All Forum Posts by: Stephanie Meeks

@Maria Matthew,  Is the lease month to month? If so, I would just get rid of one of them. I had a similar situation before, although one roommate was just a straight up degenerate so I pretty much always sided with the other one. 

From the sounds of it, I would probably get rid of the one with the dog. I think you're kind of taking on a lot by allowing one of your housemates to have a pet (unless if you're being paid extra for it). And there's a good chance the dog is being bothersome to your other roommates as well, but they're not speaking up. I tend to like clean freaks (as long as they're not crazy or anything) since you can probably count on them to take care of your property. 

Hi @Karim Elahi! Personally, I think section 8 is great and yes you can most definitely do it out of state which I have done. In terms of difficulties, you might not get paid right away because everything done with the government takes forever so it might take them a hot minute to update their systems especially if you are inheriting that tenant from a previous landlord. So just make sure you have enough cash in reserves, because there's a good chance you won't be getting paid asap. Another thing to look out for is to make sure you or your property management company are keeping up with market rents and requesting increases when necessary. There should be forms for this that you can fill out annually. The key really though for doing section 8 out of state is to have a good property management company (actually that basically goes for all out of state investing lol).

@Jean-Marie Poth That's awesome! It was actually a nice and super easy way to make a little extra money with very little hassle! But anyway, to answer your question I found a storage lease agreement online and made some adjustments to it. I also required an application form with a non-refundable application fee. If you message me privately, I will be more than happy to provide you with the forms I used!

I agree with @Tanner Pile. My question though is why do you want to lease 4 bedrooms to just one person? You can most likely make more money if you rent out each bedroom individually to different people. (If it's more for personal reasons though and not so much for making money, then that makes sense. )

But yes, just as Tanner said earlier I would keep it all on one lease while clarifying which rooms are for sole use by the tenant and which ones are common areas. If you don't already have a lease in mind, I'd check out the landlord forms provided by BP for your state. Reread it carefully and make appropriate adjustments.

Hi @Chance Covan!

Welcome to BP! If you have the opportunity I would most definitely house hack. If you do not already own your primary residence, then it will be easier for you to get a loan with low to no money down with a better rate for that then it would be for another property. Rent out whatever rooms you can in your primary residence and manage your roommates/tenants yourself. You will learn so much by just doing this. While house hacking your first year, continue to learn and study as much as you can. No need for any overpriced education, just read books on real estate investing during your down time (I would recommend the "ABCs or Real Estate Investing" by Ken Mcelroy if you are brand new) and listen to the BP podcast when you're commuting, cleaning, cooking, etc. Then by the next year you should be ready to make some bigger moves. Good luck!

Hi @Jennifer Cramer! Congrats on taking your first steps in real estate investing! I know how overwhelming and exciting it all is! I completely understand what it's like trying to invest when you're not exactly in a great investor friendly market. I started investing out of state while I was in Hawaii because it just made more sense. 

It terms of deciding where to invest, I watched a bunch of videos and read a lot on analyzing real estate markets. I found this video here to be particularly helpful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4ySnUj16i0&t=464s

This video series was helpful too when deciding to invest out of state for the first time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdnUzDgaVUw

When I was starting out I did choose the Atlanta area as one of my markets, but I would agree that it might be a little saturated these days and might be a bit harder now to find deals. I would suggest you also check out the Augusta area. I currently reside here and am a realtor here so I might be a bit biased, but I think it's a great growing market that's also only about 2 hours away from Atlanta. If Augusta does interest you, I would love to talk to you more and see if I can help in any way!

Whatever you choose, best of luck and you're gonna do great! My biggest advice is to not get too caught up in analysis paralysis and eventually just pull the trigger and go!  

Hi Jin,

I have not built an ADU before, but the idea has always been very interesting to me. I invest in NC and might look into ADU's as an option in the future. The market I invest in allows ADU's in certain zoning but requires that an additional off-street parking spot is constructed or already available so consider parking availability before making any moves. The best estimates I could find when researching this myself last year was between $140-$200 per sqft depending on location, quality etc. If you want to look at worst case scenario, the cost to build two ADU's, 800sqft and 1200sqft could be as little as $250k and as much as $400k. NC doesn't have the housing shortages that California or other states have so building an ADU may not produce the returns as they could elsewhere though.

Converting garages is probably the way I would go. The market I invest in has plenty of 3/2 SFH's, but very few 4 beds or greater. Converting garages will (for me) be the most profitable value add in my market in NC, and one that I would recommend. The costs for conversion are significantly lower and much easier to control.

Congratulations Jason! What a great first deal. Live in Flips are a thing and are generally much more profitable albeit a lot slower than most other flips. Regardless, it looks like you and your wife came out on top! Are you thinking about doing it again? All those lessons learned could be applied to the next one. 

I ordered a copy and am very excited to read it. I've listened to them both speak about the book on their podcast, and it sounds very informative. I'll have more to contribute after I've read it. Looking forward to it!

Hi Christopher,

Thats a good question but I challenge you to answer that yourself. What skills and abilities do you have? Do you have the time/desire to put the effort into learning and applying the knowledge and skills that your mentor provides? Will you take the time to read the books and do the research?

As a mentor, I do not want or need anyone to add value to me in any way other than adding to my network. I really like meeting new people and I believe strongly that who you know can open a lot more doors than what you know. Some people may want to charge a consulting fee or ask that you work for them in some fashion in exchange for the mentorship. I disagree with that, especially for new investors. Mentoring is an opportunity to help others. I will always do it for free because helping others is personally fulfilling and ultimately what I like to do the most.  

If you do decide to seek out a mentor, then I say to consider their time as valuable and take the steps and actions that they recommend. Be honest with yourself and with them and never stop learning!