All Forum Posts by: Sam Maropis

I want to throw my 2 cents in on  this. First I am going to disagree somewhat with Charles Seaman somewhat. I want to separate the size into maybe four groups. Single, 2-4 unit, 5-15, units and over 15. Granted 15 is a number pulled out of the hat so to speak. 

If you have experience in larger multifamily and if your funds are somewhat limited, then I would recommend a duplex to 4 unit. You can still buy them vie traditional financing. Additionally if you can live in one unit for a year, then you can get the best of both worlds, better financing and a larger than a single family home. 2-4 is a great place to start, shop around for pricing and see what is available. Best would be two bedroom and maybe one three bedroom, in that four unit. but that is a good dream. 

If you have to go with the single family, try to get a 3/2 home, much better tenants than a smaller 2/1.

Congratulations on saving up and getting ready to buy. One area that folks have done well is buying a 2-4 unit and living in one unit for at least one year. this way you can get good funding and still have a very valuable asset. Some homeowners hire a property manager to manage the other 1-3 units for the owner. I manage a number of units that the owners never want to tell the other tenants they are the owners. 

Regarding painting of walls. I like egg shell white semi gloss, You can turn off some folks with walls painted many different colors. But plan on painting over time, to a egg shell white SG.  

We find that two paystubs are not enough. There is a need to say at least 6 weeks of paystubs, so if someone is paid weekly then they need to send more paystubs, not just two. 

Zillow is a great source of leads for us, but we have a contract with them. Reach out to their marketing dept to get an agreement, (yes and pay a monthly fee unfortunately). It is well worth it to get an agreement and market on Zillow and all of their downstream websites to advertise your home. 

We use rentometer.com to find prices to start marketing of a home, but by no means is this the last word on pricing. We find pricing today is way lower than what the site say. When we list on a site but just put the price of Rentometer.com the home will sit, we need to both market and adjust the rental price weekly to find the right price to get your home filled with good tenants.