All Forum Posts by: Rob Hayes

I'm surprised you didn't get a lot more "reply's" than you did!  The biggest question I have is whether you signed a buyers-brokerage agreement with the agent.  If you did sign an agreement than its more important that you send a formal letter to the managing broker explaining why you are not happy with the service and that you wish to cancel the agreement. Make sure you keep a copy of the letter for your records. You may even wish to send said letter via registered mail. 

Good luck in Indiana

@James SyedI would agree with @Frank Diminothat since the lease is in your LLC that you will need to hire an attorney. I have 100% success rate at doing my own "5-day" evictions in Will County, but I have heard that 30-day evictions can be considerably more tricky. For this reason as well, I think I would hire an attorney. But before hiring their services, confirm with an attorney or two whether or not you have to hire an attorney for you scenario.

On a side note... You may be talking a minimum of $750 to accomplish this... Have you thought about presenting the tenant with a "cash for keys" offer?  Emotionally, I know this is the last thing that you want to do, but a wise man once told me, "It's all about the net!"  And he was referring to $, not emotions.

@Zachary Sargent Sounds like a successful meeting!   Good for you connecting with that investor and hopefully you can help one another out.  

@Zachary Sargent How did the REIA meeting go? What did you learn? What was the topic of the presentation? Well, I hope you got something out of the meeting and made a few connections as well.

@Account Closed

I would definitely start by talking with your family.   They are going to be your unbiased knowledge on these different markets.  

-where would they WANT to live?

-where do their friends WANT to live?

-would they feel safe living there?

-Are the school districts ranked highly?

I would take their 5 favorite cities and than research them in depth

-what kind of landlord laws do they have?

-what is the eviction process like?

-what are going rental rates?

-what kind of appreciation has the city seen in the past few years?

I would imagine that after all of that you could narrow it down to one or two cities.

-than post here to get local investors opinions on those cities

-go to a local REIA meeting in those markets and ask those investors their opinions on those cities.

I think that if you ask the right questions to the right people and you hear the right answers than you're good to go and start investing away!

Good Luck!

Zachary,

Good luck on your adventure!

I think the best way to start is by finding someone in your market that is doing what you want to do and learn from them.   I'm not sure how rural of an area you are in, so it may be difficult to find...  Hopefully there is some kind of investor club, property managment or landlording organization in your area.  I would start there... Do whatever it takes to get in good with this person.  Volunteer to help him/her with a project...  Find out what investments work well for them... Find out what investments don't work well for them...  Learn from their experiences. There is no reason to reinvent the wheel.

Best of luck!

So what made you decide that you want to invest in IL?   I would think that whatever source that led you to IL would also have some influence on the specifics you are looking for...  

Derik, good luck with the start of your investing career.

I thought Hattie's post was great!   I would highly highly recommend that you start within an "easy" drive of your home.  There are soooo many moving parts that makes up the machine that is a successful real estate investor...and with every part there is a chance that your machine breaks down.  So, in my opinion investing outside of an "easy" drive from your home is adding several more parts to your machine.  I believe to increase your chances of success you should have as few moving parts as possible.  

I know that's not what you want to hear.

Best of luck! 

A debate I've always had with fellow investors is how should I START my rental business? Let's say I'm a young married couple, I have very few assets to protect and I'm looking to purchase my FIRST rental property. I think I'm going to buy a condo; I'll have $15K equity in property and cashflow $200/mth. Is this really the time to set up an LLC (or a Series-LLC)? Some really rough numbers... I think it will cost about $1000 to set up my LLC and than another $500 or more each year to renew the LLC and file its taxe returns.

What do you all think?  

I'm not sure if I completely understand your question...as there are so many variables to a person's "path".   If you are just starting as an agent, I would strongly recommend that you work for a broker.  Learn from your broker... or learn from education that is provided to you by your company. There is no reason to start your agent career as a broker (or in my market as a "managing broker").