All Forum Posts by: Matt McKinney

@Arthur P. I suspect this will be an issue for a lot of us. I have a buffer for vacancies and repairs but it will be gone pretty quickly if no one pays. I’ve been hearing from friends in the PM business that they’ve been flooded with calls and e-mails from tenants thinking they don’t have to pay rent. There is a rumor going around in my town (at least) that rent will be forgiven for at least 60 days, possibly more. It seems like there is a lot of misinformation out there.

Hello, we are selling one of our rental properties. We’ve owned it along time. It was originally our primary residence that we converted to a rental when the housing market was bad in 2009 (couldn’t sell it) it’s never been a good rental as far as cash flow. Now the selling market is strong. The house has been listed for 3 days and we have 2 offers. Neither person knows about the other offer. They both Think they’re the only offer on the table. The 2nd offer is stronger than the first. Offer 2 is full price with 4% closing and a $550 home warranty. The 1st is 7k off the price plus 3.5% closing plus $525 home warranty. My realtor isn’t being any help. For what ever reason she’s being very cautious and not giving me her opinion. Would you seasoned pros take the 2nd offer? Let each of them know about the other offer and see if they come up? I’ve never been in a multiple offer situation and am not sure how to maximize the profits. Thank you!

I would let this go. Even if things do go your way and you get a judgement they’re pretty hard to collect on. I think it will cost you more in the long run to pursue this. I know it stinks but it’s part of the business.

I have PM’s in several states and they all outsource lawn care, maintenance, etc and bill me for it in addition to their fee. On average I have about $75 a month per door in expenses above the PM fee.

I’d like to share the story of my first house hack. I was in my early 20’s and eager. I found a 4 unit building I house hacked. I got the building for a great price and the inspections were great. When I moved in my mortgage with a 3.5% down fha loan was $1400 a month with taxes and insurance. Each unit was rented for $650 so i thought I was living there for free plus cash flowing $550. It turns out the previous owner of the building was very sick and then passed away. While he was sick he had no one to run the property. His daughter from another state sold it without letting me know that part. No one was paying rent. They hadn’t for months. Once they were used to living there for free it was next to impossible to get them to pay. I tried for about two months to collect rent, one person made good. Then I had to go through 2 evictions. One of them left right before the eviction date, the other knew what she was doing and managed to drag it out for 6 months. Both evicted tenants damaged their units in retaliation. One of them flushed those little green army men toys down all the toilets causing overflow and pipe damage. And poured what I assume was bleach in the AC unit. The other left in the middle of the night and took all of the appliances with him. My first year I Iost 32,000 in mortgage payments, repairs, lawyer fees and court costs. I thought I had made the worst mistake of my life. Every free penny went to that building. There were many nights I stayed awake in a panic. The second year though I got it cleaned up and filled with quality tenants. By the 3rd year I took a job transfer out of state and hired a PM company. They were able to raise rents and It cashed flowed about $1,000 a month (after all expenses) for several years. Then the market all of a sudden became hot. I sold the building for 400k more than I paid for it. The moral of the story is things can and often times do turn around. Hang in there!

I’ve only done 20% on single families. My multi units are 25%.

God speed, Bryan! I tried to do my books with QuickBooks and it made my head hurt. I had it all messed up. I found a book keeper that enters it all for me and then explains it. She charges me $25 a month to enter in the property and sends me what I need at tax time. For me it’s a great investment. But it’s a skill I don’t have nor do I have the time to learn. I’m always in awe of people that can just pick it up. It seems like there are so many ways to do it wrong.

Did you see the home builders report yesterday? The title on MSNBC’s stock ticker was “home builders take a hit” their stocks all went down as their sales were much lower than anticipated for the quarter. They’re still talking about builders being in trouble this morning.

Welcome! We sort of did that. We bought a house in Frisco that needed a little work. Mostly cosmetic but buyers in the Frisco area want turn key and typically shy away from doing any work, regardless of how good a deal. We lived in the home while we fixed it up. After 2 years we sold for a steep profit. We had appreciation on our side as well as added value from improvements. I can’t speak for Dallas it’s self as I rarely get down there but it isn’t hard to do in the Frisco/Plano area. I will say if you’re looking for anything under 300k it’s hard to find as foreign investors snap those up. They tend to shy away from over 300.

Hey everyone! I have a single family home, built in 2009 new laminate floors installed in 2015. I have some tenants that moved in May of 2016 and the floors were perfectly fine. During the move out inspection the PM noted the floors were water damaged. PM said he thought water was coming in from the sub floor. It’s in a few different spots but all near each other, by the back door. The photos show a rippled and warped look and the edges cracked and broken as well as some scratches. The PM thought the crawl space might have flooded, sent someone out to check, that wasn’t it. Dry as a bone. Then thought an issue with the sub floor, not it either. Then lastly thought maybe the frame around the back door was letting water in. Frame is sealed up tight. Door installed and sealed properly. Not the cause. The PM is now at a loss as far as cause but I’m going to need new floors and would like to figure out the cause because 1. i dont want it to happen again and 2. If the tenants did somehow cause it I want to make sure they’re charged (PM was leaning toward problem with the house and not tenant cause) according to the tenants it just happened one day and they have no clue why. Any ideas?