All Forum Posts by: Thomas Glenn

I would not underestimate repair costs.  I would bump up the percentage for capex and repairs depending on age of property etc (I am not necessarily a huge fan of percentage based projections at it is for repairs/capex as I believe they can be misleading).  

I am assuming you have already closed, but for future reference I have had good experience with BKCW Insurance in Killeen.  Just curious what area did you end up picking up your quadplex?  I own a quad plex and am under contract with a duplex in cove right now.

@Brian Reynolds  I am one of the many Californians who ended up moving out here although it had nothing to do with the economy/prices/ or jobs (it as a nice surprise when I was employed day 1 of moving though).  I worked for one of the larger national residential home builders for a while, and cant tell you how many out of state people from CA were just paying cash.  I use to live just north of LA, and $400k would not get you much in regards to a house (I think 1 bedroom apartments were selling for $200K).  The issue is property taxes.  I have a colleague who purchased a house out here for $310K which is now valued at 40-50 grand higher, and he is paying almost 10K a year in taxes.  My house is valued closer to $200K, and we are pushing 5K a year in property taxes.  

There are a lot of good books on here.

Another few I would suggest are 

Buying and Selling Apartment Buildings by Steve Berges

The Due Diligence Handbook For Commercial Real Estate by Brian Hennessey

Joe Fairless' Podcast is probably one of the best.  Short and sweet with a lot of useful information, and experiences.

I personally ended up paying for Michael Blank's Ultimately Apartment Investing Course which I thought was very good as well.

I actually started with just purchasing the SDA which comes with about an hour and a half worth of videos plus a bunch of other case studies where Michael goes over how to analyze several different buildings.  I really enjoyed the way the material was presented which ultimately helped me to decide buying the full $995 version.  It should be noted that if you buy the SDA, and decide you want to purchase the full course the price of the SDA will be taken off the full course (although I believe there is like a month time limit on this, but could be wrong).  

For me the course along with some other supplemental books has been very much worth the price, and I has helped me to have confidence reaching out to brokers, PMs, etc to start searching for a deal.  

I saw this post a while back while I was also looking for information on Michael Blank's course.  I started my education in the space by reading several of the typically recommended books (Ken Mcelroy's, Steve Berges, Brian Murray, David Lindahl), but after awhile you kind of start to see the same information repeated so I ended up buying the course after I had already purchased the SDA Michael has. 

I am pretty close to being done with the course, and from my personal standpoint it has been well worth it. It goes into detail about some of the procedural stuff that no other book I found went over (specifically operating agreements, PPM, How to approach brokers etc). I probably could have googled all of them at some point, but the course really puts it in an organized sequence which is how I learn. I believe the course ultimately sped up my understanding while also provided more up to date information ( a lot of older books are a little outdated on the financing end). Basically I had the feeling after reading several books of "what next", and the course really helps lay out what I needed to do. There is a lot of information on how to analyze the deals which is probably the most important section. I will say that I highly recommend reading several books prior to taking the course to learn some of the basics about Cap Rates, NOI, and operating expenses (and to just gather more knowledge on how others look for value). I would specifically start with Steve Berges book as I found it was the best one. For me I felt that it just helped soaking up more of the knowledge since its mainly a video based course.

If you have any other questions feel free to send a message.

@Account Closed Thank you for the information as I currently do not own property in the area, and am trying to get a feel for what is going to work heading into 2018. I obviously do not want to acquire a property that a property manager would not only not want to take on, but would be hard to obtain ROI due to operational issues. As property managers if you were to take on lets say even a 40-50 unit property are there specific hard not going to work issues you look for? I mean this outside of obvious things like bad location (war zone)/bad quality tenants due to area (I'm guessing usually due to low rent entrance).

My though process right now is basically to learn to walk before I start to run which is why my general interest has been towards a smaller apartment complex (moving up from a quad plex I manage myself).  I do understand the benefits of going larger (onsite managers/economies of scale) once you get to a larger complex, but at this point I am wanting to keep it simple as my experience widens rather then get into a situational where I am working around syndication as well.

No worries appreciate the reply Bruce.

Hello all.  After acquiring my first smaller multifamily (4 plex) this year I have decided to pursue a larger multifamily unit (10-30 units) in the San Antonio, TX area.  I have completed the first part of my path by raising capital, and am now in search of any recommendations on a property management company in the area that would be able to assist in the size of property I am looking for.  I have searched a lot of the forum history, and have noticed a lot of the recommendations have been for smaller multi's or single family homes.  Does anyone have personal experience with someone who handled a little bit larger multi than can help with some of the acquisition process?  Appreciate any information in advanced.