All Forum Posts by: Susan Maneck

Hey, bet we can get better real estates deals here in Jackson than you can get in Baton Rouge!

Okay folks, this is how Section 8 works. They set the rent according to what they consider the fair market value. I've only been disappointed once by what they offered me. The responsibility for paying that rent is shared between the tenant and the HUD office, depending on the tenants income. Right now I have only one Section 8 tenant and the rent is split 50/50. She just lost her job so it is likely that next month she will be paying only a nominal amount.

uh, you realize this thread was started nine years ago? 

My solo401K is with Dmitriy, and I have to say he does a marvelous job. I've emailed him questions literally at midnight and gotten answers right away. 

How far will you be moving? Close enough to manage it yourself? 

You might try Stephen Younger. 

 3 bdrm, 2ba. Two car garage on a 1/4 lot. In other words what's standard for that neighborhood. I have 4 bdrm houses on that same street that rent for $950. There is one property that has two houses on it. I doubt if the second house is legal. It has separate meters but doesn't show up on the tax roll. But you know, this is Jackson. I bought the property for 32K. Back house needed more work than I usually will bother with, but the front house alone was worth more than they were asking. The front house was four bedrooms, could easily be made into five with 2200 square feet. The back house was 3bdrm 1ba. I spent about 15K fixing up both houses and rented them together to a large extended family for $1500 since it would be complicated to rent them separately (no parking for the back house.) 

I just rented one out Section 8. I bought it for 30K. HUD set the rent at $868.

That of course, is without taxes and insurance. But yeah, that's pretty much what the profit margin here is like. It is really insane. I buy my houses in the 30-35K range. A couple were less than that, but in worse neighborhoods. Since I do no work myself I try to stick to houses that need less than 5K work. The houses I own in that price range are rented out for 825-995. 

Well, as I indicated my first partner was my mother. Mind you, properties here are so cheap you can buy one with your credit card (balance transfer into your checking account.) I don't have any HELOCs on houses I've lived in. My HELOCS stand first place on my rental properties. I get one on a house I bought with cash the previous year. Mind you, a lot of banks won't give you a HELOC on a rental property, but Wells Fargo will at 70% but their appraisals are really low. HELOCs are the way to go for me because they are flexible unlike a conventional mortgage and a lot of banks won't write a conventional mortgage on a house which is less than 50K. And closing costs are minimal.