All Forum Posts by: Rongsu Qi

@Anthony Catoni I started my Tampa job almost a year ago, but with COVID I've been working from home since March. I looked into student rentals near USF right before. I worked at St. Petersburg for five months before that and lived in Airbnbs every single week to check out the neighborhoods.. Definitely lots of STRs there. 

My LTRs are duplexes and single families, although moving more towards single families for the convenience of lower turnover. 

I've been wanting to do BRRRR but margins are so thin in the area now, especially after the huge appreciation this year. BRRRRnB may still have room, definitely want to look into it.

I just signed up with eXp Realty through a rockstar agent in the Orlando area. Guess it's time to get a professional looking photo and update my profile!  

I’m interested as well! I’m currently living in Orlando area and work for a company in Tampa. Been investing in long term rentals here and just got my real estate license! 

@Valentina Naumenko Thanks!

Hi Orlando BP community,

I’ve been investing in the Orlando and Ocala area for almost three years. Just passed my real estate sales associate exam and looking into brokerages. I love technology so naturally think eXp would be a great fit. 

I have a pretty lucrative full time job that I'm not ready to leave anytime soon. The reason to get my RE license is similar to many investors: get MLS access, save commissions on my own deals, write offers faster, learn more about the business and make more connections etc. In addition I'm also looking to buy and sell for family and friends, and do referrals for out of state investors since I recently moved from California.

If you’re an agent with eXp in the area, especially with experience working with investors, I’d love to learn from you. I’m not looking to join a team, since I wouldn’t be able to properly leverage the benefits with my limited time commitment at the moment. Just looking for a sponsor who can help me with navigating the brokerage and the local market. 

I agree. From the university reopening plans we have seen so far, only about half of students will be allowed on campus in any semester. For those on-campus students, many classes will still be entirely online or partially online. I would guess even some of the on-campus students will opt to live at home, if they live within two to three hours to the university and they're only required to be on-campus less than a third of the days of the entire semester. This proportion might be substantial for second and third tier universities where more students are in-state. This means demand for off-campus student rentals will be half or even less for the next school year. Very curious to see how this plays out. Hopefully reality is not as bad and the situation resolves within the next year. 

The college town where I went to grad school had 12 month leases in most cases. There are 7 month leases available for more per month. 

I explored investing in a student rental before covid (not in a college town) since my new job locates inside the university. However I am glad I didn't because I am concerned about the future of American Universities in general, especially second and third tier ones. 

With students doing virtual classes till who knows when, they're not going to need off-campus housing. I know most of the universities seem very optimistic about reopening in fall, but spikes of cases in states that reopened bars and restaurants have not been very encouraging. Students and parents are also going to perhaps find out the education they get is not worth $50k a year on tuition, room and board. On top of that, many state universities receive a large chunk of their revenues from international students who pay hefty out-of-state tuitions. Most of them are likely not coming back this fall due to expanded travel bans and health concerns.

Covid might be a catalyst for some long term changes of the American Universities, much similar to the potential long-term change it might bring to remote-working. I can see growing number of students enroll in massive online courses taught by prestigious professors at top-tier universities, saving tens of thousands per year while getting better education.

Personally I decided not to invest in student rentals, even though I work on the campus of one university, and live near another. I would suggest taking into consideration what's laid out in this New York Times article, from a NYU professor, especially when investing in a college town with little to no alternative industry to support quality renters. 

https://nymag.com/intelligence...

This makes sense and is generally what I experience with the Realty Medics too. However this does mean actual vacancy (i.e. the days landlord not receiving rent) is going to be at least one month:  ~ 1 week of repairs and cleaning, ~ 2 weeks on the market, then between 1 and 2 weeks between lease signing and moving in. 

When I was a renter back in California, my landlord who self-manages, would market a month or two ahead of moving out, coordinate with old tenants to show, make repairs when tenant-occupied, then have new tenants move in as soon as the old tenants move out and the place is cleaned. She had the cleaner come in at 8 pm the day I moved out and the new tenants moved in the next day. This is truly zero vacancy.

Now I understand this is difficult to do and would require great tenants, great relationship with tenants and a very hot rental market. But I keep wondering, if she can make it happen, can someone else at least get close to that? 

Do you mean 16-17 days between tenants move out and tenants move in? Or 16-17 days between rent-ready and signing a lease? Usually tenants don't sign a lease to move in immediately, I would think a week or two between lease signing and moving in is normal.