All Forum Posts by: Michael Karl

welcome to BP @Scott Smith,

here are a few book suggestions for you,  Millionaire Real Estate Investor, the Weekend Millionaire, if you are looking at buy and hold its very easy to suggest the BP books like The Book On Rental Property Investing.  Also I don't know if you have found the podcast on this site yet but they post a new one every week and have all 184 episodes available and at the end of the podcast every time they ask guests to give their favorite business book and favorite real estate book.  even if you are not interested in the podcasts you can fast forward to the last 5 minutes and get all those suggestions. 

Good luck with getting started in buy and hold, its good to see real estate agents that are interested in getting into REI.

Don't ever hesitate to ask questions as you encounter problems when you are getting started Bigger Pockets is an amazing community and you will always find people looking to help

@Amy A., if the units have separate metered gas. If you say the current heating situation is one large central heating system, am I safe to assume that the large unit is in the basement of the property with exposed duct work?  if this is the case with your unit, it should not be a problem to split off the duct work to separate units and install a small forced air heating unit to each.  I know you said you are not worried about providing A/C to the units but it may not be a bad idea to price out the system with the A/C included.  You may be surprised at the cost to ad it during furnace install not being to bad, but if you decide later to add the A/C the cost will be a lot more later. 

Good luck

thank you @Jeff B. , @Nancy Curran and @Jeff Kehl.  I appreciate all of you taking the time to give your input on this topic.  I am newer to managing rentals and was thinking that finishing one and getting it rented was the best option, but I do like the ability to ask questions on here to make sure I am not making any major mistakes.  jeff it makes sense what you are saying about when the size of the property is much larger.  looks like I am gonna be spending the next week or two of my free time getting the one unit finished up and ready to rent. 

So my dad was very interested in getting into rental properties so I offered to help him out with his first deal. He purchased a bank foreclosure duplex that was not in liveable condition.  Since he made the purchase we have completely gutted both sides and are in the process of putting them back together.  One of the sides was not as bad as the other so the less intensive side is moving along quicker then the other.  The question I have is it a bad idea to finish one side and rent it out while we are still doing major work on the other unit?  Has anyone done this and run into problems? lower rent because of construction? Tennant complaining about work being done? 

My hope is to stop trying to work on both at the same time, get one finished and rented ASAP and then focus on the other to have it rented before the end of the summer. 

Any input or ideas would be greatly appreciate  thanks

Mark,

I am not familiar with the term municipal evaluation but I am assuming it is what we call our tax assesment.  If that is the case, between the low list price compared to this number combined with the fact that the listing has no interior photos, that is telling me from my experience that you are going to have a very distressed property on your hands.  I have looked at a bunch of houses when I was looking for my first flip project and the houses with no pictures were always the ones with the most work needed.  But just remember when offering on this house if you get to that point, they listed the house is a distressed condition so don't feel bad making very low offer and seeing how it goes.  Also before making an offer if the house is distressed make sure you walk thru it with a contractor to estimate your rehab costs and don't underestimate on any of your numbers.  You are better off thinking conservative on your numbers and being confident that you can make money on the deal. 

Good luck and make sure to post an update after you look at the property

I want to thank everyone that his posted info in here for me.  This community is great and all the help will be taken into consideration.

thank you all for your input on this topic, all of the suggestions so far have been very helpful.  The weather concerns that were brought up is something I have thought a lot about. The thought behind the month to month tenants becoming more long term to prevent them moving out during the cold months  

read the fine print on both sites and maybe look into the details on the auction site.  I looked at both links quickly and don't see anything indicating the other sales option. But it is possible that on the auction site there is a statement that says the house can be sold before the auction begins.  There is also the possibility that the seller from the auction site updated the redfin site to show the higher price to drive interest and price in the auction which starts at $200,000  

My wife and I are getting ready to close on a 3 unit rental property in a suburb of Buffalo NY.  All three units are currently occupied, 2 of them are month to month and one is currently on a 1 year lease.  All three are currently being charged under market value for the rent.  I have a couple questions for the landlord community out here on BP.  When is the right time to raise the rent? How much is reasonable to raise it at one time? Should I attempt to get the month to month tenants to sign a 1 year lease? And is it acceptable to charge them more for rent if they want to stay month to month?

very interested buy that date is not good for me  I am standing up in a wedding that day  let me know how it goes and if you pick a date for the next meet up please keep me posted