All Forum Posts by: Michael Giuffre

I'm in the process of vetting an out of state market for rental property purchases with the intent of building up my "passive" net cash flow.  Since I live (Raleigh, NC) about 4 hours drive from the market I've honed in on (Baltimore, MD) I'm curious if other landlords out there have a good system in place to allow some sort of lockbox to allow prospective tenants entry to view the property.  

I was originally thinking of bypassing a property manager for tenant placement, and learn to manage the monthly operations on my own from afar, but I'm not coming up with any great ideas for how to ensure a safe, quick and successful prospective tenant viewing process from afar by myself.  Can anyone shed some light on if this is possible, or if I need to bite the bullet and pay a property manager their fee of 1 month rent for tenant placement services?  I'm happy to drive to the property and set it up with keys/lockbox but I'm not able to make multiple 4hr trips during the week to show it since I also work a full-time office job.  Thanks in advance for any and all advice.

@Nicole B. Besides trying to find a realtor/agent to provide rental comps, is there a good method you use to research realistic rental rates for areas?  Obviously all the rental listings on Rentometer.com, Zillow, Hotpads, etc. are all "asking" rates.  I would love to know if there is anything better we, as investors, can use.  Thanks in advance!

How easy would it be to cash-out refi a row home (3/1 or 3/2) in Belair-Edison? Thinking about purchasing one for around $85k without much work needed, and I see some comps for around $115k. I'm thinking @ 75% LTV I would be able to cash out refi my initial $80k plus maybe a few thousand of repairs. Thoughts on if this is realistic or if I'm being too naive here? Trying to nail down my investment strategy and I would greatly appreciate some advice from those that have traveled a similar path before me!

Jocilyn - Are your two mobile homes on land that you own, or are they in parks? Those prices seem low so I imagine you don't own the land and that the homes are in parks that you pay rent to each month?

Thanks Bill - those rehabs look great.

I don't have age/model of the mobile homes on the parcel I'm looking at but I do know that 2 were gutted and restored recently, and the other 2 were not.  All 4 are single-wides.  1.36 acres of land with 2 septic tanks and 1 well.  I anticipate having to put maybe $4k into each of the 2 older mobile homes but after doing so I'm not sure if I'm missing a big pitfall to this deal or overlooking how the "grandfathered" restrictions may hurt me or resale down the line.

Situation:

I'm an investor with a few single family rental properties under my belt and am looking at this particular mobile home opportunity in North Carolina (where I live):

-1 acre of land, convenient to several centers of work/city

-4 mobile homes are on site and have been grandfathered, meaning they can never be removed, only remodeled.  If any were removed a new one could not be moved to the site due to new restrictions (1 dwelling per acre).

-Monthly rent total (from all 4): $2,200

-Tenants pay all utilities

-Asking price: $135,000 cash only

My Assessment:

The cash flow is there with a ~1.6% monthly cash on cash return (not including repairs).  However, the fact that 2 of the mobile homes are old and will likely need to be stripped to the bones and rebuilt over the next 5 years scares me a little.  If I were able to move newer mobile homes to the site to replace the old ones that would make me feel better.  Additionally, it would probably be hard to resell this investment property to anyone else due to the grandfathered nature of the homes.

Questions:

1.) I would imagine that it would be difficult to resell this particular parcel of mobile homes and land down the line to another investor - is that generally true?  Any ideas on a better exit strategy?

2.) Does anyone with mobile home experience have a perspective on whether this seems like a good deal from a purchase price / rent / longevity perspective?  Looking for good buy and rent properties and believe this may be a good one given the good cash on cash returns.

Thanks in advance!

-Mike

I'm currently looking to purchase rental property in Atlanta metro and many areas near the Beltline are simply too expensive to cash flow. Therefore I'm looking at Bouldercrest Acres (30316, southeast of East Atlanta Village) and could use some advice on other areas with good purchase price to rent ratios. Looking for purchase prices in the $75k to $175k range but open if the rental rates make sense (monthly rent > 1% of purchase price). Any suggestions for areas to look at with good tenant base?

I'm in the process of buying my first rental property in the Bouldercrest Acres area of Atlanta (30316) and am trying to determine if j should use a property management company right out the gate. It seems like it would be easier to have the Mgmt company show the house, procure a tenant at a good rental rate and manage month to month but is it worth the 10% monthly fee and 1 month rent fee for placement if I only have one rental? I'm open to self managing but looking for those with more experience to give advice. Does anyone have a good property management company in Atlanta they can refer? I'm speaking with MJ Howard company now and they're actually attending walk throughs of the properties with me before I put in offers so they seem to be worth their potential fees (noted above). Any input or recommendations?

@Steve Vaughan thanks for the advice!  I plan to reach out to an attorney but just wanted to get some advice first from those who have gone through the process.  Appreciate the help.

I'm in the process of buying the first of, hopefully, many rental properties and am financing it as a joint mortgage applicant with my father. As I understand, we can not apply for a mortgage in an LLC's name and after purchasing the property under our personal names it would violate the lender's due on sale clause if we were to transfer the property to an LLC that we owned. Therefore, it seems like an LLC is out. That said, I believe the easiest solution for us would be to form a general partnership (by default), file a 1065 return each year, and simply buy an umbrella insurance policy to guard against liability. However, is this the right approach in my situation?

Further, I know there are tenants in common, joint tenants with survivorship, etc. and am not sure how you "elect" those treatments separately from forming a partnership.  Can anyone shed some light on what direction(s) I should explore here?