All Forum Posts by: Neil Hunter

I have a home that I am renting out in central California. I owe about $160k, and its worth 290-300ish. Currently my cash flow, after all expenses, is about -$20. 

I've been weighing my options. Since I'm losing money, it seems like its a no brainer to sell.. right? I'm trying to think of reasons where selling would NOT be the better option. I could..

1) Refinance to a 15 yr fixed for about 4.3%, but that would actually increase my monthly payments (I've got 19 years left on my 30 year mortgage, currently in an ARM that has been going up and is currently at 5.125%). However, I'd save in total interest paid, but my cash flow would be even more negative.

2) Make an additional mortgage payment and pay off half of it. That would be a 5% guaranteed "return" by saving me on all the interest

3) Sell. Zillow is estimating my house to actually depreciate next year. But I don't want to pay the capital gains taxes. I suppose I could wait to sell, then take the gains and immediately use that towards the next house I live in (I can do that on a rental, right?), thus avoiding capital gains taxes.

I'm leaning towards option 2, and possibly combine it with option 1 (refinance and make extra mortgage payments).

I guess just conceptually.. if you're breaking even or have a slight negative cash flow, does that always mean trouble? I mean if you bought a house for $200,000, rented it out the entire time but broke even, your tenants still "paid" for the house, and you have a "free" house at the end of it, right? What am I not understanding correctly?

How much is the MLS API? I'm just starting out as a one person operation right now, not sure if paying for the data at this point would be overkill?

I've got the Zillow API working for me to collect all the basic data for the property. However, one glaring issue I've come across is the price that is reported. It actually gives me back the Zestimate price, NOT the actual listed price.

Granted, I'm using a Ruby library, https://github.com/synewaves/rubillow, so there might be a bug with that code, but does anyone know how to get this data I'm looking for?

Thanks

My current tenant is about to move out, and I'm not sure how to go about the move out process. The tenant before him broke his lease early so I just kept his security deposit, and had someone professionally clean the carpet and deep clean the entire house. That cost me about $1k.

This tenant has been great, and has been there for 3 years.  I'm not sure how to handle the cleaning this time around. I re-read the lease agreement I used and the language is fairly generic:

"This deposit money minus any necessary charges for

missing/dead light bulbs, repairs, cleaning, etc., will then be returned to TENANT with a written

explanation of deductions, within 60 days after they have vacated the property."

I'm planning on replacing the downstairs carpet myself and eat the cost, because when he moved in it wasn't in great condition, and its time to replace it anyway. But the rest of the carpet/house? Should I require him to have it professionally cleaned?

@Brady Boyer how is the igloohome able to remotely generate passcodes without an internet connection? How have you liked it so far, would you recommend?

Also, now that I'm thinking about it.. have any of you installed a smart lock then just require that the tenant use the wifi router that you're using to control the home? That way I would always have access to remotely lock and unlock. I could then just bill them the cost of the internet. Of course, this could get tricky as now I'm in the business of maintaining their internet service...

@Alex Smith what was the issue you had?

@Anthony G I'm 3 hours away, its not too bad, but I'm just thinking longer term on how to automate the process.

I'm most just concerned about some random person walking through my house, but if I've pre screened them, and I'm live on the phone with them, I might be ok with the risks

My current tenant is about to move out, and I'm thinking about ways to make the transition to find the next tenant smoother. Some questions:

1. One thought I had was to install a keypad lock. I'm a little confused on which one I would get. Since my tenant will be responsible for their own internet service, I can't rely on a WiFi-enabled one, like August. Is there such a keypad where I can generate temporary passcodes *without* internet access? (see my use case below). 

2. Anyone ever schedule a "remote viewing"? My idea is to have them book a time when we're both free, and I would give him a temporary code to a keypad lock. Then we would FaceTime or some other means, and I could remotely meet him and answer his questions while he is free to wander about the house by himself. Is this a bad idea?

Any tips much appreciated.

I first started out thinking I would buy a few rental properties. However, whe more I think about it, dealing with a rental is a very long term play, and you're also dealing with a lot of unknowns.

I feel a fix and flip has a limited window. I think you're dealing with things you can more control, vs a rental property, you're dealing with things you can't really control (overall market appreciation). Would you agree?

My question is, if I pivot to doing flips instead of rentals, will traditional mortgage lenders finance a fix and flip?

Do you think doing a flip for someone like me who has a full time job (albeit in software engineering -- rest and vest ;) is too aggressive?

I got this email from my tenant yesterday. I manage my property remotely. Any advice for handling this type of problem? 

"

Yesterday we were cleaning the garage and noticed some discoloration on the ceiling. That area is directly underneath the upstairs guest bedroom and bathroom. We investigated upstairs and found 1 corner in the guest closet, behind some storage boxes that appears to have some amount of water damage (potentially). That corner shared a wall with the guest bathroom and shower.

When we looked into the shower, there was that section of grouting that we sealed over with clear silicon (like I had told you previously). Also, it looked like the rest of the grout that remained had pulled away from the tub over time, leaving a small gap. So we sealed the rest of the grout with clear silicone sealer this morning just to be cautious.

We don’t know how long this has been an issue because we only just noticed the garage ceiling this weekend (we’re not generally in the practice ceiling inspection I guess?). Also the corner in the closet is typically hidden behind boxes, so we never noticed that. We addressed the missing grout previously but the remaining grout looks pretty much the same as it has the entire we’ve been here.

At this point I’m not sure there’s anything else that can be done, but I wanted you to be aware of the issue because of the nature of the problem. If you have any questions, obviously feel free to give me a call.
"