All Forum Posts by: Ralph Poirier

First why would students have medical debt???   I’ve heard several different ways to handle leases. I work hard to remove as many friction points as possible. A happy house is a profitable house. I do it by:
- individual leases 

- parental guaranteed- students don’t have credit 

- I require transcripts. A good student is a good renter. 
- one year leases

- I pay all the utilities and they pay me. 

- I have the common areas cleaned every two weeks 

There are a few others.  So far so good!

I’ve been so busy getting my str running I haven’t been on BP but I decided to jump on to see how people are handling this exact use case. 

It’s a tough situation on both sides. Let’s say you do evict. Do you really think you are going to be able to rent it?  Do you think once this craziness slows that the current tenant will be able to get back on their feet?   tough issue for sure. 

Please look at AirDNA and see how many vacation rentals are currently on the market.  Living close to your destination I have many friends that bought condo's in your location with the idea of renting them when they were not there to help pay for the condo.  EPIC FAIL.  Only those that can truly afford the condo's still own them.  The rest sold them and took a big hit.  BEWARE of the liberals!  They're coming for your guns, your rental property and mostly your checkbook!

I agree with Will except I don't find the management that intensive.  Here are a few tips:  Only rent to a group (4 bedroom rents to 4 students who are friends - you don't fill the rooms they do).  They sign individual one year leases with a parental guarantee.  Screening is mostly a waste as they don't have credit.  I look at their transcript.  Good grades; good student; good renter.  I bend over backwards for them as I tell them this is my house.  You take care of the house I take care of you.  It's working.  It's getting to the season where kids are starting to look.  I have 4 groups all recommended by existing renters looking for houses.  I"M BUYING!

I'm terrible at this and am currently looking for a freelance writer who has experience in these.  Unfortunately, I have a very limited vocabulary (I'm a finance guy - I need numbers!).  I feel your pain.  I'll follow this conversation so if you find something please post!

Thanks!

I agree with Carolyn I thought they closed down Dwolla years ago.  I use Venmo.  Get your money next day!

If you give them a deposit slip you are giving them your bank account number and routing info. That’s a big no thank you!!!!!   No bank account?  I’ll take another serving of no thank you!

BP has a spot to list it.  I’d also use Zillow. 

@Aaron Caminati they are paying more because they are all signing a lease. They are also paying more because I have premium rentals.

Couple of thoughts:  I think for the most part I don’t see anything wrong with your assumptions.  Also in your analysis make sure you are scaling your $210k investment to include an annual increase so the price of the property you are buying gets more expensive every year. Are you also expanding your rental income for inflation?
I'd love to see you expand your analysis to look at the following: as you do your analysis look at the cash flow year by year and think about when you could retire on that income. If you are adding a property every year your income expands and instead of adding one property at some point you will be able to do two properties then three and so on. Just like compound interest. My thesis is that you will be able to retire much earlier with REI.
good luck!