All Forum Posts by: David Hedges

@Jack Middleton can you get USDA loans in valpo? I always thought it had to be a more rural area. 

of what I heard of the USDA loans in the past, it sounded like they were similar to fha and others where they could be up to 4 units

when I was doing the property management in the past I liked these:

for background checks and screening
- LPA http://www.thelpa.com

  the lpa has a database of problem tenants to search and that they allow you to add to. also there are a lot of legal forms and updates that are specific to each state. 

-tvs https://www.tenantverification.com/

  tvs was the service I'd use to run credit/criminal/eviction checks on prospective tenants

as for the others, a I would track a lot on spreadsheets or databases I keep. for estimating area rents, I wrote an script to pull all of the rent info for my area, parse it all by city/town and in some cases neighborhood name, then use the data on rent, square footage, and number of bedrooms to generate averages and watch trends in the rates for each area. 

@Scott Long I had something similar to this last year to my cpa. though mine had to do with a house we have in china, and if I would be able to write off travel between here and there if we were going to inspect the property or take care of business related to it that might require use there (china it seems a lot of things require you to physically show up). He seemed pretty confident that as long as everything was well documented that we should be ok. I think there are some limitations on gaps between business related activities though too. I'd suggest talking over just what your plan or goals are with a cpa though. 

@Larry Fried wow!! I read through that and remember who that guy is. I ran into some of his representatives at a the chicago rei expo few years ago. They were pushing the same deal you were talking about, though it sounded interesting at the time, though from what you say of your experience I'm glad I didn't pursue that one... 

@Larry Fried what part of NWI do you invest in? how did you get started investing here? 

I've had a section 8 renter once, there was good and bad to it, but here is what I got out of it. 

1. collecting rent isn't an issue it's always on time and if there is a portion the tenant pays they usually pay on time. If they don't they risk being thrown off the program. 

2. at least in my area, they do a yearly inspection. My experience is they always find something that they have issue with, though most times it's a low cost item (ex. "you need to have a bar to hang coats on it the closet" )

3. you need to pay attention to, and check up on your tenant. I had neglected to drop by occasionally to check up on the place. this tenant had not kept the house clean which lead to a mouse and roach infestation. They housing authority wasn't very sympathetic to my claim that the tenant needs to pay the cost of extermination as it was stated in the lease and the issue was not there when they signed the lease. 

in the end item 3 was what ended that for me. I will say that it seemed my tenant knew the court system well, but I was able to recover a lot of the damage costs from them. I think this is also something that they must do to remain on the section 8 program. 

Hi Ken and Tyrell, 

So the house in China is my wife's old house. That is the only one that really isn't profitable at the moment, though once the short term loan on it is paid off later in the year, it should be ok. Her family actually helps with some of the management on that property, and overall it's been similar to working with my property manager from around here. Property over there does seem to cost a bit less, but rents are also way lower, and I had found out that most tenants there expect their apartment to be furnished. The upside is repairs and maintenance costs are far lower than in the US, though mostly because labor there is cheep, and there you don't need to deal with getting permits for most work. 

Rick, 

I joined NICIA last year (www.nicia.org). They meet in Merrillville, and I hadn't heard of others in the area. 

Hello all, 

I have been slowly buying rental houses in the NW Indiana area, though slowly. My first rental house had been purchased in 2005, and most recent October of 2015. Between my wife and I we now have 4 rental properties, 3 in NW indiana, and 1 in China. 

In the past I had managed my properties myself, and with all the trouble I had with a few tenants, over time came to realize that for me at least, property management makes a lot of sense. I gave me back my evenings and weekends, as before it seemed like I was always either chasing after some tenant issue, or had something to repair. I saw a lot of that as valuable though, because without experiencing some of this, I don't think I'd have as much respect for what my property manager I currently have does for me. 

So, what brings me to BiggerPockets. I had been listening to the podcasts, and it seemed like I should try to reach out and try to place myself into places where I can be exposed to new ideas, and where I can learn from people who may have some experience I don't. over the past few years I've also joined my local RIA (which some members seem to promote bigger pockets as well), and have been to a few real estate expos (the most recent being one in Dallas, TX back in Feb.)

Dave