All Forum Posts by: Matthew Banks

We have some student rental units that turnover every year. It is an intensive leasing process each year, from the advertising to handling inquiries, applications, showings, etc. I most want to avoid spending considerable time showing units in-person to prospective renters, esp. before we've pre-screened them. Any advice on how to minimize in-person showings or how to change our process? I've created a walk-thru video for each unit and posted it online. I have email auto-responders that provide info and links to our website, walk-thru videos and a short application form when someone makes an initial inquiry. People email and text us, asking for a showing, but after getting the auto-response email, they don't move forward. I'm happy to show a unit to someone once they've been screened and we know they are very serious.

Any advice greatly appreciated.

Very interesting post John. We should form a little group and share info as we have similar backgrounds. I've been juggling a W2 while also doing real estate investing (BRRR, flip, RE license). I've managed a number of successful rehabs and put a lot of sweat into them as well. It's been a long-time dream to do a new build and so I'm actively working to find land and begin the process.

I agree that the profit margin you post seems very small. Your 'cost' should include everything, from land purchase, soft costs, holding costs, and hard costs. The S&P 500 index returns on average 10% per year. You should have that as a benchmark in mind, since it offers a good return without any effort. A new build needs to perform better than that to make it worth your time, all the risks and capital concentration.

thanks for the advice everyone and would be happy to connect with you: @Bryant Brislin @Dave Wells @Leilah Davis @Joshua Stewart

Hey Drew, what type of things help you identify a good potential tenant? Do you check their current/previous residences & landlords? Do you check their employment? Are there things you look for when talking with them?

 I'm planning to make this an in-house f/t business. It isn't practical to find "affordable" GCs, at least we've not been able to in our rust belt market, where home prices are way below national average. The margins are squeezed much too tight to avoid going above market value on a rehab. Only by controlling costs, managing the projects, and having a steady pipeline of projects will we be able to have a viable business.

are you only working in Tennessee or would you consider NY?

 Thanks Andrew, Really appreciate it!!

Real estate agents with experience are the professionals, and from an agent's perspective it's often the investors who aren't. It sounds like you don't know how to work with agents, how to filter for an agent that is right for you, or how you need to work with them as a partner, so that you aren't just focused on yourself. If you come across as selfish and ignore those on your team, you shouldn't expect to make any progress in this industry.

An agent isn't going to send you amazing 'deals' just because you ask them to. If they're any good, they will take down any deal they find themselves or send it to a preferred list of people they have already been working with, who they trust to respond quickly, close reliably, solve problems effectively, and be pleasant to work with.

You come across as rather arrogant in your posts. Might want to tone it down if you genuinely want to learn from others, unless you just think you know everything, in which case you shouldn't be posting questions or voicing frustration, as you'd have solved everything and have a well-oiled operation in place....

So apparently many insurers won't give us insurance for a property that has students (undergrads or grads) living in it. Any recommendations for an insurer that will?

Thanks!

I've done a number of BRRRRs, managing contractors and my own sweat equity, and see opportunities for more BRRR/flips. I'd love to move into this full-time but not sure how to structure the initial crew, compensation and insurance.

What size/type of contractor crew should I put in place to get things going (for 1-3 fam heavy cosmetic that does not require structural work, $300-500k ARV)? Core crew of 3 people min? Rough carpenter? Finish carpenter? flooring contractor? tile expert? (painter, electrician and plumber are all a given but they are focused and supplemental to the more major rough and finish work) Hourly rate range?

I assume we'd start on 1099 basis at least for a while until we feel stable enough to offer employment. If I'm the GC, and they are 1099,  would I still need worker's comp or would they be responsible for it themselves? I'd have a liability insurance policy but would they also need one?

**Sorry for the newbie sounding ques, but despite doing these projects for a while p/t, I'm struggling to figure out how to setup a steady operation.

@Nathan Gesner while we try to use a spreadsheet to track bills, it isn't proving very reliable, and ends up taking multiple spreadsheets. We have to manually log the issue/damage, then enter each bill once we've done the work, then we have to track whether the tenants reimbursed us or not, then we have to pull together the water bills from another expense tracking sheet, and then re-organize everything per property or per tenant to be able to generate a summary report (which we are required to provide to tenants). This just isn't quick and it is error prone. If my partner forgets to update any step, then we end up with an error and tenants will complain. I've had to issue several adjustments after the fact. We just started using Baselane, and perhaps we could lean on that more to be able to track the expenses, categorize them per property/per tenant/mark as 'tenant expense'/mark as 'tenant reimbursed' or 'tenant unreimbursed', and then create a security deposit balance report, that would pull everything together.

I'm just looking for advice from someone that has already figured out a simple and standard way to handle this. Thanks