All Forum Posts by: Mark Mosch

Hi Ben,

Not asking is dumb - any questions on something you don't know are smart.  Zillow has a feature that allows you just to look for rentals.  It's on the advanced filter tab - you can select 'rentals' only.

There's also a really good tool called "HotPads".  Go to their website and you can completely find house and apartment rental comps.  It's even map based like Zillow.

Good luck.

Agree with the importance of the team on the ground.  I live in SoCal and nothing cashflows here so everything i have is out of state.  I actually most recently am starting up in San Antonio - and started with getting recommendations from some people who know the area on a local broker who also happens to be a property manager and investor too.  Someone like that really appreciates what the out of town investor needs.  After reviewing the area and doing a lot of research i finally went down and viewed some buildings with them.  Am about to close on the first one.  It's key to get that local relationship going with someone competent that you can trust.  They will turn you on to the right deals.

Sounds like you got it covered.  Pull the trigger and once you get into it, just stay alert and flexible and don't get bulldozed into accepting things that you are concerned about.  However, nothing can happen until you get started!

Still seeing some owner financing, but they usually want a lot higher interest rates.  On smaller product you would look at a bank between 4 and 4.5%, and the owners i've seen would be a couple points higher on the rate.

Most of the bank terms today on anything over 4 units would be like 25% down, Prime +1.25-1.5%, 20 year amortization.  Oh - and they'll need a personal guarantee on anything these days too.

The big issue is to make sure you have a professional inspector walk the property after the offer and then you can adjust the offer based on what you find.  Don't be afraid to write an offer, but make sure to have a contingency in there - give yourself 30 days - for a full physical inspection by an inspection company.  Then, your offer is contingent on your inspection not finding anything of concern.  If you do find something, it's totally appropriate to ask for a price adjustment based on those findings - or to ask the seller to fix prior to closing (the fix of course needing to be approved by you prior to close).  Hope that helps.

Valerie -

The accepted offer issue is fine - because you will be making sure that you have a very strong inspection contingency in your offer that will give you plenty of time and excuse to bail if for any reason you see something you don't like in the other units.  I have nearly every offer found items that caused me to request a price adjustment - and it's not like the seller doesn't expect that's an issue.  Plus if you too heavily 'low-ball' you may never get to see the other units and then not have a deal at all.  Come in with what you think is fair and then adjust if you see something you don't like.

Hi Ron,

I have a mixture of 2/1, 1/1, and 3/1 Apartment units in several buildings in Montana.  I too find the 1/1's for some reason just seem to have higher turnover too.  The 2/1's seem to be my most stable type of units from a rental perspective.  The demand for the 2/1's actually seems to be just fine and i don't really see any decline.