All Forum Posts by: Rodney Kuhl

@Pete Tam I use 5.5% to be safe because when I bought my residence I had to lock in my rate during a week of a lot of volatility. I locked it in because it literally could have swung a full point one way or the other. Of course, after I did the rate dropped again, haha. But also lenders have different criteria for investors and could charge more points or a higher rate to an investor.

Besides, if I'm taking a conservative approach I like to be conservative with everything. If I can make a property cash flow at 5.5%, anything under that is a bonus (kind of like appreciation).

I can't but I hope someone can because it sounds like a great site!

@Pete Tam What did you calculate your returns to be with this deal?

I think it would be good to add Property Management (10%) into your numbers as well, even if you don't plan to use it right now. Down the road you might and that could swing the property from positive to negative cash flow.

Adding up all of your expenses + vacancy, I have total expenses at $790/mo. I also calculate the monthly mortgage payment to be $545/mo (I use 5.5% as my interest rate to be conservative). Together that equals $1,335/mo. So if it rents for $1,200/mo, the property will be negative cash flowing every month.

I made a thread about this a while back. Ultimately I think whether you decide to go with SFH or MFH depends on you and your goals/plan. For me, I decided to focus on SFH for a few reasons - more stable tenants and ultimately down the road more options for selling the property. With a MFH, you are likely only going to sell the property to another investor, who is going to want to buy it at a discount. With a SFH you could sell it to another investor or to a retail buyer as well. My two cents.

@Brian L. Yeah that makes sense. So I think than it would also make sense to charge a fee per day they are late, as mentioned above by @Aly W. . Otherwise, what's the point in the tenant paying the day after it's late if they can just wait until the end of the month and pay the same amount?

I use rentometer. It's important to dig into it a little when you are searching though. You could put in the information and it'll spit out an average and median rent for the area, but I always click around on each point to figure out the high and low side for the area. The average could vary greatly. If it's an area without a lot of rentals it will factor in a wide range to calculate the average. But in reality, properties that are several blocks away could have a completely different market. This happens a lot if you are looking at a 4 bedroom property. To gather comps, the site will have to go a ways away from the property. I think it's important to keep that in mind. But I think it's a very good source.

There could be a lot of reasons. They could be selling to free up capital to purchase a different (maybe larger) property, like an apartment complex for example. They could be tired of being a landlord, like you said. Or maybe they want to focus on SFHs rather than MFHs. Really, there could be many reasons. Everyone is different and has different goals and leads. My two cents.

As a former tenant, I've never had rent due on any date other than the 1st, and usually could pay it penalty free until the 3rd. I plan to do the same when I buy my first rental here shortly.

If the rent isn't paid by the decided grace period, what do most people charge for a late fee? Is it a flat fee? Or percent of the rent?

I worked with Mike and was in contact with him a lot as I was looking to purchase my first rental property. I decided not to purchase one through his company, simply because I decided against buying a turnkey property at this time. Mike was and has continued to be great to me though, helping me out and providing a lot of insight in many areas. It's quite impressive that he has continued to help me and offer advice even after I didn't purchase a property from him. If turnkey in Indy is what you want, he's definitely a great choice.

I'm pretty sure Postlets does the same thing (posts on Zillow, Trulia, etc for free).