All Forum Posts by: Jeff G.

@Drew Sygit, thank you for the excellent reply!

Do you have some tool for determining the median credit score for a given neighborhood? I think there is a way to do it by zip code but that's not really granular enough. Right now I use school ranking as a means of inferring neighborhood quality. It's not perfect, but it helps. I'd like more tools in my toolbox though.

Quote from @Nathan Gesner:

Unkempt lawns, trashy or broken down vehicles, mattresses and trash on empty lots, boarded up houses, bars on windows, dealers and hookers on the corners, the lack of stores or gas stations, occupied properties are dilapidated, etc.

Or when Google maps shows stuff like this:

If those are drug zombies, as they appear to be, that's an "F" class neighborhood where nobody pays rent and structure burnouts are common. If you intended me to take something else from that picture, such as an unfortunate motor vehicle accident, let me know.

I invest out of state in C-class neighborhoods in the Midwest. One of my units MAY be in an area that is going down hill, but I could absolutely be wrong. From several states away, how can I be sure? I'd hate for a temporary dip in the quality of the tenant pool to be giving my landlord "spidey sense" false alarms on account of taking an extra month or two to fill a unit. I'm happy to rent in a C-class area, even though it can take some work to stabilize a property. I don't really want to invest in a D-class area.

Tangentially, what are some of your "it's time to sell this property" red lines when it comes to the changing economic conditions of an area?

Quote from @Brendan Taylor:

Yep. Been here before with Akron code and got a complete run around. Basically, I was lied to but of course this all happened over a phone call. Cost me a few thousand. 

Get EVERYTHING in writing. Do not communicate in any form other than email.

How long did it take you to resolve things? This has been an issue for over a year. I've done my part. Akron is just dragging its feet. I'm not sure what their problem is. The issues, such as they were, have been fixed.

@Jonathan Greene, that sucks. I'm sorry you went through that. I'd be pretty irritated over the loss of 6k, 4 months of stopped work and the corresponding holding costs.

Do you invest in OH, or somewhere else?

Yeah, I get it. I can't compel competence that does not exist.

@Jonathan Greene, can you tell me one of the more notable times this happened and how it finally resolved? Did you ever have to get a lawyer involved or did it not go that far?

I have a property in Akron, OH that I freshly rehabbed about two years ago. At some point the tenant called Code Enforcement over some minor gripes instead of contacting the PM and expressing his/her concerns. Code Enforcement came by and could see the place was freshly rehabbed, so there wasn't much to cite. But, of course, they found something to send me a written notice over.

It was a handful of small stuff, no big deal. I had the PM get in touch with the contractor and he addressed the "issues" fairly quickly. Then the problems started...

Code Enforcement would schedule a time to come by only to ghost my PM. Apparently this happened several times. Eventually the PM could no longer reach the code enforcement person and everything just went to VM. After several months of trying to get code enforcement to clear us and not getting any response from there end, and escalating to a superior who apparently did nothing, we considered the matter closed. We've fixed the handful of items they listed.

Unfortunately, two or three weeks ago I got an email from a code enforcement about this now year old citation. The tone of his email implied he had been unable to reach my PM after "several attempts." Well, apparently there weren't "several attempts" he'd just caught her at an inopportune moment and it took her all of about 30 minutes to call him back. After some back-and-forth an inspection was scheduled only for the code enforcement agent to... wait for it... wait for it... ghost my PM.

At this point, I've advised my PM to communicate with code enforcement in writing as much as possible and to continue to document their no-shows, etc. I also asked her to try to schedule the next inspection at the start of their workday to make it difficult for the inspector to claim to have been delayed by some other matter with any sort of credibility.

Is anyone else here dealing with these kinds of shenanigans? How do I exit this Groundhog Day-like endless loop?

Quote from @Andrew B.:

It only applies to those who own more than 50 units, so if thats you I get why you're not happy, but I do believe this is a good thing for Americans. The cost of housing has exploded. 

I'm sure someone will chime in and say "that's going against capitalism and the free market," but I'll remind you tax benefits are not part of the free market. The whole intention behind a tax benefit is to encourage you to do something. If the rental market is extremely profitable, you dont need more incentives to buy rentals, you were going to do it regardless. 

 Nope, I don't have 50 units. I expect to grow to that size eventually, but that day is not today. I'm with you on the tax incentive argument: I'm very much a flat tax guy.

It's not that rent control is "against the free market" that bothers me. That happens to be true, but the real problem is that it introduces artificial inefficiencies in the market that end up severely harming the people that it's allegedly supposed to help.

Wherever there is rent control there is severe market dysfunction. I have yet to see a counterexample.

Apparently the White House is pushing for national rent control. Landlords with 50 units or more would be limited to a maximum of 5% annual rent increases.

The linked "fact sheet" is, well, oddly light on facts. 

For starters, it fails to specify which "valuable tax breaks" would be rescinded for raising rents according to the dictates of the free market instead of ignoring it in favor of an arbitrary limitation. Taking away write-offs for standard business expenses wouldn't make sense. The only thing I can think of is getting rid of the depreciation rule, but that's just an educated guess on my part. I could be wrong. I'm curious if anyone else here has a different take.

Second, I don't see links to draft legislation. Is there draft legislation for this that I just happened to miss?

How seriously should we as landlords take this push? How likely is something like this to pass?

Discuss.

I'm a long distance investor. As a quick-and-dirty approach I use school quality as a way to guestimate neighborhood quality. The downside is this isn't terribly granular so it can be misleading. Some cities can be very different a block or two away but share a school district.

I've tried to find a good crime map, but without much luck. The few Google points me to are either not granular enough or want to change me an arm and a leg for a limited number of reports per year. I'm open to suggestions on this one.

I've started "virtually walking" the street of a property I'm interested in with Google Maps. That helps. I can look to see if there are bars on windows, graffiti everywhere, how well people care for their lawns, etc. That's about where I run out of ideas.

What tools and techniques are you using to gauge a neighborhood's quality from a distance?