All Forum Posts by: Jeff Schroeder

This company in Chicago has a seemingly nice business model for turn key REI passive income. They try to find less expensive but non crime infested neighborhoods, purchase old brownstone or greystone homes with solid bases, and totally gut + rehab them. Then their business model seems to be turning those into rental properties, selling them to investors, and then being the property managers.

What do you think?

How do you plan on paying for the mortgage? What are the fundamentals? I'll assume you're post 9/11 GI Bill, where the rules are a bit better. Depending on the specifics, you can get a monthly housing allowance and up to $1000 for books and supplies. How else do you plan on paying for things like food, let alone a morgage?

Then there is the question of the multi-unit building. Can you find one that is cash flow positive? Do you have the funds for the down payment and whatnot? Chances are, you're going to need to get at the very least a part time job to make this work (I'm a US Army vet as well, thankyou for your service!).

When I looked at getting a loan for my first house post Army (I got out in 2005), I found that the VA loan afforded almost $0 down up front, but the interest rate was actually a good bit higher than I could get with a conventional loan. I went with the normal loan and then refinanced when the interest went through the floor like it still currently is.

@Amy C. and if you want to go entirely turnkey, you might look into elive invest. I'm not affiliated with them in any way, but they have some decent offerings and am going to speak with a member of their sales team early next week. Their 2 flats are right in your price range, as are some of their 3 flats I believe.

I know that eventually I'll likely own several properties. Currently I have a single one and am looking to acquire a 3 or maybe 4 flat here in Chicago, or another couple of properties in Kentucky.

There are a few things l'd like to have:

• Tenant portal for announcements and service requests / status bits and payments
• Misc expense tracking of consumables for a property for maintenance and general upkeep
• Track recurring costs
• Some tools to visualize the cash flows

I could do it manually, but know it would be possible to, for a given property, generate more or less the total ROI ie: "Over the past 4 years, this property has paid for itself and generated $YY in income" or maybe "When full, this 4 flat generates $ZZ worth of income, but averages $BB in expenses due to maintenance", etc.

The other option, which I'm entirely comfortable with (I'm a software engineer by trade and have worked in this industry for 10+ years) is simply writing my own and likely then open sourcing it (aka giving it away for free).

What are everyone else's lists of "must have" vs "nice to have pony features"? Is there anyone who has software for managing their rentals, sans manually doing it with excel, that simply loves what they use? If so, why?

I'm relatively new to REI, but have had a single rental property for ~3 years that does well. My father on the other hand, has ~20+ properties and tracks everything manually in a spreadsheet. While I could likely write some decent landlord software, I'd rather see if someone else has done a better job than me.

What, if any, software do you use to manage things? I've seen Appfolio, but it seems like buying a Porsche when a Volvo will do as it is a bit overpriced.

I've got an absolutely fantastic Chicago realtor for you, her name is Leila Keen with Baird & Warner. Google her or PM me for her info. For a morgage broker, I've also had excellent experience with Michael Poland who worked out a few loans for me that ended up saving me quite a bit in the long run. He's good people: http://www.mychicagomortgageguy.com/