All Forum Posts by: Rich Schroeder

Welcome to landlording!

Paying the renter or knocking off rent to do work is a terrible idea. It works great until he chops his foot off while mowing the lawn and you get a letter from his attorney to make a claim on your workmans' comp insurance.

Also, I suggest not telling them that you own the place...that you're just the property manager. Your boss is a high powered attorney in LA.

If the place is a low or middle income building, I suggest collecting the rent in person every month. This allows you access inside the units to make sure there is...

-no drug dealing
-no water issues
-no electrical issues
-no garbage laying around that the rats get into

well, you get the picture. If you're going to succeed in this business you should be a hands on landlord, or hire a property manager who cares just as much about your investment then you do.

Hang on, this will be a wild ride!
-Rich

Sorry Curt, this is simply not true. I have ALL my properties in LLC's and have had no issues with getting lending while personally signing for them.

In this situation, an easier way might be to get a line of credit with the property as collateral. This should be easy, even in this market. 70-75% LTV is customary right now, I believe.

People keep bringing up speculation (appreciation) and other factors...the 50% guideline (I don't call it a rule) does not address that. Don't make it more complicated than it has to be. The 50% "rule" applies to operating costs, that's it. It's a very simple rule of thumb.

People still trying to disprove the 50% guideline on individual situations, but no one has posted their actual long term numbers to disprove the formula. I have seen MANY, MANY reports that support the 50% guideline,including local investors with 1000's of combined units. However, no one (including people on this thread) has been able to supply real world numbers to support their claim that residential properties do not average better than 50% long term. So until I see those numbers, it's just noise. Post them up here and lets see what you have!

use a different bank. Try staying away from big banks...use someone local. I've done many of these without any issues,

You can get a line of credit while personally signing for the line. If the property has seasoning, you should be fine.

Hi Charles,

My target market is lower-middle class. I started out by putting the cheapest stuff in my rentals. After time, however, I decided that I would go just a little bit better than the cheapest items. This is because I try to get the most rent I can out of a place. If I can squeeze an extra $50 per month out of a rental by putting in nicer appliances, I will do it. However, even the items that are upgraded a little would not be items that I put in my house. So it's relative to the customer. So over time I've found that if I spend just a little bit more money on the rehab, I can get just a little bit more in rent.

From the research I've done, it appears that the only way to be a climate expert in this country is through the governement. If this is not correct I am open to supportive information. This severely taints the "expert" pool of scientists. This means that politics is automatically injected into the science. This also means that there is a LOT of money involved in agreeing with people such as Al Gore. Other countries not connected to our governement (such as Russia for example) do not agree with the man made global warming stance that our country takes.

I don't want their help. Doing just fine, thank you. Also, they always seem to screw things up. Aren't these the same people that wanted to "help" middle class Americans get into their own homes?

Having been a firefighter, I understand some of the issues that the first responders are dealing with (not even close to all, but some). Jason, do you have evidence that the medical needs of these men/women are not being met by their current medical plans? What exactly is the need for the money?

Also, I saw in another thread that your wife is having another baby. Congrats! My second child was a crazy experience. I delivered him in our driveway as I was trying to get my wife to the hospital. The labor accelerated extremely fast. The ambulance got there 9 minutes after I delivered the baby. This happened shortly after my brother (a police officer) delivered a baby in a driveway, as well. Cool story now, not so fun at the time.