All Forum Posts by: Brendan O'Brien

Oh I wish I had an easy answer to this! Like others I would not have a lease end mid-winter. But, my midwinter moveouts are usually breaking a lease.

Two ideas that may be useful: 1) if you offer a free month, make it the second month - that way they really have to be able to afford the apartment. 2) I've never tried this, but considering that a big hassle is the inconvenience of moving, how about offering moving assistance?

Hi Allison. For a long-term property you must have an area that is high in job growth. That is #1. Second, the cash flow needs to be at least adequate. Remember that your other expenses will rise as fast or maybe faster than your rents (though your mortgage payment should not).

Hi All. Job growth is a leading indicator of housing growth. I recently wrote a blog post about Utah, in particular, because it has seen such wonderful job growth. Unfortunately I agree with other commenters that Utah is now "past its prime" as a housing market.

To Dan Carbone: good luck with your strategy! Military base areas have long been very fertile ground for RE investors especially those with a military background. I expect these investors suffered somewhat with all the base closings in the last couple of decades. But, my sense is that there won't be many more closings.

In NH, all the security deposits can be in one account but none of your money can be commingled with it. I do my own accounting. Tenants do get the interest but not until move-out.

Hey Nebulus, your post wasn't really clear and I'd suggest the best people to ask would be your parents. The tenants' leases will spell out all of their financial responsibilities.

Sounds to me like Utah is in a mini bubble (still!) GRMs of 15 only make sense if you are a) owner-occupying one unit and/or b) absolutely convinced that the property will continue to appreciate.

I am not hugely surprised that Utah RE is still doing well as Utah is one of the top states for job growth. But I would think the other factor for hyper-inflation - which is limited building opportunities - wouldn't be present. Isn't Utah a huge state with low population density and tons of buildable land? Am I missing something?

Anyhow - there are lots of signs when you are in a bubble, and one is when you can't find any rental property that makes sense as a pure buy-and-hold investment. It's possible you might make some money now by buying this November, and selling next November. Or the Utah market might tank between now and then and you'll be seriously screwed, because you won't be able to sell the property at a profit for ten years and you'll have negative cash flow for every one.

Please do not just use a standard rental agreement form, especially for a residential! Your state laws are different than the equivalent laws in any other state. If you use a rental agreement form that is not entirely legal, you may have a very hard time evicting anyone.

State-specific forms are available from many providers on the web. Choose yours and then have it reviewed by your local RE attorney to confirm that it does comply with local law.

How about looking into an appraisal training program? As a property appraiser you'll learn a lot about how RE is really valued and make tremendous contacts. Another good option would be to become a property inspector, except that you really need to have gray hair (IMHO) to gain peoples' trust in that role. Most of the property inspectors I've known have decades of contracting experience.

You must make sure you have cash to cover expenses. As Tom said, when you live on the edge, if one of your properties goes vacant, the whole house of cards comes tumbling down.

Now there are some people who have built RE empires faster than the rest of us by being extremely gutsy and extremely lucky. It helps to be very smart and have great timing (hi, Mr. Trump!) For every one Donald, there are 99 others who took the same level of risk and lost.

I think the landlord has a lot of culpability. He put a gasoline-powered generator inside the home? That's just nuts.

I don't have any CO detectors in my properties, but you know what - I should! There's a reason why CO is called the silent killer. You never know you're in danger - just feel tired, go to sleep, and don't wake up.