All Forum Posts by: Mark W.

Since you mentioned tenants, I'm assuming you're looking at buy-and-holds and not flips.

In general I think the returns for multi-families (and SFRs for that matter) are going to be pretty poor in the suburbs.  When I see multis come up outside of the city proper they are almost always priced high, more for an owner-occupant who wants to shave something off of his/her mortgage than for investors looking for cash flow.  That's not to say it's not possible to find a deal, I just think it's tougher outside of the city.

For my first property, I wanted to live it in, so my criteria was skewed towards things that I wanted at the time.  But since I was going to be living there, the neighborhood had to be fairly decent.  It just so happens I bought right without really knowing what I was doing.  For the 2nd, I had educated myself much like you're doing and looked for a solid return, again in a neighborhood I was comfortable with since I had decided to self-manage.  Both are within city limits.

Best thing I can recommend is to look at lots of properties and run lots of numbers.  Figure out what gets you excited.  That's when you know you've found what you're looking for.

@Mark Updegraff Oh man I forgot about that roof.  I have driven past that quad a number of times and I am pretty sure they did nothing about it.

@Karen Margrave Mark helped me acquire a property earlier this year and I found him on BP.

For me I had started to "shop" realtors back in the fall of 2013 and the few I reached out to by cold-calling seemed eager to help of course but didn't have the specific type of investor experience I was looking for. 

I don't remember how I exactly stumbled on Mark here at BP, but I'm thinking that's what it was -- I stumbled on one of his posts.  It was clear to me he was knowledgeable, active, and most of all enthusiastic.  In talking with him it was clear he's got great positive energy.  "There's always deals to go around" is something I remember him saying and it struck a chord.  Abundance, not scarcity.  I don't think Mark advertises per se, but he put himself and his knowledge out there which was enough to fish me in.

I'm not surprised with his success this year, he was a junkyard dog and on top of everything.  Looking forward to working with him again.

Not sure if you have any other capital, but I would imagine it would be difficult to obtain financing with a part time job.

Do what I did -- finish your degree and then buy up a multi as soon as you can and live in one unit while renting out the others.  It's the easiest, lowest risk way to see if this business is for you.  Rinse and repeat.

I just shared this with a colleague and I thought it might be worth sharing with fellow landlords and property managers in NY state.  

A quick and free way to check on whether a prospective tenant has been sued in landlord/tenant court (for non-payment or holdovers) is to go to here:

https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/webcivil/ecourtsM...

Click on Webcivil local and then enter the captcha.  From there click on Party Search and then enter the last name you're searching on.  There's other criteria you can specify if you'd like. 

If you find a case, click on the Index # for the details.  If you click on the Appearance date it will tell you the outcome.

I use this to look up cases in Rochester City Court but it looks like all jurisdictions can be searched.

@David Stott I don't think you need to go to small claims for the rent, you should already have a judgement for that.  In that case you're at the point where you have to collect that.  If my case comes to that I am going to look into collection agencies.  Some have mentioned you can hire a marshall to do that, but I'm not sure if that would be any more effective.

As for damages, yeah, I believe that is a small claims issue unless you have enough security to cover.

@David Stott Any update on proceedings yesterday?

Good question. I was originally going to do an LLC but I've come to the conclusion I can accomplish my goal with an umbrella policy and not risk getting the mortgages getting called. So I am going to start with a DBA, but would also like to know the implications longer term.

I'll be interested to hear how it goes today.  I've got a court date scheduled for Monday.  The one time I went to watch Landlord/Tenant court I noticed all the cases with attorneys get heard first.  Are you going to court?

I'm going through the process now unfortunately, and total cost to me through my attorney is $220. That's for everything: filing docs with the court, process server, appearance fee in court.  This is in Rochester, NY.