All Forum Posts by: Jean T.

Joe,

Thanks for the comments.

I don't know where I'd be moving to yet, if I do move. I'm new to the area and don't know many people other than those at my church, but any move may not happen for another couple years. I might want or need to move to get closer to family in the NY/NJ area. We'll see.

Either way, I'm definitely considering investing in a SF 3/2 rental or two, if I can find a good PM.

Does it make sense to invest in a city you may be living in temporarily to take advantage of opportunities?

I currently live in a city that I may not stay in long-term. I may have to move in the next couple of years. However, there are rental opportunities that I'd like to take advantage of.

I'm wondering if it's a bad idea to invest in this city if I might move away. I'm may hire a property manager anyway to manage the properties, and I'm thinking it may be doable if I find a reputable company.

Any thoughts?

Thanks.

I wanted to take the time to thank everyone for the advice. My property got rented about 4 months after moving out of it.

It took close to 20 showings to get an offer. Things were pretty slow in December, but they really picked in January, and I got an offer a couple weeks into January.

I did contact my PM just about every day asking for status of where things were. In the end, I only lowered the price once. I was going to do it again in January, but when showings started to pick up dramatically, I wanted to wait and see what happened. Luckily, an offer came in and I didn't have to lower it.

Geof,

The condo is in Livonia.

10 showings to find a tenant. Obviously, the faster you can get to that, the faster you have a chance at finding a tenant. Thanks for the advice.

There have only been two showings in the past two months. There is no feedback that the PM received. But I haven't asked, so I'll definitely do that. I admit that I haven't been on them as I should since I'm still getting situated in the new location.

I recognize that the mortgage has nothing to do with setting the rent. I wasn't necessarily using the mortgage as a gauge to set the rent, but I wanted to see if my mortgage fell in the range for market rent. The thought was that if it did, then I would look to start at that price in order limit my monthly negative cash flow. If it did not, then I would have no choice but to go much lower in price. However since it did fall within the range, I gave the PM the option of starting there and they chose to do that.

What they've said is that the rental market is competitive. As a result, prices are starting to come down and I'll have to start lowering the price more or offer some deals to bring in more potential tenants.

I didn't do a thorough evaluation, not that I could have really. I was under a somewhat compressed timeframe when I was moving out, and was only I able to check out sites like zilpy, rentometer, and craiglist. There was a wide range. I even talked to the PM about what was reasonable, and I'm within that range.

So in my mind, I can go down in price and that's what it seems I will have to do. I'm just not sure that it will matter much given that market in MI. Hopefully, someone currently investing in MI can offer some local perspective.

I gave them a list price range that they could use to market the property. I did some basic market research and saw that my mortgage was on the higher end. So I gave them a range up to my mortgage. I gave them the option to select anywhere within that range given their expertise and knowledge of the market.

I was told that they chose to start with the higher end of the range since the property showed so well. Given that, I thought we might have many more showings than we've had, but there's been very little.

I don't have any issues lowering the price, but I am a bit surprised that there's been little action given how well I was told the property shows.

LOL! No. I'm not Tony Soprano.

I'm just talking about constantly staying on them to make sure that they're doing their best to market the property. People tend to relax unless you stay on them sometimes.

And you're right...the property is priced higher. But it's within the range of what rentals, including condos, can go for. I just recently lowered the price, and may likely do it again to get more action.

They did tell me that it can take up to three months, and rental prices are starting to fall. I'm just not sure that it should be taking this long, regardless of the rental market.