All Forum Posts by: Oliver Sparks

I'm also a big Dave Ramsey fan.  His company's free online budget tool will be very helpful to you if you're not using something effectively right now.  It's everydollar.com.

Is the house safe and livable/decent as it is? If so, I'd focus on taking care of those items that are cheap and attractive to renters, like you're doing by painting and doing flooring.  But don't spend much more money than necessary.  You'll know if you're asking too much for rent based on whether or not you get any good prospects in a reasonable amount of time.  And I'd initially focus on building up a good cushion/capX right away.  Good luck!

My personal thought would be that college students will do about anything to save money.  It should be very appealing to some student to just have a bedroom to sleep in that's off campus.  That said, things could potentially get difficult for your friends in the other rooms.  If the wrong person moves into the other room you could lose all tenants pretty quickly.  It's great if everyone would all get along, but from a business perspective things could get uncomfortable pretty fast with another person in the property that isn't in your group of friends.  So if it's not an existing friend who would be moving in, I'd say consider keeping things as they are until you and/or others move out.

Good luck!  I have my eyes on some properties in a college town as well.

Snap traps, as @Will Barnard mentioned.  They're cheap and very effective.  So set a ton of them and clean up everything around the exterior of the house.  If there's trash and weeds next to the house clean that up, as well as the points of entry, as others have said.

Maybe talk to local law enforcement to see if it's a feasible option to have a drug dog show up on the premises to identify that illegal substances are there.  Just a thought, as I would think that should be able to get legal authority to get the people out of there quickly, if something was found.

There’s the “could you” and there’s the “should you”. I find that when I put the question of integrity in front of me, I find the best route with the best outcome. If I signed a document stating what I agree to do, I’d stick with it. In life and business I’ve found that to always be the best choice. But that’s just me.  I'd explain to the bank your situation and see what happens.  You may be surprised. 

@Bill AyersOut of curiosity, when doing mobile home deals, what are the primary considerations when looking to buy a mobile home as an investment?  Do you usually self-finance them?  And do you ever have to move the homes, or do you buy them where they already exist? I live in the KC area and this area of investing interests me as well.