All Forum Posts by: Robert Bonderer

As far as I can tell now, the reason why something like this doesn't currently exist is because of restrictions on access to MLS data. As of now, your only option to accessing MLS data is through all the individual local MLS', which as far as I can tell is restricted to realtors and to their clients through (frequently ******) MLS portals. The other option is accessing MLS data through third-party website like Zillow, redfin, or other small realtor web portals. The issue here is that data scrapping these websites in a dirty word in the real estate community, and essentially all of these sites have protections against data mining. So the limitations to the software appear to be primarily related to the restriction of access to data, rather than the lack of folks out there willing to develop the methods. It'd be really interesting to do nationwide data analyses of price:rent ratios and other screening factors to find outliers, but sounds like that's not in the cards.

Instead of selling, you could just cash out refi for part of the equity.  Anticipate at least 25% down for any buy and hold rentals.

There's almost zero likelihood of getting a conventional mortgage on a condo listed for less than ~150k in socal (even riverside) because they will all be >50% rentals, and as a non owner occupied property, Fannie May requires at least 50% owmer occupied.  You can get financing, but even at 100k, which is almost worth it for the lender, you're looking at 6k in fees and interest in the high fours.  Best bet would be to buy cash if you want a condo.  That said, I'm guessing you're looking in the Highland/San Bernardino area?  There's a reason why those units are so cheap. I heard a story about someone who sold all their San Bernardino rentals after the second time he heard gunshots. You're going to have a tough time becoming a landlord in socal with less than 50 or 60k in cash (my $0.02).

Thanks for the heads up @Adam Poll that's definitely a consideration.   If I could get into a unit in Oxnard, my plan was to try out airbnb for a few months until I either find it less profitable than a long term rental, or the kaibosh scenario comes about. I'm not as  concerned about Palm Springs taking too hard a stance on the short term rental market (they already charge a tax though), I think there'd be riots.  I do see listings on airbnb now charge people the local tax on top of the normal airbnb listing price, but looks like that's typically people who've been in the game a long time time. Have you ever looked up the airbnb listings map in Santa Monica? Insane amount of listings. I think that's a good test case for how things will play out in other big cities.

Looking primarily in Ventura County right now, since that's pretty close to me locally.

Thanks for the advice @Eric Dowling!  Maybe I'll poke my head around PS also, I'm a sucker for those mid-century modern properties. 

Anybody have any thoughts on the reports from AirDNA for AirBNB occupancy and income rates?  I'm loooking at a condo near the beach that I could rent for 1700 or air bnb for 100/nt (at a very competitive low end daily rate), but AirDNA indicates a 36% occupancy and income of only ~11k per year.  I'm hesitant to contact other local owners, since I'll be directly competing with them...  Was also thinking of trying airbnb for a couple months to get a taste for it, but sounds like until you manage to build up a lot of reviews occupancy rates will be even lower than the average.  It looks like the number of units in the area has increase linearly from ~30 to 75+ in the last year, so perhaps airdna isn't accounting for propeties only available for part of the year?

Glad to see a Ventura County thread pop up, sounds like I'll try and see some of you at the next meetup that @Robert L. mentioned! It does seem borderline impossible to find good investment opportunities anymore through the traditional MLS route - I've found a small number of properties that look like they might just break even on a monthly basis assuming decent occupancy, but not much and especially so at the ~300k price range. I guess that's good news for renters, in that they may really not be losing too much on the rent versus buy scenario in the local area, but not great for potential rental investments. Hoping to find some deals in the Ventura/Oxnard area that might have some appreciation potential, but leaning more towards the Inland Empire where you can find decent SFRs still for Ventura County condo prices.

Hi all,

I'm interested in finding tools that will pull data from the MLS into a spreadsheet and also estimate historical rental data for addresses using rentometer - I'd like to establish a simple threshold of $/month cost (est. loan + HOA) to estimated rent $/month to identify properties. I'm guessing there are existing proprietary tools that do this you can buy, so wanted to go that route before I spent a couple days programming something on my own. Thanks!

Thanks for the success story. I'm going to follow a similar path, but probably looking at a longer road to five properties. How did you go about identifying Texas as a good location? Looking back, would you still have chosen that area versus something local?