All Forum Posts by: Ahmad H.

@Nicolas Vinot
Appfolio seems to be for bigger players. You can start with Buildium, it only costs $40/month and lets you manage up to 40 units. Its not as sophisticated as Appfolio but they do have great customer service and their web-based software does the job.

If your PM is doing a good job I would really stick with them. 7% is a good rate and like you said the software will only streamline processing new tenants, advertising for vacancies, and getting maintenance requests but it won't eliminate the need to do showings and respond to calls.

Welcome Alex! Nice to see new investors from the Capital Region area. Hope you enjoy the site.

@Jonathan Wheeler How bad of an area is it? 

Lower income areas do have higher maintenance, vacancies if your picky with tenants, require more of your time which is also worth money, and the rents are low compared to the CapEx that will come up for the property.

Have you talked to other local investors? I would be curious why others aren't buying those if they are such good deals.  

I am all for going big but you might have to slow down a little bit. Try to get a 20 to 50 unit and then build experience and wealth to scale bigger. Unless you have tremendous experience and a network of wealthy private investors, I do not really see this going anywhere. 

Is this a pubic or off market deal? If its off market have you considered sharing the deal with an investor that can handle it for a finder's fee?

lol @Chris Simmons

Hey Alex,

In my view IRR, NPV, and MIRR are used to compare different types of investments that have substantial cash flow pattern differences. Most people on here are comparing different properties within the same investment type. For this reason using COC, Cap rates, GRM, and DSCR are usually sufficient when comparing different properties with similar cash flow patterns.

Looking forward to seeing other replies.

@Max Reznik Welcome to the site! You will find plenty of info to help you get where you want to be.

I think your goal is realistic. You should be able to net $10k with 40 units without working more than 10hrs/wk.

My experience has been that every 10 units, if in decent areas and condition, require about 2hrs/wk worth of work.

You should buy the first property and see how much time you are spending there every week. A lot of investors just look at the cash flow but time is money so you should also be noting down when you have to go the property and how much time you are spending on your investment. Recording the time needed to self manage will help shape your investment plan going forward. 

@Vince Futia I think you have to budget 14% for maintenance for student rentals and also budget 10% for vacancy.  Another concern is the Albany grouper law that forbids housing more than three unrelated tenants. You might want to look into that, it might not be an issue since sororities are currently renting the units but what if they move out. If you cannot put 4 and 5 students in the units your rents will be a lot lower.

What is the Grouper Law? In the City of Albany there exists a zoning ordinance which has come to be known as the so-called “Grouper Law.” This ordinance only permits four or more persons to live in any dwelling unit if they are members of a traditional family or the functional equivalent of a traditional family. Specifically this ordinance states (Family Definition; section 375-7 zoning ordinance):
FAMILY
1. Shall mean

1. one, two, or three persons occupying a dwelling unit or
2. four or more persons occupying a dwelling unit and living as a traditional family or the functional equivalent of a traditional family

2. It shall be presumptive evidence that four or more unrelated persons living in a single dwelling unit do not constitute the functional equivalent of a traditional "family"

Therefore, three unrelated persons occupying a dwelling unit is the maximum allowed by this ordinance.

It depends on your goals. If you are looking to buy commercial property, getting your license is not going to do much. You would be better off crunching numbers and learning how banks analyze deals.

What would you be doing if you transition to the real estate department? 

What are you looking to do in real estate?

Too many names come to mind but in no particular order, one of my dream teams would have:

@Jay Hinrichs to fly his airplane with a "We buy houses!" flag and for his macro level view

@Ben Leybovich for risk management and analysis

@Brie Schmidt for execution so we actually buy something

@Wendell Deguzman to wholesale anything from real estate to distressed countries like Venezuela with a good ARV (After Revolution Value)

Joking aside, there is a lot of brain power and wisdom on this site. Thanks to all members for sharing their stories, knowledge, opinions, and experiences!