All Forum Posts by: Matt Nico

@Austin Higgins

2 things to be a great agent for investors:

1. Answer your phone and be quick in responding.

2. Know how to calculate basic numbers on a rental.

@Shawn Mcenteer

Disney World area in Florida.

@Andrew Rosenberg

If you are so concerned with PM, manage it yourself. It doesnt take that much effort to manage 1-3 properties. In a few years once you have acquired more property, the rents should have increased. This will make a pm more affordable.

-Matt

Chance,

My advice to you is unless you are extremely strapped for cash and cannot come up with the extra 1.5% down payment, to never go with an FHA loan. Always go conventional. Convention loans are better in the appreciating market that we are in right now. The reason for this is that when you get an FHA loan, the PMI (Private Mortgage Insurance) sticks to the FHA loan for the full 30 years. For Conventional loan, when you have 20% equity in the home, it drops off whether thats in 6 months, a year, or 5 years.

So say you bought a $200,000 house in your market. PMI would probably be $100-$125 or so. For Conventional, you put the 5% down, and either make improvements to the house to increase its value or just wait until you pay down some mortgage + the house appreciates naturally and it gives you an extra $100-$125 in cash flow every month when it drops off.

If this does not make sense to you, I'd try google PMI and research it. Feel free to message me with any questions.

Happy Housing,

-Matt

@Brett Sayers

You can track properties by customer or class. A guy named “income digs” has a good tutorial on how and which one to set up.

@Brett Sayers

Hey Brett, nice post. I bought quickbooks and decided to comitt to it....I have had quickbooks all year and to be honest i like the actual software but it just does not set up well for rental properties. I hate the whole process to set up each property and the software doesn’t seem to understand that i pay a credit card balance off with the checking account.

I am switching to stessa for my software. Its designed for landlords and its free, so it saves me the $25/month.

@Terrell Garren

I am just now seeing your post now. Thanks for the advice. Im chatting with a broker now actually and making some calls around.

Loved the “God calls you on a bet” comment also btw. Mind if i use that?? Haha

-Matt

@Prasanth Madhavan

What kind of property did you buy in Davenport, and Which area. I can point you in the right direction on what to do with your STR. I have a few of them in Davenport myself.

-Matt

@Alan Ayala

As a (former) fellow engineer, Im going to be very blunt and honest with you so please don’t take this the wrong way....

You are over-complicating everything you are doing. You don’t need a big fancy set of numbers and a million calculations on a deal you don’t even have in contract yet. You need to simplify things for your first purchase. All you need are these numbers:

Debts: PITI. Principle, interest, taxes, insurance.

Credits: rent from 2 of the 3 parts of the triplex in this particular situation and then rent for the bedroom you rent out.

If Credits - Debts = a good enough cash flow number for your standards, then let it rip and buy the deal. And also for a property with a little wear and tear, a FHA wont qualify.

Its my personal opinion that you should always go conventional rather than FHA anyway. Once your house appreciates to 80% LTV, you lose the PMI on the loan. For FHA, it sticks for 30 years. I personally like an extra $100-$200/ house by removing the PMI.

Shoot me a PM if you have any questions or need some help,

-Matt

Shawn,

I own properties and have a couple dozen tenants. I allow them to "buy from me, break the lease for free" but no tenant of mine has ever used me as their agent as of this writing. This is mostly because none of them are ready to buy a house yet.

Most renters seem to be habitual renters, so I wouldn't expect a lot of business from this anyway, but I offer it to anyone who needs it to make ending their lease much easier.