All Forum Posts by: Aaron Montague

Any luck finding folks to talk to @Stephen Lane?

@Aaron Leger

I had 3 places in Rutland, VT for most of a decade. Tough tenants though high rents relative to building price.

My buddy has a SFH renovation turned rental in Rutland that he'll be into for about 140k and should rent for $1800-2000 per month.

Vermont's housing is old. 100 years+ is standard just about everywhere. Budget sizeable Cap Ex savings every months when doing your calculations and you'll do well up there.

@Max McDonald

Different companies is the answer.

Do a bit of research on how Corporations work in MA. It is important to understand and will be a time saver come tax time.

I'm a bit fan of paying your property manager 10%, even if that property manager is you.

In your situation:

"Max M Investing Inc" owns 123 Smith St.
It pays "Max the Property Guy LLC" to manage the property.
"Max the Property Guy LLC" brings in "Max Plumbing Inc" to fix toilets, sinks, etc when necessary.

You do this to keep everything separate from a business and tax perspective. It allows you to do as much work as you want as "Max Plumbing Inc" without having to figure out how much should be charged back to the house. It's simply your hourly rate billed back to the property management company.

@Kurt Guldi

I don't use a percentage for Cap Ex, I use a whole number.  This means that the math of my property makes sense no matter the purchase price or rent roll. We take all the repairs we expect to make in the next 30 years, add them all up, and divide by 360 months.

If you know you are going to have to fix something straight out of the gate, add that to your cash outlay, not your Cap Ex.

The actual price of a home doesn't mean much beyond giving you a monthly mortgage payment number. The math surrounding the purchase will tell you if it is a good investment.

@Madeline Marquardt

Welcome to BP!! It sounds like you've already got a good start with your inspector's license.

House hacking is almost always a good way into the ownership side of real estate. Plus the math is easy once you figure out what you want to buy in terms of ROI.

Don't be shy, ask your questions. Not knowing, and knowing it, is an important lesson for all of us.

Talk to @Kate Barry . She's based off the other end of Rt 9 in VT. 

We had 1 of 7 apartments late in July this year. They've caught up now. That was weather related instead of Covid related. 

We also had an apartment available for August 1st. The property management company indicated there were 14 viewings, 4 interested parties, 3 applications, and 3 good applications. Those are dead on average for our location: south NH on the ME line.

I did get a 10% rent reduction on the place I live right outside of Boston however :)

@Andrew Sprague

"My question is how do I find the people that are searching for these deals and show them where they are?"

If you have a deal, bring it to everyone on your list. You build your list through straight up work. Take my name and number:
Aaron Montague
518-892-6471

And put it on the first line of an Excel sheet.  When you find that beat up Triplex, call me. If I pass, check to make sure my criteria are still the same, say a pleasant goodbye, then call the next person on that list. Repeat until someone wants the deal.

Note:

To @Nia Pinto's point about running numbers: Don't run numbers, run MY numbers. There are better ways to do this than Excel, but not too many. Find a way to collect numbers once, then distribute them to a bunch of other sheets so it looks the way I want them to. That shows me two things: you are doing research and you listen when I talk. 

I like to know cash flow, NOI is not a concern of mine :)

@Andrew Sprague

How can I make myself useful to investors and bring value? -Start finding deals that investors want. In this market in the eastern MA area you are going to want to find places that might typically be considered wholesaler territory. The 400k place that needs a TON of work is valuable now to investors. The beat up, old triplex that needs a bunch of work is something I want to look at. @Jonathan Bombaci makes an excellent point about understanding real estate investors through experience; bring us deals that you can't invest in because you don't have the money. If you do have the money, do it yourself :)

And how can I start helping people to build relationships? -Find me people that can help bring value to the purchase you are trying to get me to make. Get away from the money, I know how that game works. Find me a carpenter, roofer, and plumber who all have availability in the next 2 months to fix up the triplex you found. Put 2 investors together that can't afford the house you want to sell. Then let us figure out if a partnership is a good idea.

1. Learn what a deal means to an investor. Most of what we are looking for is a 2-step process. Buying is only step 1.

2. Understand that we aren't generally looking for finished places that look good. We want to add value someone. I.e. a $689k SFH house that rents for $2800 is not a deal, even if the price is "good" for the area. We do want the $400k house that will sell for $689k after I put 100k into it.

3. Investors need lots of information that no one will ever use again. We tend to be that customer that gets info on 30 places before even moving on one. Automate as much information sharing as you can.