All Forum Posts by: Paigow Chan

The current rent is $2,700, if I try to match the suggest rent in Zillow to $2,900. It will be 7% increasing which is higher than potential 4% inflation rate in 2012, according the follow website. What is the rental industry standards here? Can I increase the rent every year according the inflation rate?

http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/historical-inflation-rates/

BTW, the property neighbor is highly seeking by military family, my tenant is a military family too. They are the first family came to see the property and immediately signed the contract. I was surprised it rent out so quickly. If I knew Bigger Pockets at that time, I could get more resources! Members in Bigger Pockets are very professional and helpful, this is well management website.

I am interested in buying investor property in other states.
I would like to know how to find a good/realizable realtor and property management to help out. I check out yelp and obviously people care about food more than anything else.

Thanks Raymond and Ned's promptly response.
Remtometor finds 1000 properties within 7.4 miles and indicates my rental may be too high (in RED). The interesting thing is more than half of properties are in RED. It seems the high rental price is NORMAL. I only need to enter the property address and the number of bedrooms, not sure if other factors are part of comparison. Anyway, it is a helpful tool.

I check out Zillow website and find out my rental property is $275 less.
Are their Zestimate for sale price and Rent Zestimate for rental accurate?
What other good resources to figure out if my rental property is in fair price?
My 3 years tenant (a family of 4) is good. The lease is due end of May and I believe they will continue to rent. Will it be too late to inform them $200 monthly increase? The lease doesn't mention when to increase the rent. What is the reasonable % for rent increase? Also, can we request for inside house inspection? It has been 3 years, I hope they maintain the house reasonable. The property is in Northern Virginia.

More questions:
(A) How do I know what is the right dwelling amount to insure for primary residence and rental properties?
The insurance company provides the magic number, how do I know if is over/under insured?
Per insurance company, if the house is burned down, the dwelling coverage is to restore the house as before, I won't be allowed to make the house better with additional my own fund. But the insurance company doesn't even know the house looks like before.
(B) Should I increase the dwelling coverage every year?

Thanks!

Hi Michael R, wow, good for you! May I ask where the properties are. In last few days, I just realized I have been living my little world for too long.

The more I learn from this website the more I find out that people are here to share success stories to inspire each other. I will need to work on that. No wonder I couldn't find a "Smilies" bursts into tears!

After reading the good old thread (LLC vs Umbrella Insurance), went ahead to buy the umbrella insurance policy for now. May consider LLC if I have more rentals later.
I want to share my rate with you guys because I think they are great rate! But I won't surprise to hear someone shout at me again and say "that is HORRIBLE..." because you guys really know how to make the money rolls like a ball.
I had my auto insurance with COSTCO - Ameriprise Auto&Home Insurance (1-888-404-5365) since 2006. Their rate is already unbeatable that I had compared with others for few times.
We have 3 people (my nephew is 20) and 3 cars, it costs $1,047/6mon (the rate includes COSTCO executive member discount). I purchase 1MM Umbrella Insurance Policy for $345/year. Of course I need to insure my primary residence with them too. Guess what, $769/year ($1,000 deductible) with Liberty Mutual goes down to $494/year ($1,000 deductible). The best part is the auto insurance changed from $1,047/6mon to $854/6mon even after increasing to max bodily injury liability due to Umbrella Insurance Policy. They put the discount on my auto because the home and Umbrella Insurance Policy with them. It means I save about $26/m after buying Umbrella Insurance Policy!!! It really makes my day after revealing my bleeding investment in Las Vegas (LV) two days ago.
Unfortunately, they don't do insurance policy for landlord.

My LV property was still insured for $288,000 dwelling last year. I called my insurance company (underwrote by Travelers) to complain value of home is not even half of what is insured. Then they changed the policy under Civil Service Employees with $187,600 dwelling which is the lowest they can insure. The rate changes from $687/year to $424/year.
But the home value only worths about $100,000!
I will need to shop more insurance companies to see if I can get better rate on landlord insurance policy (Dwelling Fire Policy).
Any thoughts?

I cannot believe there are so many you provide a lot of great advices! Now I have some deals of what the good investment is. I am so amazing some of you are such savvy investors to turn rentals into great cash flow (though I think Michael R. meant "Bough 2 for 35,000$.." not 3500$, right?), and I was just thinking how to cover my lose (I can image how many of you fell from chair by reading my investment strategy and tried to rescue the "Stubborn Cat".). I agree Mike M not to put all rentals in one market and never teat the rentals like children (it did break my heart when my PM sent me the front yard picture that dead big tree in the front yard due to lack of water, I don't have personal attachment with that LV property, but it was a beauty tree before...).
More questions from "Stubborn Cat":
(B.1) Can I really trust any Realtors indicate they have such property in long distance which can turn into cash flow?
Where can I find those good Realtors?
(B.2) If we (not rich, still have steady income) can walk away with Short Sale, who is taking the lose? Is the bank? Would that lose spread out to the lending industry? Would that worse the economic even further? I have a young friend who cannot refinance his home due to under value of his house and also worried about his job. He said his friend stops to pay the mortgage because the mortgage is more than the home value even his friend still has job and still live in the house. I hope my young friend won't follow the same. My point is if we do that, then other people with steady income may think they should do the same. I think there should be a regulation to prevent this. If you think back the housing bubble that one of scenarios is so many people using false income to buy/invest houses and the collapse lending system let that happened for years. Don't you see the similarity here if people walk away with cash in another hand? "Stubborn Cat" will stick with how to turn $30,000 into a good investment, I think that will be more "fun" to do and more questions to dig. I really appreciate all your helps.

Bryan Patton, thanks for the information! Is $22,000 for a condo? It is a good idea to check out the areas within few hours driving distance. I think I would need to find good real estate agent in the areas that I am not familiar with.

We owe $188,576.39 on the Las Vegas house. First of all, the walk away will impact our 800+ credit score, right? Secondly, it is kind of irresponsible to do that since both my husband and I still have jobs with stable financial status comparing with millions others are under water. I would think many of you will agree on me.
Investment means risk. Risk means lessons. Lesson means grows. That is why I am here to ask for advices because we made a bad investment. Walk away is not part of lesson. I do investment only when I have ADDITIONAL cash, not just because I have cash. And I will make sure I have other funds to cover the risk. Your opinions are welcome. I believe people walk away for their own reasons, but we just CANNOT do that.

Thank you for the quick responses!
That is true that 150K for $1,100 rent is not too good.
According the mortgage calculation, the mortgage on 120K (after $30,000 down payment) is less than $700. So the positive of $400 from $1,100 rent can cover the lost. It should be able to rent more if I am lucky. Mike, in your scenario, do you mean I can buy a property for just $30,000 and be able to rent it for $600? Where can I find such property?! I live in northern Virginia that I don't think there is any deal like that. Andy, I am 48 and my husband is 56. The reason I want to stick with Las Vegas is because we want to retire there and it will be easier to manage in the future. I would think the house will go up at some level after 10 years. Maybe I should rethink about it.
But I am not familiar with other places...