All Forum Posts by: Lindsey Clark

Hi BP community! I need some advice on dealing with a broker fee in the state of Florida. Perhaps a realtor or someone who has been through this can offer some insight. So I used a realtor to rent out my condo for the first time. I usually do my own advertising but I have been very busy lately and decided to use help filling my condos vacancy. I made the mistake of signing a contract with a realtor that states that I will owe 5% to the broker each year the lease is renewed. I am ok paying the 10% commission but do not want to pay someone an annual fee for doing nothing. Now that I have a tenant in place I am wondering if there is anything I can do about this annual fee or am I stuck with it at this point? The balance of the commission has not been payed yet. So far they have only collected 1 months worth of rent so I feel like I could possibly have some leverage to get rid of this annual fee before I send them the balance. Any feedback on how I can or should handle this would be greatly appreciated. 

Thanks for the feedback Malgorzata. Did you invest in your DC properties before the market got hot in those areas or while it was becoming a hot market?

Hi Bp members! I am an investor in Miami  that invests in multi family property. I was wondering if anyone else is keeping an eye on the impact the underline will have on properties running along the 10 mile area? Any guesses? I know NY and Seattle have something similar and it really brought life to those areas. I’m interested in seeing what impact it will have here.

@Rita Medeiros I’m in. PM me how I can get more info once you start meeting again. 

Hello! I live in Miami and own an investment condo here. First of all I would suggest having a job lined up before moving here. I would imagine management companies are still working. Miami is a very populated area. Between dealing with people moving in and out during the summer and sending notices to people in reference to rent that’s due I would say peak season is coming up now for property management companies. Coronavirus is probably going to make investors want to hold on to their good tenants so there may be less people than usual looking to rent in this market. 

I think it is easy to see that we have all made up our minds on this topic and it is not necessary to read through 169 comments to know that none of them swayed either group one way or another. So instead of trying to solve this on bigger pockets why don't we leave the politics up to the politicians. Hopefully there will be plenty of deals to be had when this is all over and we can all go back to being investor friends again :).

Those are some very good tips @sarah shockley. The structure was built in 1950. I will have to do my research on typical problems for these older homes. I know the owner has updated the units and done several repairs including part of the roof and re-piping under the house. My realtor brought me this deal so I have to go through her. Once I have more experience and see how things work I may feel comfortable not using an agent. I'm just not on that level yet. In the mean time my realtor is trying to negotiate seller financing. I may not have luck with that because the property is in a self managed IRA. So she has less incentive since she won't have to worry about capital gains. If she wont hold papers I may push for her to go down on the price to compensate for the upcoming taxes. Anyways, you gave me some extra hope for this deal. It seems like it will be a good one if everything works out.

True @Michael Stonk. Those are rentometers numbers but I mention in my original post that I estimate I can get about $2510 per month more or less. I am realizing I still have a lot of numbers to work out. It will be the difference between this being a good deal or not. I will be making a lot of phone calls on Monday. Thanks for taking the time to respond to my post.

Hi Jack, thanks for replying to my post. The tax rate IS pretty hefty. On rentometer the studio would average $907, the 1 bedroom $820 and the 2 bedroom $1120. That is a total of $2847 per month. That is a great idea to ask if the seller would hold some of the paper for a year until I can get the rents where I want them. I really like the area and hope this deal works out.

Hello fellow investors. I found a deal I am excited about. There will be a lot of firsts for me on this deal so I was hoping to get some feedback. First multi-family, first investment property outside of my town, first time I won't be managing the property on my own. Let me know what you think. Is this as good of a deal as I think it is? Am I missing anything? Here are the numbers.... Sale price is $215,000 for a 3 unit multifamily property. It is off market and being sold by a tired landlord. The units are being rented under market value with tenants in place for all units. Studio renting for $560, 1 Bedroom for $825 and 2 Bedroom renting for $725 (being rented to owners grandson). That brings the total rental income to $2110/month. Cap rate is 8-9% per my realtor. Once the leases are up I will increase rent and with some minor repairs I believe I would be able to get at least $2510/month in rent. Yearly taxes are $3869. Tenants will be responsible for utilities as soon as I separate the meters. 8-10% for property manger. I will finance this deal and calculate my mortgage to be $1038 per month with a $35,000 down payment. I am open to any opinions anyone can share or creative strategies I can use to improve this deal.