All Forum Posts by: Tanya H.

Welcome, Rob.  My family is from the Bay City area (and I'm currently purchasing a property there), and I grew up in the Soo.  I have to admit that I've never been the southwestern side of Michigan.  How interesting that it's rated as a top weekend getaway destination!

So how many vacation rentals do you own there?  Are they mainly rented just for weekends?  Are your other properties in that area as well?

Take a look around this site - there is such wonderful information - podcasts, articles, and these wonderful forums.

Tanya

I'm surprised that there is any place in Scottsdale that would have rents this low.  I know there are some relatively sketchier areas there, but $650 for a 2/1 seems really low.  You say 2 of the units have been renovated.  I can't imagine what that would mean for such low rents.  

I think your expenses might be a little on high side, but not outrageously so.  I prefer to estimate them on the high side of a range.  

So I agree with you that this does not seem to be a good deal - not for a 4-plex.   I generally invest in SFRs, but I've had multi-units in the past.  For SFRs, my rule of thumb is the monthly gross rent needs to be at least 1% of the purchase price.  For multi-units, it should be higher, in my opinion.  This one does not even meet the 1% rule.  Since you don't think there is much room for rent growth, I think I would pass.   

But it still just seems weird.  My first thought was $284K for a 4-plex in Scottsdale is something to jump at. 

Your gross rents amount sounds low.  If it's a 4-plex, are you only getting about $600/month a unit in rents?

Tanya

Hi Chris,

I have rental property in Michigan and, like @Larry F., I would love to learn more to see if it's repeatable there as well.

Thank you,

I also allow pets.  As others have said, not allowing them here in Colorado would definitely limit the applicant pool. 

I have both a non-refundable pet fee, and a refundable pet deposit.  The non-refundable pet fee is used for "a disinfecting/sanitizing carpeting cleaning".  The refundable pet deposit is to cover any true damage that the dog(s) may cause.  

I really would prefer to not have cats in the properties, but I have allowed them in a couple of cases, and I've not had any issues.  

Someone noted putting a size limit on dogs.  I am a life-long dog owner, and I have had many breeds/sizes.  I have to say that larger dogs are, in general, calmer and less damaging.  So I would never limit the size of dogs.  And all other things being equal, I would choose renters with large dogs over ones with small dogs.

Tanya

I live on a long rural "driveway" that 6 homes share (with easements).  It's really a road, but the county doesn't own or maintain it.  It's about a mile long and required a lot of work.  We drew up a road agreement with the 5 other neighbors to address the maintenance of the dirt road to include snow plowing.  You might want to look into that.  

We were lucky, all of our neighbors are wonderful and we had no problem getting everyone to join in.   

Tanya

@Brian Eastman, thank you so much for your response.  You validated what I was basically thinking, that it probably was best to not purchase it thru the SDIRA, since it's just too close to the DP situation.  

My understanding is that a sibling is not a disqualified person.   

So with that, I am wondering how/if I can buy a property with my SDIRA from my sister that she bought from my grandmother.  She did not purchase it using an SDIRA, obviously.  

Is there a period of time that I need to wait before I can purchase it with my SDIRA, given that my grandmother is a DP for me?

I live in CO and I have a townhome in Scottsdale that I manage from afar.  It has worked very well for me.  

I've been fortunate to have long-term tenants, but when I do have a turnover, I fly down there.  I arrange to meet with the out-going tenants, and ahead of time I schedule the cleaning and the carpet cleaning for those to happen immediately after my walk-thru with the out-going tenants.  I also advertise via Craigslist and set up a lot of appointments for the day after all the cleaning.  I gather all the applications, and then I fly home.  From home I do all the due diligence and decide on a tenant.  All lease signing and deposits/payments can be done on-line, and I leave most of the keys at the house (e.g. garage door openers, pool keys, mailbox keys).  Then once the tenant and I have the lease signed and monies exchanged, I either mail the key to them, or I arrange for a friend in the area to meet them to deliver the key.  

Most  of the maintenance work is done by professionals.  But my husband has driven down a time or two if the professional charges are unreasonable.  That happened once with a leak in a water line outside (from the meter to the house).  The plumbing company wanted to charge $7000 to dig about 10 feet of line and fix the leak.  

Please feel free to PM me if you have any further questions.

Adam K - is there a way that you can charge a one time pet fee that is not a deposit?

Even though we have leeway here in Colorado on how much of a deposit we can charge, I did learn of an important safety tip that to make sure I don't refer to the pet fee as a deposit. That verbiage could be used to indicate that it's refundable. It's better to refer to it as a pet fee, and to state how much of it is refundable if there is no damage.

Just a thought?