All Forum Posts by: Tim S.

Students are pretty clueless on how to fix the simplest things.  I created a booklet for them on how to check for and resolve common small problems, like how to reset a circuit breaker, or snake a drain, plunge a toilet, stop a toilet form overflowing, what can go into the toilet, and what can't. 

I make it very clear to them that its costs at least $75 for someone to come to the property to look at a problem, Plus more $ to actually fix it.  So if the problem was caused by them, they will be financially responsible for fixing it.  So I give them information to help them solve their own problems. 

I also use a property manager, I don't want to deal with these kinds of problems.  There aren't that many service calls once the students are trained as I explained above. 

@Christian Pirotte
As other have said it's not a very good area for short term rentals.  I have a student rental near UPS, I had to rent it short term to fill a 4 month gap a while back.  I was able to rent it about 60-70% of the weekends, but almost nothing mid week.  Didn't make enough to cover the mortgage.

I'm in the process of building an ADU on it, it is full of surprises.

It's ok, not worth paying for though, I had the Pro version for a while.  Can get the same info for free as mentioned above. 

Still hard to say, depends on current condition and how nice you want to make.  Last one I did, all new flooring, paint everything inside and out, new appliances, paint the kitchen cabinets. new laminate kitchen counters  ~$20k  1500 sq ft house in B area. 

You are going to need to define what you mean by full home rehab?  Could be just paint and carpets in all rooms, or could also include new kitchen cabinets, appliances etc. or anywhere in between. 

Just about everyone I know around my age (mid to late 50's) has either already left or are seriously considering it, myself included.  Had 3 close friends move in the last year to: Austin area, Boise, Salt Lake City.  Another is about to move to Colorado Springs.  All upper middle-class / wealthy people, they are not leaving the kind of housing that the homeless will be backfilling. 

Taxes, homelessness, traffic (pre COVID, but getting back to those levels), cost of living, poorly managed

I used JP Jones Engineering on a small project. Worked out fine for me, I don’t have anything to compare him to but, no reason not to recommend him.  

That's true @Mary M. but you could take that cash, and rather than apply to the mortgage where you are only making the interest rate of the loan, you could invest it in something with a higher return, and after some period of time apply all of those gains to your mortgage in one lump sum. 

If one doesn't have the skills or discipline to make more money outside of the mortgage, then ok, maybe you want to just pay down the mortgage.  It's not that hard to make 10% in the stock market (currently), so maybe you invest those additional mortgage payments in the S&P500, and every 3 years (for example), apply all of that to the mortgage. 

It depends on the market, (thanks Cpt. obvious), I think smaller private schools will fare better, rich(er) parents.  Kids don't want to be home, they want to be with their friends as Will said.  I'm also on the alumni board of a fraternity, at a CSU, families tend to be middle class. We are renting rooms to non-fraternity students, demand is pretty high, the dorms are closed and kids want to live near campus. It's a very expensive market and the fraternity is very cheap by comparison to other private housing. 

Sounds expensive, college students are pretty accommodating.  My daughter lived in a house with 6 girls, and only one bathroom, they made it work. 

You could probably have 2 baths and be fine, or maybe 2 Brs share a bath, so 3 bath total.  As far as kitchen goes, you really don't need extra appliances for 6 people, lots of storage, multiple microwaves, should be fine.  I own student housing, and am on the alumni board for a fraternity, that's where my experience comes from.  The fraternity has 26 brms, 2 stoves, 3 microwaves.  They eat out a lot, not into cooking much, they are happy to microwave a burrito.