All Forum Posts by: Matt Campbell

@Blake Anderson Great job, and great thread with updates across 4 years! Congratulations on the follow through and the payoff.

Wanted to follow up here with where I ended up. 

My purchase price was just under $300k, the house took 6 months to complete (2.5% deposit in Feb, closed August 10th). It appraised at $315k, there was strong tenant interest and I had a signed lease two weeks after listing. It's renting for $1950/month (includes lawn care). 

Builder doesn't handle fencing at all (claimed due to the liability issues), didn't have to worry about a mailbox as it seems all new complexes in that area are required by the postal service to have centralized mail kiosks. 

Blinds from the builder were pricey so I purchased 2" blinds for the whole house at Home Depot and coordinated a local installer to put them all in after closing, he did a great job. Builder appliances were priced about 1.5-2x market rate and were outdated two model years as well, so I purchased those out of pocket from Best Buy with free install. Financing them in would have been simpler, but apart from having to have the cash on hand it was pretty easy doing it afterwards.

My goal was to enter the market, get my feet wet while learning through the experience, and hopefully just not be in negative cash flow. So far so good. 

Thanks @Keith N., I see that, just a few miles north. The house actually comes with granite, SS, and 1st floor hardwoods as the stock package. I'll probably just stick to basic tile options and neutral colors.

I'd been looking at 1033 Laredo Lane just before buying this one and it had an offer almost immediately (nice to see that people are still actively buying existing homes even when new builds are available), seems like a popular and growing area. 

@Chris Martin, great deal in Greenville, congrats. If I was local I'd be more aggressively pursuing multi-unit options. I verified several times that rentals are allowed, finding that out after the fact would definitely suck :) 

Thanks Jay. Yeah, for context, I have family and friends in the Raleigh area, and being remote it's important to me to have a trusted third party nearby in addition to the property manager, just in case. From other posts I've read here and my own research, Raleigh is a tough area to get cap rates better than about 6%, sub-1% for rentals. That said, I currently live in the Bay Area, which has the worst cap rates in the entire nation ;) 

Landscaping is included but good points on the rental packages, I'll inquire about that. 

After looking in the Cary/Apex areas for a few months in the $300k bracket, I decided to move closer to RTP and signed a purchase contract for a new SFH build in Durham (Brightleaf subdivision). ~2600 sq ft, 4BR/3BA, two car garage. Rental comps look higher than I expected while still under that $2k/mo. limit that's pretty restrictive for most in the area.

I have an appointment on Feb. 26th to customize the home finishes, I'm curious to hear from others here what the attractive features are for renters in this market. 

• I've already added a first floor bedroom and full bath (shower) per my realtor's advice to appeal as an in-law suite
• Gas stove and garden tub + shower master bath; again, as many renters want these

What other features have you found attractive to your renters/buyers? What upgrades would you recommend? 

I've also been looking at the Cary/Apex area for a while. I almost put in an offer on a property in Holly Springs, but the highway expansion project scared me away - the proposed route for 540 went directly through the property. You can view the map here on Google Maps.