All Forum Posts by: Matt Leber

@Jelani Fearon is it flat out illegal to do it or is it illegal to have more than a certain number of unrelated persons in the house? If it’s the unrelated persons rule, you might still be able to have a roommate if only you and your partner are living there.

For example, in my college town of Gainesville FL, zoning says you cannot have more than 3 unrelated parties living in the house. There are tons of rentals in that town breaking that rule bc it’s pretty much unenforceable unless someone calls in a code violation. As a student I lived in 2 such houses with friends. As a landlord, you would still run the risk but it also may not be enforced in your area.

@Kaylee Walterbach biggest rookie mistake: accepting re-roof quote from seller as fact and planning my reserves around it.

I bought 2 off market duplexes from a guy I semi-knew knowing very well they both needed a re-roof. He already had a recent re-roof quote in hand that stated re-roof costs for the whole pack of 4 units. Once we closed on the property and started the re-roof process, the roofing company started claiming the quote was only for one of the two duplexes (the salesperson had incorrectly written the address of both units on the quote). I fought like hell to get them to do the whole job for the original quote but we couldn’t get them to agree. I had already paid them a deposit.

So I bit the bullet and agreed to the basically doubled new reroof cost. The quote still wasn’t that bad. UNTIL they started pulling off the old roof and called to tell me ALL the plywood sheeting needed to be replaced on both duplexes, as it wasn’t up to current code bc it was too thin. I quickly learned plywood ain’t cheap, and it ended up adding another (I think $8-10k) onto the job cost.

As a newbie, this basically ate up all of my reserves and was a pretty stressful time. I am a conservative numbers guy and having no reserves was very uncomfortable. We made it through and the properties now make us about $1k per month. I’m glad we weathered the storm but I learned some good lessons.

@Misael Carlos Vera we have used an attorney at title company in the past for off market. No agent needed

@Yoselin Pearce I would usually say if you’re going to be living there for more than 5 years, then buy a primary. However, being in pricey CA might change my opinion on that, especially if you can afford your rent comfortably and still save. I say go the investment route first.

@Jorge Hernandez I would not recommend overpaying or depleting your savings for a purchase that is an appreciation play. I say go for the property that has better cash flow numbers and fits more comfortably in your savings. Any appreciation from there is icing on the cake.

@Brian Gilbert welcome! I’m an investor living in east Orlando but investing in buy and hold rentals in Brevard. Let me know if I can be of any help!

@Joel Geisel maybe section 8 pays more than the open market will bear in the area. So, possibly you are getting a greater number of sec 8 inquiries relative to other inquiries after you raised it. It’s possible! A couple of our properties are in areas where Sec 8 pays a premium rent.

@Grady Benton do you work at a sizable company in Melbourne? My first job out of college was in Melbourne FL at Harris Corp, now L3Harris. We had a large incoming group of new hires out of university at the time, which would have been the perfect pool of potential house-hack tenants if I was using your strategy back then. I also remember my recruiter had a list of new hires looking roommates and for housing in the area. There was also a way to post a classified type posting at the job site once I was hired in.

If you decide to use Facebook marketplace, just screen heavily. You’ll get a lot of tire kickers and people having a hard time finding housing bc of their unique circumstances. If you’re going to be sharing a house with these people, you might want to have pretty selective criteria.

@Katelin M Barson I like to see $300 plus in cash flow per month after paying PITI and putting aside reserves for capex, repairs, vacancy. I find myself looking for 10% or greater cash return on my cash invested. If I were analyzing your condo investment, I would make sure you factor in some sort of reserves for capex, repairs, and vacancy.

@Tracy L. Using round numbers; You buy a house for $100k that rents for $1250 per month. The bank lends you 80% of the $100k you need. They charge you $650 per month for 30 years to pay back the $80k you owe plus interest, property taxes and homeowners insurance. You decide to put aside $250 per month for any unexpected future repairs or vacancies.

$1250 (rent) - $650 (PITI) - $250 (reserves) = $350 (cash flow per month).