All Forum Posts by: Max James

 Do you think house flippers don't go through their competitions flips to compare?  Do you think car salesmen don't go to their competitors business posing as potential buyers to understand their tactics?  What about contractors?  The list could go on and on.

The point is, it's the nature of business and I'm sure it has happened to me once before.  If you have read Multi Family Millions by Lindhal, you'll see he suggests taking this method as well.  Give it a try, you might learn you have room for a $20-$30/month rent raise! 

Great ideas.  I also find listings on zillow and hotpads then setup a viewing with them.  This gives me a really good idea of how much the place is charging vs what my place could be charging.  

I wasn't aware of rent meters or any websites that pull this data for you, thanks.

 In my leases, I personally do not want the tenant to try and fix anything on their own.  I know how cheap people are and the thought of paying over $300 for a plumber to come out and unclog a toilet is heinous to them.  They would rather deal with the clog than dump that kind of money.  No pun intended.  

Curious to see if anyone else requires tenants to fix things though and see how it has worked for them.

Here is what I am thinking for my lease options.  When I am ready to sign a new lease I will use present these options to new residents so they can pick an choose what they want, based off their desires.  Still need to iron out the Rent prices, but this is the general concept of adding options in a lease to generate extra streams of cash:

What do you think @Ralph Hunter @Jeff Gates @JD Martin @Scott Schier @Account Closed ?

 Hey JD, that's exactly my thought as well, glad to hear it's working out well for you!

 That is amazing!  Great idea Jeff.

 Jeff, this is a brilliant ingenious idea!  What a great creative way to increase your cash flow.

Keep them coming!

One huge aspect of analyzing a deal is to make sure you know what market rents are for the area, if not street, you are buying the building in.

How do you go about comping your rents and using them for input in your deal analysis?

I'm of the opinion there is absolutely nothing wrong with buying a super leveraged property as long as you bought it correctly.  If you buy in the right area, project the right analysis, don't fudge your numbers and justify bad ones, you should be fine bringing as low as 3% down for a property.  

I think the reason people say "low money down is a terrible idea" is because so many really extreme novice investors with zero clue about real estate fail when they bring less than 20% down.  I believe these are the same people that would fail even if they brought 50% down.  It's just much more noticeable when they bring 3% down to a bad deal because of this scenario:

A. dummy REI buys a negative cash flowing buy and hold rental property either because they had no clue how to run a buy and hold analysis or they thought it was OK to buy a negative cash flower due to the fact their exit strategy was going to be sell in 1-2 years. They noticed other homes EXACTLY like the one they bought increase by over 18% in value in one year, so they say, "heck, I'll buy this place even though I have to pay a measly $80/month towards the mortgage because the total gross rents don't fully cover it"

B.  housing market crashes

C. dummy REI realizes that now after having a baby and buying a new car, they cannot afford to pay their primary residence mortgage along with another $80/month towards their rental properties mortgage. Not to mention that new furnace they had to buy since one of them went out in the property.

D. dummy REI feels they are better off selling the rental property at a huge loss because it's too much of a mental drain on them to own it.

E. smart REI buys at large discount

:)

I personally trust the Robert Kiyosaki predictions and he also says there will be a crash next year.

As for how this affects us as a REI, it must be the potential for a reduction in rental prices in some real estate markets. What has happened to rental prices in markets when the stock market crashes?