All Forum Posts by: Tim S.

If you are a small investor you should use a small PM firm, a big company will not give a small customer a high level of service, they will put their efforts into their big customers.  They will tell you that they treat all customers the same, but they don't.  Money talks and gets attention, small money = small attention. 

You still need to vet them no matter what size, will they provide the services you need at a fair price, are they responsive to you and the renters?  

100% put your photo on it. Plenty of evidence that this is important.  Yes with today's tech they are less important than ever, but they are so cheap, why not.   Easy just to hand them over when meeting people face to face.  

An investor friendly agent knows what kinds of properties are attractive to investors.  Specifically:

I'm assuming SFR's, they know which areas of town are good rental areas. What type of house works well for a rental (location, amenities, floor plan, size, schools, etc).

They know which ones are more likely to perform financially, they understand concepts like ROI, Cash on cash return, etc. What is the right price to buy, such that after any repairs it will rent for an amount that will allow it to produce positive cash flow. They should be able to narrow down the lit of available houses to ones that are good rental candidates, based on all the above factors.

They should know who the good property managers are, they should have some relationship with handymen, contractors, etc. 

Most agents work with retail buyers who will live in the house, they have different requirements than investors. 

Every market is different, each property is different, can’t make generalizations about the cap rate of an asset class as a whole. 

Brand new rules for Tacoma, a big improvement.

https://www.sightline.org/2019/03/20/tacoma-adopts-exemplary-reform-for-in-law-apartments/

It’s better to have one lease all students are on it together, they can peer pressure each other to pay on time and keep the place in good shape. My place is furnished, they pay for utilities and internet.  1 year lease they pay for summer as well, I allow them to sub lease during the summer, most stay though  

A sign in the yard is very effective for me due to the location, Facebook works great as well. 

When I hear about these things, I always wonder, who would fall for this, it's so clearly a scam?  Now I know. 

I was also quoted 5.75%, 20% down, excellent qualifications.  

We make our students sign a 1 year lease. Some stay for the summer, others sub lease to friends. This is typical to in our market. 

The fact that they volunteered that "we were not jumping up and down" means 100%  they were.  why else would they even mention it?  Agree that proving it will probably be more costly and stress inducing than just fixing it and moving on.