All Forum Posts by: Nick Gray

Congrats! Sounds like a great deal, best of luck!

 Hey Ryan, thanks for reaching out! Agreed attending meet-ups - I made it to one last month and now I've got the bug haha. I'll PM about your New Haven meet-up

 Hi Sadierose, congrats on the house hack, hope it is working well for you! Happy to connect, thank you for reaching out!!

Hmm, that's strange. Maybe try to a different browser or something? Not sure why it's giving you issues. 

Great post! 

Like others one of my first 'newsflash' moments came due to bad plumbing. House that we bought had new PVC all throughout that we discovered during inspection and it was music to our ears. Shame on us for not remembering that inspections are only within the 4 walls of the house. The sewer main line was never upgraded and was probably 70+ year old lead pipe with roots growing through from the driveway down to the street. So fast forward, it's a Sunday afternoon and as we're literally in the process of showing the first floor apartment to a prospective tenant, we flip the light switch on to show her the bathroom and to our surprise the tub and toilet were filled with black water... first thought "WTF" followed by extensive apologies to the lady checking out the apartment.

She leaves and I get Roto Rooter to come and check out the problem. The guy drains the line to relieve the backup but we had to use one of our garbage cans to catch the backed up sewage in the above ground pipes. It drains and the garbage can does its job and catches all of the back up with little spillage. Roto Rooter guy helps, clearing up some of the roots growing in the pipe and caps the open sewer line that he used to enter with the snake. Little did I know, he wanted nothing to do with the sewage that was caught in the trash can and he went on his way. To wrap up, I spent the entire afternoon dumping, by gloved hand, bucket after bucket of sh*t water back into the drain pipe. 

So I must agree that it's not always sunshine and rainbows and we had a hard reality check on that point!

Hi BP folks, 

I recently read the "Wealth Without Cash" book and Pace Morby mentions a section on the IRS website dedicated to tax protocols and procedure related to "Subject to" transactions, but I can't find it. Curious if anyone is familiar with this and can point me in the right direction on how to find this info on IRS website?

Any help is appreciated!

I use jumpoffcampus.com for marketing. They partner with schools across the US to help students find housing. I think the partnered schools are somewhat limited, but take a look and maybe the university you're looking at is up there! A quick google search on student housing sites in your area might help as well. 

Hi @Jeanette Land, I've been using my first SFH purchase as a college rental for a few years now and it's worked out very well for me. However, I have to agree with Tatum on a couple things... the turnover is something you have to be prepared to deal with. In my experience, best case scenario you get 2 years out of each group as they're usually only looking to rent for Junior/Senior year.

Also, to Tatum's other point, the risk of damage is always there because at the end of the day, they're college students. Some are only there to party and don't understand the responsibility they're taking on when signing these leases. To mitigate that, use your best character judgement when meeting these students and you can likely get a feel for who will be the best fit for your situation.

One thing I'd like to point out is the funky timing for marketing your place. In my case, students are actively looking for housing up to a year in advance with Sept-Nov being the busiest time. In other words, I already have tenants for the 2023-2024 school year and I'm now getting ready to market my place for 2024-2025 and expect things to get busy in the next month once classes start. I don't know why it's like this, but it is in my case. May be something for you to think about and double check whether or not it's the same in your area.

The upside to this is that your returns can be great using a rent by the room strategy as long as you are prepared for the specific needs of the market. Hope this helps in any way and happy to share more if you ever need!

I think in terms of Section 8 tenants, you either love 'em or you hate 'em. Just thought I'd share a positive experience on here. 

Currently living in our duplex and our Section 8 tenants live beneath us. While not necessarily "white collar" citizens, we have had nothing but smooth sailing since they moved in. Their rent payments come through in full and on time every month, they take care of their own utilities and have never given us reason to think they'd let utility payments lapse. Most of all, they take great care of their apartment and the property. Sometimes it even feels like they're the owners and we're the renters (just a joke). But there are plenty of times I come home from work and they are outside cutting the grass, cleaning up the yard (even keeping our street space clean), & taking all of our garbage cans to the street for pick up day. And they always come out and help when they catch me doing these things, even when I beg them not to.

I think this goes without saying, but screening is the most important thing we can do as investors/landlords. We stuck to our guns and gave no breaks in the screening process just because they have rental assistance. They met the credit requirements, passed background checks, etc. and the driving force in the selection process was speaking with their prior landlord. They had been with him for 15+ years and they were only leaving him because he decided to sell off his assets and retire. He gave a glowing review, mentioning that they had demonstrated many of the same qualities that we've seen in them and so we took a chance. 

Sorry for the long post - just wanted to point out that there are positive experiences to be had with Section 8 as long as you do your due diligence and use sound judgement, as you would with any other tenants!