All Forum Posts by: Ryan D.

Your income is $1275, and just your outgoing PITI is $1446? How is this making any money for you?

What about landscaping? Utilities? Maintenance? CapEx? Vacancy? Turnover expenses? Its not clear to me how this property could be doing anything but costing you cash out of pocket each month.

Sounds like you need to get another quote from a different insurance company. $3,300 sounds really high. What is the purchase price?

Did you screen the tenants? Credit report, employment & income verification, past evictions, criminal check, etc. Many online resources for this, turbotenant.com, etc. Managing the place yourself for the first few years will give you a good feel for what it takes to be a good property manager, then go hire one to free up your time.

Sounds like your PM is placing crappy tenants. Switch to a different company, or start doing the placement yourself.

School of hard knocks. Step back & look at the facts: you spent $435,000 on something (doesn't really matter what it is) that you never saw, & relied on sales people to tell you whether or not you should buy it & how it would perform, & seemingly you did not budget for unexpected problems. My friend, what you just purchased, was experience. Don't be defeated, far more is learned from failure than from success. You just leaned some of the fundamentals of RE investing: see with your own eyes what your pay for, before you pay for it. Don't trust the salespersons word on it. Always budget for upfront repairs. If possible, do the walk through with your inspector. Have a local property manager lined up & giving you advice before you make a purchase.

I've been using Mark Kohler for years. He is a tax lawyer, CPA, & real estate investor, with a law firm & a CPA firm, offices in SoCal, Arizona, & Utah. His firms cater to entrepreneurs, & he's very pro RE investment: http://kkoslawyers.com/lawyers/mark-j-kohler/ https://kohlereyrecpas.com/

Yes, I would recommend to budget at least $500/m (that's $125/unit) for regular maintenance for the building. This has been my experience on stabilised 4-plexes.

It's very common to not allow potential buyers to see units prior to having the building under contract. I own several 4-plexes- what I do is make some reasonable assumptions about vacancy & maintenance (btw your maintenance budget is way low - assume $125/unit/month), rents, insurance (you can get actual quotes on this), lawn care, and upfront renovations needed (I usually assume $2.5k/unit). Then make your offer based on these numbers, and subject to inspection. One you do the inspections and see what shape the units are in, you adjust your projected rental income and upfront renovation costs, and negotiate an appropriate change in your purchase agreement.

I'd love to hear what these "insider tips" are!

Union Bank will write you a RELOC on an investment property, as long as its in California.