All Forum Posts by: Natalie Schanne

@Marvin Michel -

1. I have never had a property vacant for more than 3 weeks. This is what I do. Make sure your rental is listed on MLS (co-op commission paid if you are paying agent one months rent), realtor com, Zillow ($10/week), zumper, Airbnb, Hotpads/trulia (part of Zillow), apartments com, Facebook marketplace, Facebook community groups / church or other local groups on FB or websites like local classifieds. Who is your renter and where are they looking? Also add a big sign in your yard with your phone number or agents phone number, and directional House for Rent with number signs ($20 each on eBay).

NOTE- listing all these places will have the agent’s phone light up with rental customers. He or she may want to create an auto reply directing the prospective tenants to open house tours at least twice a week like Weds nights 6-8 and Sunday 11-1. (I’ve even made showings 1 hour windows. The most excited customers show up early).

2. Consider listing on Airbnb. I’ve gotten many messages from non profits housing refugees, etc. I posted one apartment empty and said I’d furnish it with basics if it was rented and shortly thereafter it was rented. (Before even the proposed furniture was in place). I rented one 2/1 apartment for $2000/mo for 3 months as my first Airbnb booking. The previous owner was getting around $700 plus utilities.

Currently my phone is exploding with rental inquiries. Yes, not everyone will qualify and not everyone will apply after touring. Your agent should be giving you feedback from the “open houses”. I have been getting 10+ groups every hour during open houses.

@Leslie Monroy - what’s your goal? Do you want to live here 1-2 years and then buy something else, or is this your near term home until something in your life changes (kids, job)?

If you have the income, buy as big of a place as you can afford (like a quadplex). If you’re near commuter lines to NYC, you can also get tourist income on Airbnb. If you’re near the Newark airport you can set up a pilot crash pad. I’ve been most successful building wealth with positive cashflow by buying houses that were like 6/3’s and renting to other solo professionals who lived with me and shared my kitchen and laundry instead of 2 one bedroom or two bedroom apartments. But it’s a privacy thing that you may or may not be able to work with. Here’s my current calculus in my area of New Jersey NJ - each 1 furnished room rents for $1000-1200/mo with like 5% vacancy and each furnished 2 bedroom apartment rents for $2500-3000/mo with 10-15% vacancy. Both of these cost you (from rent) utilities, amenities supplies like paper towels, and furniture deterioration. When you’re sharing the space with others in a 6/3, you have like $5000/mo of income because you’re consuming a $1000/mo space. When you keep a 1-2 bedroom apartment for yourself, usually the numbers pencil out to something like $4000 mortgage, $2500 rent, so your net rent is $1500. It’s subsidized but you don’t live for free. Let me know if that makes sense or not.

Connect with @Nick Tang in North Jersey to join a great real estate investing association (REIA)

@Drew Clayton - it’s been 8+ months and you haven’t rented the property a single day? What’s your current financing situation? All cash? Purchase loan plus cash? What can you do with cash if you get it back?

If your $$ in rehab has led to an over improved but beautiful and well built house that will result in many years of maintenance free ownership, I would consider using tactics like furnished room by room rentals on Airbnb (then converted to direct pay) to get maybe $3000/mo or more from your rental. ($600-700/mo per room plus utilities). In New Jersey, I have gotten $900-1100/mo each bedroom recently because it’s still cheaper than a $1400-1600/mo apartment plus utilities, and has flexibility less than one year. I was able to refinance it after aggregating the group together when they were all on year leases and it was a stable household of solo professionals.

If your money has not led to a house that you think can be relatively maintenance free headache, and you have serious concerns about the overall quality, I would probably sell it like a flip and hope I didn’t lose money.

You got into an out of state “partnership” because you trusted this other person and now you seem to have neither an asset you like nor a team of boots on the ground helpers that you can trust who will help you manage your asset. When you have other options, why invest any more time and resources into this one?

I would love to see you own one or more local properties and see if the contractor pulls a fast one on you when you’re seeing quality with your own eyes. If you _always_ have the contractors cheating you, buy turnkey or invest as a limited partner or get out of this business.

I wish you great success.

@David P. - if you are owner occupying, always get an owner occupant loan because it will save you thousands. If you are not owner occupying, the lender who is pretending to write you an OO loan will get the paperwork advanced, order your appraisal, and then tell you that they can't do the OO loan and that you can get a personal investment loan at 25% down / 75% LTV for 6% or whatever the going rate is. You will often have already have spent the appraisal fee.

I was offered 2.75% 30yr fixed "second home loan" in Feb 2021 from a company I found online on Costco Finance page which like lendingtree aggregates a bunch of lenders. I explained my full situation with all details to the mortgage loan officer who swore he could write me a second home loan. I've owned this house 10 years and had a 4.375% 30yr fixed OO primary loan on it. I go there at least 2 weeks a year and I wanted a second home loan. The guy said sure sure sure and then after the appraisal he said, oh we looked into your file in depth (with all the same info) and this is now a investment property because you reported room rental income on your taxes. So FYI, if you want to finance a home as a second home, you can't show any income even if you're renting half of your single family house (in an area where multifamily properties don't exist under 100 units). I ended up closing a 75% LTV cash out refi at 3.25% and 1 point for an investment property.

Investment Info:

Small multi-family (2-4 units) buy & hold investment.

Purchase price: $244,000
Cash invested: $280,000

Charming 1950’s Duplex with Hardwood Floors. 3/1 and 2/1. Furnished and rented 2/1 small side to traveling nurses, students, and relocating professionals. Budget Accommodations.

What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

I like the size of this property and what I can do with 2500 sqft.

How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

I found the deal on MLS and I offered cash, as is, asking, closing asap.

How did you finance this deal?

Cash from a cash out refi on another rental.

How did you add value to the deal?

Improved cosmetics, furnished the property and marketed it

What was the outcome?

Great.

Lessons learned? Challenges?

Squirrels love attics. Even after we removed the trees, they climbed up the house into the attic.

@David Pai - you are under contract. It doesn’t matter who completes your loan as long as it is completed on time, according to your contract.

The sellers chose your offer because they want to sell and your offer is acceptable. How your agent feels about using the agent’s favorite lender is immaterial. As an agent, I like some lenders because they get the job done and I know I won’t have any hassles with delay of closing. Make sure your lender is on the ball. It is very common for there to be a “last minute” problem, usually with an “underwriter” being blamed as the bad guy and additional information requested, delaying closing. There are other lenders who legally “give” agents things like helping pay for their Zillow leads. Some lenders make more on the loan if they charge you more.

Ultimately you deserve to get the best price because this may be a 30 year loan and $70/mo over 30 years is not insignificant. I have dual tracked lenders 3 times before and closed with the one who ultimately delivered on time at the price they said they would. (Sometimes one says they will BEAT any price but then doesn’t). The most it costs me is an extra appraisal $400-500.

Register here

https://www.sjreia.org/Events....

Visitors attend FREE!

All attendees will be entered into a raffle for some fun gifts!

The Money Multiplier Method
Guest speaker Brent Kesler

When you hear the word "money" what do you feel? Are these feelings positive? Or, are you frustrated?

Whether the feelings are positive or not-so-positive, the Utah REIA would like to help you better your relationship and to help you think differently about money.

During our CENTRAL Meeting in April, Brent Kesler, our special guest and founder of "The Money Multiplier" (TMM), will be talking about his personal experiences using TMM concept and how it has changed his life....and perhaps how it could change yours.

During his presentation, Brent will discuss:

• What people think about money just isn’t so
• How can I make money when I am earning 4% at the same time I am borrowing 6%?
• How banks work
• How to get back all of the money for every car you will ever buy, drive and own
• How I paid off $984,711 of debt in 39 months

ABOUT BRENT KESLER: I was a Chiropractor and Chiropractic coach for over 14 years in what seems like a previous life at this point. After implementing The Money Multiplier (TMM) Concept, I was able to pay off $984,711 in 3rd party debt in 39 months. I became so passionate about how powerful the concept was, I began to share it with others. It was when my previous mentor told me that I had successfully referred over forty-one new clients into the system, that I took his’s advice and started the journey to becoming a licensed agent. My main goal in making this move was simply to help more people understand how to manage and grow their wealth.

For the last 5 years, I have been lecturing to thousands of people around the country on the dynamics of the TMM concept and helping individuals to break the bonds of financial slavery, taking control of their own financial life. I have a passionate belief that whether you make $10/hour or $10,000/hour you should know and have this powerful information.

This is the same presentation given at SJREIA's Cherry Hill Main meeting (on 4/19)
(in case you missed it or want to see again!)

Location:Rider University - Science & Tech Building - 1st floor, room 1022083 Lawrenceville Rd, Lawrenceville, NJ 08648

Time: Doors open @ 6pm - Presentation begins at 7 pm
SJREIA Members and Visitors attend FREE!

MEETING SCHEDULE:
6:00-7:00 pm – Visit with Business Affiliates & Networking
7:00-7:15 pm – Announcements
7:15-8:45 pm – Main Speaker/Presentation
8:45-9:00 pm – Networking and Room Clean-up

ABOUT US - SJREIA is a networking and education association for all levels of real estate investors. We offer education in many different aspects of investing and offer unlimited opportunity to be with other like minded people. Open to the public! Come check us out to see if we are a good fit for your real estate investing needs.

@Anthony Parsons - A couple of thoughts from my experiences.

1. I bet you can more likely rent your place for $3000+ right now. That changes the calculus a little. I split houses into bedrooms and get 3-4 roommates paying more on year long leases. Your HOA May or may not be a problem. Areas like you're describing tend to continue to appreciate and your home may be worth $600k in 3 years.

2. Would you consider subject to financing like you sell for $500k subject to your 2.25% 30 year fixed loan and you get something like a $50- $100k downpayment?

3. BiggerPockets premium agents have opted into helping the community, hopeful that if we resonate with you and provide useful tips, then you’ll hire us to list your house or rental. Yes our agenda is to provide value to get paid - like most business owners. It’s no fun to have your brain picked by someone who then says their aunt, who doesn’t invest and doesn’t help them any, is their go-to agent. Anyone who is not giving you time does not see how interacting with you fits their mission. (Some people get happiness from getting upvotes on their advice and talking to someone who will take the advice and implement it.)

Good luck. Let us know how it goes

@Daniel Sanchez - I invest close to my home because that’s where I believe I have the lowest risk and greatest unfair advantage. I am on the border of a cash flow and an appreciation market. Hubs and I were house shopping 2016-2018. Couldn’t afford the appreciation market at 400k 6-8k prop taxes so bought in the cash flow market at $250k with 11k prop taxes. (Was probably really worth about 325k but I was only visiting foreclosures and estates so I got us a deal). Bucks county Pennsylvania vs mercer county New Jersey. Our House today is worth about $425k and the bucks co homes we had looked at are worth $600-650k. Both areas service the same high paying job pool (lots of pharmaceutical companies). Their school system has more awards and their property taxes are less. So when you calculate out what a $3000/mo mortgage can afford, the same monthly payment at 3% 30 year fixed means about $100k differential purchase when prop taxes are $3k more.

But regardless, I want to buy within 30 minutes of me because that’s where I have the most ability for trivial amounts of time to fix issues ($20 part and 5 minutes or $300 appliance repair service call) or Airbnb a property (supercharged income and they’re still saving vs a hotel).