All Forum Posts by: Michael Weis

Thanks for this detailed response. Lots to think about. Frankly, I started with Sotheby’s because I used to be with Sotheby’s and I trust the brand. In this case, tho, I don’t think I got someone experienced in this aspect of the market. 

Other than visiting and seeing properties in person, is there a way that you would recommend finding listings in Mexico? What are the best sources?

My wife and I are thinking seriously about investing in Mexico, somewhere that is a vacation destination where we could go once or twice a year that will also have the potential to bring in healthy income stream. Depending on what the property is, we could potentially do an all cash transaction, but I wonder if that would prevent us from further investments by tying up too much cash in a single deal. I've done a little exploration on the free AirDNA and it looks like there's potential to take in a significant amount of money from very modest sized properties. This would not be our first investment, but it would be our first foray into STR and buying out of our local market. Do you have any advice for someone doing this for the first time? Is it like @David Green says and start with an agent who is an expert in this kind of property and has his/her own investments? I spoke this evening with a Sotheby's agent in a market we are interested in and she was very down on the idea of STR, telling us that the competition was too much to make any money unless you had at least a 3BR. But AirDNA seems to show that there are studios and 1BR properties taking in upwards of $500k per year with 85-99% occupancy. That tells me that she's not the right agent at minimum, but I'm wondering how you go about even finding the right agent in a foreign country. Where would you start?

 This sounds like a reasonable approach, but I would be extremely wary about allowing a tenant to move in before that process was completed. Everything else I've seen says don't let anyone move in until the Section 8 approval comes through. No lease, no keys, no nothing. This is someone who is already on Section 8, so they already have a voucher, but it would have to be transfered for her to rent my unit.

 That's what is making me hesitant to just move forward with market rate renters at the moment. There are very few Section 8 rentals in my area, especially for the size unit we are offering. I feel that this is a potential renter who could be with us for a long time and will take good care of the unit. She's a former police officer with three kids. My wife, however, is not as patient as I am and wants us to not wait. Is there a way to move forward with other potential renters while waiting for potential renters, or are we opening ourselves up to legal problems by telling the Section 8 tenant she's approved but then moving forward with someone else because it's just taking too long?

We have approved our first Section 8 tenant for one of our units, but the processing time for the housing office is insane. The prospective tenant told us it will take the office up to 30 days just to get the landlord packet together for us. I really want to proceed with this tenant, but that just seems like an undue burden to keep the unit open until all that has taken place. We haven't signed a lease yet. We still have other applicants we could screen in the meantime, and a steady stream of calls from other people who still want to see the apartment. Since there's no lease, should we let the prospective tenant know that the only way we can keep the apartment available for her is to sign a lease and provide the full deposit pending the approval of the Section 8 office? Or should we just tell her that we we are going to continue to take applications and hope that the apartment is still available for her when Section 8 gets their act together? If we do the latter, we could potentially have a paying renter in much sooner. If we do the former, we run the risk of having the unit vacant for much longer than we would like.

Good point, @Drew Sygit.

Appreciate all these responses. So basically, when people who use the term are not talking about taking everything down to the studs, they're misusing the term. Thanks.

I hear a lot of people talking on podcasts and YouTube videos about gut renovations, but it has become clear that not everybody means the same thing. Some people seem to be referring more to cosmetic things like paint, flooring and windows, while others mean tearing everything down to the studs and replacing all the electrical and plumbing...basically replacing everything but the foundation and the framing.

When you say "gut reno" what do you think they mean?

@Christopher Liu that is super helpful. There's a lot of info out there about this particular development, so those stats should be readily available. Thanks a lot.

@Woodrow Walton and @Caleb Brown. That's very helpful. Thank you.