All Forum Posts by: Andy Luick

If you're renting and you want to get into investing, get qualified for the 203k loan and look to buy a duplex, triplex or a quad. The renter will help you pay the mortgage and you won't find cheaper "investor" funds than FHA. Drive areas you are interested in and run the addresses to find the owners. It isn't too tough. You will often find older owners who are ready to sell off but are lazy about it. Some will even offer you owner financing if your credit isn't good. Find a good lender, a good realtor and a good contractor to add to your team. Consider renting the rooms out separately but with a minimum 6-month lease. I can share a sample lease with you. All of my investment properties are shared housing these days and I will keep it that way. Renting the rooms gives you better rent and constant income but works best when you are onsite or have onsite management. It's a tried and true house hack that will work in most markets and most economies.

@Michaela G. - sorry I missed that it was originally unpainted brick.  If that's the case, just sand it all off and leave unpainted OR if you are planning to paint the brick anyway, tint the primer with the color you plan to use until the pink is thoroughly concealed.  Congrats on being a landlord for so many years - what you are dealing with is typical of being a landlord especially in Atlanta so you should be used to it by now.  I've been a contractor, investor and landlord for decades.  I don't hold many properties anymore - just too many headaches & hassles.  I now partner with other investors to turn fixers into full retail sales with minimal risks and quick payouts at closing.  We don't deal with maintenance, evictions and the like anymore.  Landlording is still great for hands-on people like yourself but not the best idea for those just starting out. Hope that helps!

A decent quality paint that we use on the bulk of our flips and renovations is Olympic One interior flat available at Lowes.  You can color match and tint to just about anything and it has very good coverage, plus touches up well.  Kilz is a great oil-based primer for sealing new wood and covering up smoke damage or smokers long term inside.  For spot work and new wood, we prefer Zinser Coverstain.  It's a little more money but has better coverage.  Most times Kilz will require 2-coats on new wood.

If you are not an experienced painter, buying or using a sprayer is waste of time and money.  Best thing you can do is an old fashioned brush & roller...don't ever buy cheap brushes except for oil based priming.  For finish coats, always use Purdy or comparable Wooster brushes.  Clean them well and you'll have them for years.  When painting, keep a few grocery type plastic bags on hand.  As soon as you put a roller or brush down, wrap it up.  If you are quitting for a few hours or overnight, double the bag and wrap it up & lay flat.  My crews and I do this and use the same brush and roller for a week without cleaning.  Lowes has some new "pre-wet" rollers that we used this week with good results.

@Michaela G. - welcome to landlording.  What color is the rest of the house?  You will probably be best to sand as much of it off as possible.  Depending on the color of the rest of the house, you might want to use a Zinser 1-2-3 latex primer tinted to match the color of the house.  It will take several coats but you can mix small batches at a time in a $4 painters cup.  For you other brick paint work, see if you can find an adhesion primer.  Sherwin Williams used to have the best product but I don't think they make it anymore.  They do have a special paint for stucco which will work well on brick.  Most of our exteriors are done with SW Duration or Emerald products. Even our flip houses.  It costs us more but the results are great long term.

find a mentorship where you can trade labor/time for experience but don't sign up for or pay cash fees for the myriad of "investor" programs going on all the time.  You'll be dumping your money into programs when you can get the same information here for free.  Work with a wholesaler and offer to birddog for free.  Wholesaling isn't easy in most markets...its way over saturated with get rich quick dreamers.  Hit the local investing meetings in your area and network with like minded others....you may even find other starter investors willing to pool resources to do a deal.  Luck!

We get called in on quite a few of these and had a couple of my own over the years.  With this much urine, you're always best to pull and replace the subfloors AND prime & seal over any damaged framing with an oil-based primer like Kilz...the cheapest version works the best.  With that amount of urine, it has soaked through to the underside which you can't seal from above....best to replace.  We've mostly moved to a no pet policy with most of our rentals.

Just as most everyone else said...we get this all the time in shared housing as well, you rent to 1 and soon enough another "tenant" is spending nights there.  We write in the lease anymore than 4 nights a month and it double the rent.  I also have a clause that requires them to gain prior permission from us before anyone can stay overnight.  In this case, screen him and get him on the lease.  If you don't and the relationship goes sour, he can argue that he has an oral lease and you need to give him 60 days in most places to get him out....meanwhile he's trashing the place.  This stuff is just like dating.....everyone is super nice in the beginning and you won't see the fangs until it goes south.  Luck!

It's very difficult at best to be an investor with heart...you really can't do it.  I've rented properties for over 25 years now and it's just like dating.  Things usually are at the very best at first impression and go downhill from there.  Once a tenant is behind, they almost never make it back on track.  There are exceptions but you're mostly talking about the "rule" as an investor.  If you're independently wealthy, you can do some charity as I have.  I recently put a Mom & her daughter up in one of my houses to help them out...even gave the Mom a job.  She was never productive, never got her to pay any rent and she disappeared after 4 months without a word...just a car in the driveway to tow away.  We do co-housing & shared housing and it's been a nightmare at times.  We still do some of it but will only now focus the model on apartment complexes we can buy.  This way they can't evade us on rent day!  Go with your gut on renters....the stories....are mostly just that...stories.  You have bills to pay and rainy day funds for the "what-ifs"....right?  Not your fault that most renters don't.  In most markets today, the renters are the "losers" by definition so you have to be extra careful now....we've found that 10% of renters are strong and just don't care to own a home for a variety of reasons.  Atlanta has some of the worst renters that I've ever experienced.  Do yourself a favor and let these folks go!  Luck!

As long as the property is properly zoned and livable...meaning it's not zoned commercial...you can certainly rent it with tenant to perform any and all maintenance.  We've done a ton of leases that way and assumed all repairs for properties we had in our shared housing program.  We still do it that way.  For what you're doing, you might not tear it down in 2-years....as who knows where the economy will be.  In the meantime, you're taking in some revenue and that's always smart.  Just put a clause in the lease that says tenant is taking property as-is, where-is and is responsible for any & all repairs & maintenance required.

@Brent Maxwell - Brent has obviously found a niche that he's good at and most don't want to trouble with.  A good chunk of your inner city property managers are unlicensed and work the streets. You an make money that way....managing 200 units...even if some of those units are in apartment buildings...is still a huge headache.  

Inner city renters have a totally different mindset than most....the best of them will pay you if you are boots-on-the-ground, they keep their income coming in & they have some sort of incentive to pay. It's their nature to hustle.  It's the same in most any inner city/ghetto area.  Most won't have a bank account so will want to pay rent in cash or money orders.  A good tenant in these areas is one who will pay for a bit without trashing the place....but what do you expect from a $5k house?  If it were easy and profitable, the other pro's writing here would be all over it.

Give them an incentive to pay....like 5% discount on rent each month if paid online before the 1st with a 10% credit towards a downpayment  for every 6 months that they pay on time.  A ton of these renters are professional, lifelong renters because that's all they know....but many dream of homeownership.  You can give them a credit towards something you can buy & flip to them when the time is right.  On a small scale, being creative won't only make you feel good about what you are doing, it can pay huge dividends but it isn't scalable.  I have over 20 years of renting in inner city neighborhoods and most of the experiences weren't good for me or my wallet.  For those wanting to learn, why not map out all of your income & expenses for this particular property.