All Forum Posts by: Lisa Foreman

I have recently spoken with an accountant about a similar concept and yes charities can own real estate and use the proceeds. The deal is that it can't be a real estate business essentially pretending to be a charity.

If you had about $10K to give to a charity with the hopes of creating a long term income stream for them (even a small one) what would you invest it in? A note? Syndication? 

Has anyone done something like this before? Thank you in advance for your advice.

Thanks @Greg Cooksey, @Larry Watson, and @Account Closed! 

I really didn't expect so much feedback but it's been super helpful as a first time landlord to hear your perspectives and advice.

You asked how it was advertised. We were exclusively online but we also met and talked to as many neighbors as we could and asked them to help us find someone they would like to live by. We tried Craigslist at first but there were way too many postings there so that was ineffective. Then we did a submission (sorry I forgot the name) that lists the property for free on several standard sites like Zillow. That's where we got all the responses from people who looked at it. In retrospect, it was almost too easy, click a button to send an email and set up an appointment. Many of the people who looked at it seemed just curious rather than being ready to move in.

@John Hickey thanks so much for the excellent advice!!

Our rental posting has expired, but here's the seller's listing that we responded to when we bought. We followed it pretty closely when listing the unit for rent. 

http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2267-High-Bush-C...

I'll keep all your advice and that of the other posters in mind if I need to re-list it in the fall.

Update - we signed a half year lease at full price with a great tenant.  

So we will likely have to do this again in the Fall.

Thanks everyone for the great feedback which we will defiantly incorporate when we remarket it.

Thanks everyone!

It's GA high. 

We are about to sign a lease but it's for less than a year.

Jon, can you recommend a good PM for future reference?

that's a really good idea about doing the background check on the spot - we can do that

yes, we meet them face to face and that process seems to go well

it's possible we lost one tenant because it took us a while to decide, but that is because she wasn't ready to move in for 6 weeks and we were hoping that we could rent it more quickly - by the time we decided it was ok, she renewed her contract in her current apartment

one problem is we bought the property in winter and most of the viewers have leases that renew in the Spring

We have already lowered it once and it's in line with comps. How do we know how low to go? I don't want to guess which is why I looked at comparable prices.  Thanks for the feedback. 

Hi, I'm a brand new investor. My business partner and I bought a small but really nice town home in a great school district in Glen Allen VA (Richmond). We posted it on multiple sites and have shown it to 20 people. We have a two step application, a written application followed by an online background/credit check which they pay for ($35). Several people sound super interested but do not actually turn in an application. Only two have turned in an application but they did not fill out the online background check request when we sent for it. We said we would take the $35 off first months rent if we sign a contract. It's been 6 weeks. 1080 square feet, $1150 per month rent (includes HOA & trash), 2 bedroom 2.5 baths (each bedroom has it's own full bath), small galley kitchen with new appliances, hardwood floors downstairs, carpet upstairs, really cute and shows well. Should we hire a property management firm to get it rented?