All Forum Posts by: Tim Wilson

@Will Crocker That is my thought as a landlord as well. I can see where if you are a renter or potential tenant coming into that situation where you may then question if the landlord is trying to be greedy now then whats to keep them from raising rent in the middle of the lease? Also, some seem to think that its basically false advertisement type of deal because you start at a price to drum up interest and get people pre screened and to come look at it and then get multiple good tenant possibilities just to put them against each other.

Idk, its tough because you do want as much as you can possibly get but at the same time it isn't a sale. BUT, I would say its on the tenant to sell themselves to the landlord and by raising what they would pay that would certainly help.

Hey all!

Let me tell you, it has been a whirlwind of a week. In an attempt to keep it a bit shorter than a book, we semi recently closed on a townhome in N Metro T2 suburb of Minneapolis. We had it basically rented with a friend of a friend that needed to get out of his parents and into more space with another child on the way. Sounded awesome, background check etc etc all checked out, ended up getting a call from them earlier this week and come to found out she is carrying twins (congrats to them!) but obviously greatly changes a financial situation especially on a single income.

That brings me to the main reason of the post. Flipped directions a bit and went over to the place immediately to get pictures and post it on social media/Zillow/etc etc. Within that night we had over 30 replies with tons of them wanting to come see it. (honestly I feel very humbled after the work we put into it, I feel like this is a bit of an abnormal situation to get that much attention for a place) The thought went through our head maybe we underpriced? I initially thought we were overpriced after looking at comps throughout north metro as well as talking to a couple property management companies and what similar places rent for in our same neighborhood.

Sorry, back to main point. Had 9 showings scheduled last night after pre screening tenants with various questions etc and trying to thin it down a bit. 6 of 9 showed, all were interested in applying and going through background check. It is now the next day and we have probably 2 to 3 that for sure stand out and a possible 4th.

My question to you is if you have multiple tenants that really do not separate themselves in any way, how do you make the choice? The big thing for us was getting somebody that could move in immediately to eliminate any vacancy costs, lucky for us a few of them can. My sister got into a situation similar as a renter herself in Chicago, obviously very different market etc but is it even legal and if so how would I approach this to basically try and make either a bidding war or some sort of separation between the potential tenants?

Any advice is appreciated! We need to make our decision very soon so time is ticking. Thank you!!

@Jason Eno I completely agree with @Jordan Moorhead, you will need to be very patient but there are opportunities out there around the Minneapolis Metro. If you aren't completely stuck on S Minne then I wouldn't count out the other suburbs. It is a crazy market here right now and as Jordan mentioned, any SF homes are going faster than hotcakes and likely go for over list so finding those numbers that work for you will be the challenge not the rehab etc.

There are tons of connections here on BP and the forums are great. I have been quickly learning to get in touch with a few of these guys and look forward to meeting a few soon. Most of us would be more than happy to help in anyway we can.

Jason - where are the hook ups? that job sounds amazing! I could really enjoy a few years of escaping to island life while the soon to be wife works remote ;)

@Max Pallatt I would be interested in knowing a bit more about this lender/realtor you have.

Looking to attend the next one! Thanks for organizing.

Good morning all!

Closing very shortly on our rental investment and wanted to put a bit of a poll out there to see what you landlords use for both your lease documents and tenant screening for your rental. Nothing against biggerpockets obviously but I am curious if the pro users here do use their state specific lease documents at all or if you each use a lawyer or even just a generic lease.

Also with tenant screening - biggerpockets obviously partners with Smart move, until I started regularly reading this forum I had never heard of them before. What national screening service do you use?

Ideally from the responses I will figure out what I need to change/use versus what we used when we owned our MI investment to our now MN investment.

Thank you all!

@Chris Hughes before getting into the details and giving my opinion. Just curious but when was the ac system/compressor installed or mfg date?

Sounds like a win in my book. Congrats on the new property!

I think you would be hard pressed to find many people that agree with this "That $10k gap is an irrelevant amount of money." A 10k gap in an investment really can make or break it, $70/month x 1 year = $840 I would agree that isn't much but do you plan on selling it in a year or even 5 years? for most, unlikely, 840/year x 10 years = 8400, 840x20 years = 16,800. It's compounding, every dollar matters especially positive cash flow. It gets you that much closer to your next venture!

-Tim

Its a bit more pricey and if I remember correctly you need to put a wax coating over top after it dries but we have had great experience with chalk paint. We did that on the trim around our 2 big sliders as well as a barn door we put up and I really enjoy the look of the finish.

-Tim

@Joseph Lee @John Woodrich - I was wondering the same thing! of course without giving away any valued secrets. We just pulled the trigger on a north metro townhouse but no deals like you describe took place that's for sure.

Keep up the good work. It took us a few months to find one that would work and get one into contract. Close next week!

@Scot Poore I like this post as it hits pretty close to home for my situation currently.

I would ask what is the current appraised value of the home? If you would rather not answer, is your equity in the current property high enough that you could withdraw part of that against the home and invest that chunk of change into a second investment?

Cash flow positive is still great no matter what way you look at it and if you don't have a specific reason other than the cash flow thing for wanting to sell ex. say no longer an area you want to own the investment in or in the next couple years you could see no longer being cash flow positive because of HOA fees/Taxes etc I would hold onto it personally as a positive asset. Personal opinion only.

-Tim