All Forum Posts by: Nate S.

Hi all. Any recommendations for property managers in the Charlotte area? I prefer smaller firms, especially those that charge a flat PM fee vs charging a flat rate plus lease up, renewal and other fees. If you need a more specific area, I am looking in the N and W sides of Charlotte, like Kannapolis/Concord and Mt. Holly/Gastonia.

I agree with you that the future of Phoenix looks bright. Net migration is good, job growth is good, cost of living is low (esp. compared to CA). The only hole I can poke is water supply, but it seems like they are being pretty pro-active in trying to deal with that issue.

Thanks all. The Cottage Street Realty option seems like a good mix of price and services. I've reached out to them. I also looked into Help-U-Sell, but it seems like they still get up near 3% total commission.

Also, for those of you with properties in Western NOVA looking for services like this, Paul Thistle with Take 2 Real Estate does a good job. However, this property is too far away from him. Also, this is a condo, which should be a pretty straight-forward sale.

Has anyone worked with a LOCAL flat fee or reduced cost MLS listing company in the Washington DC area? I have property I am looking to sell there and am having a hard time finding a local company that will do a flat fee or reduced listing there. All I can find are bigger national or regional brands.

I would like to use a more local company to have a person on the ground there if needed, as I do not live in the area anymore.

Thanks!

Yeah, I get people's trepidation. But, at some point, you have to trust people.

I also agree on the potential issues with the current tenants showing the property. I only do that when I have really good tenants in the property that I have a great relationship with.

I have been unsuccessful at finding a local property management company or realtor that is interested in only showing the property at turnovers and not handling the management afterwards. Even if I was able to find someone, I would likely be paying one month's rent for the service, which means thousands of dollars. The cost far outweighs the benefits for that amount of money.

Yes, I have an LLC property management company that manages my properties and I do have a web site for it with information on the company, as well as, information on all of the properties it manages. I am looking into making that site more professional looking, as well as, adding a picture and a bio of myself so people know who I am and who they are dealing with.

Hi all.

Some up-front info. I manage several rentals from afar. I am about 2 hours away from them. 

I just had a property turn over and followed this procedure for the showings:

• I advertise the property and handle all calls, emails, texts on it and set up viewing appointments (I group them all within 30-45 minutes on one day)
• The current tenants show the property to prospective renters
• When someone applies, they email or fax in the application and pay the application fee via PayPal (although I am now trying out Cozy for applications) and I process the application
• If the application passes, I prepare and email over the lease for signature
• When the lease is signed and sent back to me, I send over a payment request for the first month's rent (via Dwolla or Cozy)
• At the check-in, I drive to the property to check them in myself and collect the security deposit in secured funds (or use Cozy to collect it beforehand)

I have been doing the above for a long time and it has worked pretty well. However, on the last two turnovers I have had, I had many prospective tenants not like the fact that they did not meet me at the showing. I got the distinct impression from several of them that they thought they may be getting scammed. With one of them, who applied, it ended up with him asking me to prove I owned the property and going over the lease with a fine-toothed comb (after he missed a couple of deadlines to get things back to me, I moved on and denied him).

I figured the facts that 1) prospective tenants see the property and can talk with the current tenants to ask about the property and me, and 2) that they have to submit an application and go through a credit and background check, and 3) that I was using Cozy to collect payments and 4) that I am available by phone, email and text whenever they want, would be enough to make people comfortable that they are not getting scammed, but it was apparently not enough for some people.

Does anyone have any tips to help prospective tenants feel more comfortable dealing with you from afar and not feeling like they are getting scammed? I know I could turn the property over to a property manager or go in for the showings, but I really don't want to do either of those.

Thanks Jeff.

One attorney said we did not need a PPM, only a subscription agreement, as we are raising via word of mouth and it is a small raise. The other said, yes, you need a full blown PPM. Cost was about the same either way.

I guess I am wondering if there is any other way to do things that will reduce the legal overhead and cost. This is a small raise with only 8-10 people that we know or someone we know knows.

I am looking at putting together a syndication deal for a housing development outside of Lagos, Nigeria. I am thinking I would form a domestic, US LLC and raise capital for the deal through that LLC. The domestic LLC would become a member of the Special Purpose Vehicle entity that is formed in Nigeria.

It is going to be a fairly small raise, max $500k. Probably 8-10 investors @ $50k each. We are looking at working primarily with accredited investors, though there may be 1-2 sophisticated investors. Investors will primarily be from Virginia, but we could have 1-2 in other states.

I've talked with a couple of SEC attorneys and they both quoted around $7500 to do all of the paperwork. However, that amount starts to skew the returns down given the smaller raise.

Has anyone done something like this before? What is the best way to structure it? Do we need to do a full blown PPM or could we structure it another way to help keep it more simple and the costs down?

Thanks everyone for the great info. All of it will help me figure out the next step forward.

@Robert Hetsler, I have not considered storage in quite a while, but it is an attractive asset class, because of the reasons you mention. However, can I 1031 into self-storage from a rental property? Seems like they are of different types?