All Forum Posts by: Mike D'Arrigo

@Jazmin Hernandez Neither of those would be on my radar. All are expensive markets that don't cash flow without a very large downpayment. Personally, I would look out of state in more affordable landlord friendly states. With high CA prices comes high debt service. Being a very tenant friendly state, you could end up carrying a high mortgage payment with no income when your tenant stops paying and it takes you 6-12 months to kick them out. It's a sure ticket to a foreclosure unless you have a lot of reserves. 

@Syman Scarpellino not to discourage you, but unless you have some good experience under your belt, trying to renovate a 6-20 unit building would be a major undertaking. I think you might be biting off more than you can chew. 

@Jack Payne just for clarification, you can't have an FHA loan on a second property.

FHA is not just for 1st time buyers.

@John Anderson the first question I would ask is whether it is for actual cash value of replacement cost., Then, how much is the deductible? 

@Julie Park the use of security deposits varies by state and even locality. The general rule of thumb is that a security deposit can't be used for normal wear and tear that is incured in the normal use of the property. 

@Michael A. you're asking a lof of great questions that can't easily be answered in a forum. Starting up an AirBnB is a big endeavor to get it right. One of the first things that I look at when evaluating a market for STR is how many visitors does the city get per year. That's what drives short term rentals. Then I look at how many AirBnB are in the market. Cincinatti gets 26M visitors a year which is good, but personally, I think there are stronger markets. As far as FL goes, you'd have to be more specic about what cities. Most are going to be vacation destinations which everyone seems to like but quite frankly, aren't always the best. Some markets are oversaturated and the occupancy is veery seasonal. You have to be prepared to go long periods of time with low occupancy rates. Both MF and SF can do well in the right areas. You will get different types of guests though. SF will attract families while MF tend to attract single travelers or people staying for business. These can be great short term renters. A colleague of mine has a 1Br duplex in Kansas City with an exceptionally high occupancy rate. There is no one right answer. Take the time to get to know the market and when areas attract, what type of visitors.

@Alfath Ahmed Charging a divided water bill is not fair to the other tenant if one is driving the water bill up. The question I have is how do you know it's one tenant that's driving it up if it's not seperately metered?

@Ryan J. Pelton Getting the structure of your partnership right is absolutely critical and can avoid some major problems down the road. Treat this as a business and invest in a little legal advice rather than getting advice from people in a forum. This is too important. 

@Amy Mitchell I've been active in Indianapolis for over 10 years so I might be a little biased, but if you compare the economic and demographic trends of these markets, you'll see that Indianapolis is much stronger than the other two. Indy has a growing population, growing jobs and a modern/diverse economy which is all important to the long term value and returns on your investment. Personally, I would have Indy on the top of that list. Feel free to reach out if you'd like more insights.