All Forum Posts by: Liwen Gu

Sounds like you've already done plenty of research on it. Good luck with the course if you decide to take it. Also, if you need any extra help with math, feel free to ask!

Hey Karen, if you are interested in getting a real estate license, you might be able to take an online course that costs a lot less than classroom training. I'm not sure what the rules are in Arizona, but I'm going through an online course right now in Oregon for around $300. If I go to the community college here for in classroom training it would have been $700. You'd have to be very motivated to do the course yourself (I find the course material to be quite dry so I'm struggling with that myself) but I think it will work better with your schedule and it sounds like you have the determination to do it. It's a long term commitment though...I hear that a lot of agents just break even the first year but I'm sure you can be successful at it.

One more thing Karen, I suggest doing everything you can to cut down everyday expenses so you're not living pay check to pay check. I think that's probably more important than rebuilding your credit at this point. I know $2000/month isn't a whole lot to work with but I believe you can absolutely make this work with your current income. I grew up with parents who made around minimum wage and adopted an extremely frugal lifestyle. They never went out to restaurants (McDonald's was considered too expensive), movies, etc. They hardly ever bought new clothes. They studied the weekly grocery flyers almost religiously and refused to buy anything that wasn't on sale. Their monthly food bill was $100/month for a family of 3 (this was 10 - 15 years ago when the price of bananas was still 29 cents/lb so you'd have to adjust for inflation...). But you get the picture. They paid for my college tuition in full, they own their house free and clear in one of the most expensive housing market in North America and decent retirement savings.

Hi Karen, if you decide to sell your house maybe you can find someone to co-sign a loan with you and you can work on repairing your credit and house hacking at the same time. I don't think you necessarily need a duplex or a separate mother in law unit. If you get a 3 bedroom single family house, you can live in one room and rent the other 2 rooms out if you're comfortable with that. Otherwise, I do like the idea of you staying with a friend for free and helping out while you get your financial situation sorted out.

The investors at the monthly REIA meetings in Salem seem to like Pioneer Trust Bank. I've set up a savings account with them as a way to start establishing a relationship with the bank...haven't done any loans with them yet. I'm kinda on the fence when it comes to small community banks/lenders because of my past experience with them.

Why don't you call Comcast (or your local internet/cable provider) and see what kind of bundle package you can get? I think you'll want more than just the basic cable channels...Comcast usually includes HBO in many of their promotion bundles for the first 12 months and you. I think if you get a good bundle deal with lots of premium channels then you don't need Netflix. However, if basic cable channels + Netflix is more affordable, then that's probably all right too. Don't skimp out on the wifi, there's nothing more annoying than a weak internet connection when you're on vacation haha. It might be worthwhile looking into getting a home phone too if it doesn't cost much more or if it's included in the bundle especially if you think you will have a lot of international tourists (even from Canada). Free local calling may be attractive, just make sure they don't make international calls.

Okay I think we've had enough discussion about used mattresses. I have one more piece of advice to share:

Michael, before you start buying everything to furnish your rental, I think it's very important to understand who your target market is and figure out what would appeal to them. 

To give you an example, I was looking at short term rentals in the heart of Santa Fe, NM. Most of the tourists there come from Texas and California. They are usually older (in their 50s and 60s) who enjoy the opera, museums, art galleries, festivals etc. and many of them bring pets with them. Many of them are also repeat customers who come to Santa Fe every year. It's not much of a tourist attraction for young families and kids so I wouldn't have to cater to that demographics.  Now, "Charm" is a HUGE thing in Santa Fe, a rental with southwest charm would stand out much more than a rental without any charm. These are tourists who appreciate nicer things like bedsheets with high thread counts and handcrafted solid wood furniture. These are people who are probably used to staying at 4 or 5 star luxury hotels and would not want $1 shampoos. Also, furnishing a traditional adobe style house with modern looking IKEA furniture would probably feel odd and would take all the charm out of the house. The property manager I was working with at the time also provided a bottle of wine for all the guests at the beginning of their stay, which worked well.

Since you live in NY, your target renters are probably a lot different but I think it's still important to consider what type of place you have, in what neighborhood and what kind of tourists you are hoping to attract. 

I find it interesting how people are grossed out by a used mattress but then there are plenty of those who buy used clothes and shoes at consignment stores (for me, I think uses clothes are a lot worse). Anyway, just keep in mind that the mattress or any other new furniture you buy will be considered "used" after the first tenant leaves.

I did not back out of the deal because I wasn't committed to it, the numbers just didn't work out for me.

Anyway, I'm giving you advice not from my personal experience but from others who have done short term rentals that I think make sense and it's what I would do if I find a vacation property myself. Please do not rule out used furniture just because a couple of people here recommend against it. You can find a lot of nice sold wood furniture on craigslist, garage sales, estate sales, etc. if you know what you're looking for. I'm not saying IKEA is necessarily bad but it doesn't have the charm of what you might find used especially if you want your place to stand out. If you buy all brand new nice furniture, you are going to spend a fortune and I don't think it's worth it on a rental property. 

I suggest listening to the podcast https://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/biggerpoc...

Podcast 229: Early Retirement Through Short-Term Rental Properties with Zeona McIntyre. She loves going to garage sales to pick up good quality furniture. I believe she said she's never bought a brand new mattress, but don't take my word for it, listen to the podcast :)

Best of luck to you. 

I almost bought a short term rental but I decided to back out of the contract. Anyway, I was going to work with a property manager who specialized in vacation rentals so I have a supplies list (it's more than I thought I needed to get). If you think that would be useful, connect with me and I'll email you the list. In regards to keeping extra supplies. one of the things she requested was a locked closet with extra supplies (clean linens, towels, etc) with a key for the maid so the tenants won't be able to access..she said this is important when you have quick turnovers and there's not always time to do laundry. She also stressed  the importance of getting a sofa bed to increase the number of occupants so you can charge more.

As for furniture, I would also recommend looking on Craigslist and garage sales for more unique and higher quality furniture than what you would get at IKEA...Good luck!