by Mike Butler: in it, he describes giving tenants "homework." So here's the scenario: tenant complains of dirty old carpets. Normally, my first inclination would be to inspect the carpet, although in my mind, I already know the carpet is dirty (time waster). Then the next step would be to go out and try to find the best price on carpet, by going out 3-4 stores and checking prices. I might get a good price, but alot of my precious time has been wasted...

Mike Butler suggests a different strategy. Instead of inspecting the carpet, which I know I'd confirm with the tenant as being dirty, he suggests agreeing with the tenant on the phone and then "tasking" the tenant with the job of finding carpet (thus making the tenant happy with being able to choose the carpet they want and saving the landlord the time of doing each step themselves). Of course, a criteria must be given to the tenant.

Has anyone had success or experience with this or other types of tenant "homework"?

I would also agree with @Rob Myers , in terms of value.

I would wonder what type of neighborhood the house is in. 4Br for $850/month? That seems a bit low to me, especially for a sfh. I'd say the avg duplex with 3Br would go for at least that much, let alone a sfh.

Does your NOI number include debt service? Typically, I thought debt service was excluded from NOI calculations, but then what would you be spending $410 ($850-$440=$410) a month?