All Forum Posts by: Michael Tyler

Elise and her team are great. I love being able to reach out and receive quick, friendly responses from knowledgeable people. 

Carrick is on my radar too. It’s still in city limits. Any farther out and your start getting into other townships and boroughs. Property taxes can vary higher than the city. Something to keep in mind when running numbers.

Appraisers are said to avoid crossing major roads if they don’t have to. Warrington Ave and Beltzhoover Ave separate the area into four square-ish neighborhoods, Beltzhoover being the southwestern section. An appraiser will probably search for comps first in the areas west of Beltzhoover Ave and south of Warrington Ave. If there is just nothing good to comp to then they’ll branch out. 

So if your appraiser is forced north into Allentown or especially Mt. Washington to find comps then you could get a boost in value. Takes the right kind of property and some luck.

The Investor’s Journey podcast talks about stumbling into this in a San Antonio flip they did. They realized the appraiser would have to reach out for comps in a hotter neighborhood directly north of them. It paid off when they went to sell.

@Tony Lin You can get a better idea of rents in your area using a tool like rentometer.com. Even that is just a ballpark though. You should be making contacts with a property manager now. They are the ones that can give the best advice on what to expect for rent.

My manager charges 8%. Generally the lower the rate, the more extraneous fees will be present. They have to make their income somehow. 

This is an aside but seeing as you’re from CA, be aware that TX is weird about financing from out of state. There are state regulations stemming back to the 80s that can make financing, especially refis, more difficult than other places. My advice is to definitely favor local banks and lenders because they will be more familiar with what to expect.

What draws me to Pittsburgh is it looks like San Francisco! Maybe not the politics, but the hills filled with hundred-year-old houses and a view of the water. It’s pretty.

Multi-units tend to be mostly top/bottoms, not side by side. Utilities are often shared on top/bottoms. Has to be factored into the numbers, or you have to negotiate it with tenants.

Pittsburgh has plenty of duplexes but doesn’t have a great deal of 3-4 units compared to other cities. There’s a triplex on the north side that’s been trying to sell for a year. If someone wants a really expensive reno (but a beautiful property) then PM me. Or check Zillow. It’s there. Seriously, not many 3-4 units.

Comping different bedroom numbers isn’t off the table, if you’re very specific about it. I had a recent appraisal in Pittsburgh (a 4b/2ba) which comped a smaller house (3b/2ba with 400sqft fewer). The difference in bedrooms didn’t matter because the two properties were so similar in specific ways: layout, appearance, a block apart on the same side of the street. 

Plus they both had an open parking pad off the back alley. This singled them out from the rest of the houses in the neighborhood, which either had enclosed garages (fits fewer cars) or they had fenced yards with no parking.

The smaller comp had more luxury amenities. My property was bigger. In the end the assessor put the value of my property within $1k of the smaller comp.

Not saying that happens a lot. But if you find a comp with features that make it more like your house than other comps, and the only difference is the number of beds, I say consider it.

Shai, does your property manager have referrals? That’s where I found my contractor. The PM has an ongoing financial interest in your property, and through their normal business they should be coming into contact with a lot of different handymen, tradespeople, etc. So they will not recommend anyone who hasn’t already displayed a certain level of reliability during previous jobs.

I agree the FB group can be a mixed bag of characters. However I’ve found them to have good resources for specialty trades. I found a great guy to refinish bathtubs through there, for instance.

Each township or subsection of Pittsburgh has different property tax rates. Each township varies in how aggressively they will seek to reassess your property when they learn of the sale. Etc etc. Pittsburgh is a big collection of hamlets. Learn the specific areas you want to invest in before you sign on the dotted line.

For instance, I just heard that seeking approval from inspectors can be especially difficult in Turtle Creek and Pitcairn. This is word of mouth from other investors. If I were to consider a property there, I would dig deep to find out the challenges of that neighborhood.

On the opposite side, properties within the central city of Pittsburgh (not a township) are much less likely to be reassessed. They also have a much lower tax rate to boot.

School districts have a lot to do with this. Penn Hills has had a pretty rough time with their school district’s financial situation, and because they get no help from the state, one of their only ways back to health is gouging property owners for more taxes. This is the story of many areas around Pittsburgh. Penn Hills is the one that is often gets mentioned as a case in point.

In a nutshell, owners who do not live in IN pay 2% (ish) in property taxes. When you hear, “IN has such great tax rates...” then yeah, that’s if your a resident. 

There may be more nuance to it than that. Other states do this also I believe. And Pittsburgh is still way higher regardless. In Pittsburgh you’re paying the equivalent of anywhere between the high 2% range (inside city limits) to up to 4% (depending on the suburban area). This is because the PA state government won’t support schools with state taxes, so localities have to find the money somewhere else. 

Rehabbing a cosmetic fixer, and as reno started I ran into a few extra dollars to use. Looking to maximize ARV for a refi.

House is a 4br/2ba with a weird small kitchen upstairs. We’re yanking out that kitchen and turning the room into a 5th small bedroom. However it was suggested we could use the room as a master bath since it shares a wall with the master bedroom and already has the water pipes in the walls.

The exterior of the house is a little shabby but not the ugliest house on the block. Could use some fresh paint, etc.

Would I get more value-add out of increasing exterior curb appeal, or adding a master bath?

@Paras Newbe The reason Bigger Pockets pushes no negative cashflow is to keep people safely buffered from financial hardship. If you have a rock solid job with income just begging to be parked somewhere, then negative cashflow is not a dealbreaker. Paying your own income into an investment property's mortgage every month is really not so different than a recurring savings goal placed into a 401k or an IRA.

If paying into the investment property’s mortgage each month is even remotely difficult, then you should avoid negative cashflow. And personally I would only go this route in a market that is known for strong appreciation (Austin is great for this).

Yes a multifamily property is easier to cashflow. Yes they’re harder to find. Duplex owners like us have kind of a running joke about the amount of direct mail we get begging us to sell. 

But on the MFH topic, you might consider looking an hour south at San Antonio. A lot easier to find cash flow there.