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All Forum Posts by: Tip Lee

Tip Lee has started 6 posts and replied 11 times.

Hi everyone, 

I have a question regarding doing a deal with 2 partners. Here's the scenario. 3 partners, equal shares, buying an investment property. All 3 will be on title, but the loan will only be under one person. We will create an LLC to operate out of.

The business gross' $2000/month. PITA =$1000/month. So the LLC nets $1000 month and that is split 3 ways. Easy enough. My question is when the person who has the mortgage in their name goes to get another property, will the lender look and see that the property gross' $2000/month and allow that person to count 75% of it? Or since they are only 1/3 owner of the LLC do they just get to count 75% of 1/3rd? Ideally, I think they should get to count $1000 of the gross (to cover the expenses) and then 1/3rd of the net correct? What is the best way to set up the legal side of this so that the person who is on the loan does not reduce their borrowing capacity in the future?

Thanks so much for the input. 

Post: Portland Oregon Area Meetups

Tip LeePosted
  • Kailua, HI
  • Posts 12
  • Votes 4

@Dale E. Matheny sorry man, just saw your post. Hit me up next time your in Portland. Im always down to meet others with similar passions. 

Hi everyone,

Just looking for some advice on how to manage finances. We are set to be closing on a deal that would put us at 23 units total spread across 3 properties that we are self managing. We will be using Cozy for rent collection and maintenance requests, but are trying to figure out the best way to manage the financial side. 

Since we are still small it does not seem cost effect to use one of the online softwares like appfolio or buildium yet. What do you all use to balance the books? Just a simple excel spreadsheet? If so, would anyone mind sharing a copy of the excel that they are currently using? 

One thing we are really wanting to do is to set systems in place so we can scale with them, and not have to constantly change our systems as we grow. 

I would love to hear from those in a similar situation as well as those with 100+ units, to see what they would do different if they were to go back to when they were just getting started. 

Thanks so much for all the help, 

Tip

Post: Portland Oregon Area Meetups

Tip LeePosted
  • Kailua, HI
  • Posts 12
  • Votes 4

@Neal Collins thanks for the heads up! Ill be there. 

Post: Portland Oregon Area Meetups

Tip LeePosted
  • Kailua, HI
  • Posts 12
  • Votes 4

Hi folks, 

Anyone know of any meet-ups coming up in the Portland Oregon area?

Looking to connect and just chat with others pumped on real estate investing.

Thanks, Tip

Post: Question on vacancy reserves

Tip LeePosted
  • Kailua, HI
  • Posts 12
  • Votes 4

Hi, 

Newbie here. I have a quick question regarding "vacancy reserves". Im having a bit of a hard time wrapping my head around this, but I think its very simple and Im over thinking it. 

When calculating vacancy reserves- Do I simply tally up what the property would make if every unit was rented, and then set aside a percent of that for "vacancy reserves"? Like if the property grosses $8000 in rents and I want to factor a 10% vacancy, I would plan to set aside $800/month for that? 

If so, does that money just go into an account to help offset months where the property does not bring in $8000 in rents?

Or am I subtracting $800 from the $8000 to account for not really always having every unit rented, and then I base my whole budget off of $7200 instead? 

I guess im just confused on if the "vacancy" is actually money set aside, or just money I subtract from my gross income when making my budget to account for the possibility of not having every unit rented. 

Thanks so much!

Post: Online Rent Payment Zillow

Tip LeePosted
  • Kailua, HI
  • Posts 12
  • Votes 4

Thats really cool. My business partner has us setup using cozy which does the same thing. I guess they make their money off of the background check and then they offer the renter other things like renters insurance etc, which is also a revenue stream. 

Its great for landlords since its free and only costs the tenant that initial screening fee which they probably would have paid with any application. 

Post: Looking at a apartment complex in a rural area

Tip LeePosted
  • Kailua, HI
  • Posts 12
  • Votes 4

Hi Guys, 

Just wanted to get some feedback on a deal my cousin and I are looking at. We're completely new to the multi family arena, so any feedback is appreciated. Here are the facts: 

18 unit apartment building, 2 stories, each unit is 2 bed, 1 bath. Each unit is one floor only. The property is located in a rural area, population is ~7000 people in the City/town. There is a Walmart and some other chain stores, and a few manufacturing plants. A lot of people that live in the town commute to nearby towns as well for work. 

Price is $450k, market rent for each unit is $455/month ($8190 gross total). Electric is paid by tenant and water is billed back but paid by owner. 

Here is the breakdown

Prop mgmt 10% $869.00
Vacancy 10% $869.00
Repairs 7.5% $651.75
Cap Ex 7.5% $651.75
Lawn Care $150.00
Pest Control $65.00
Turnover Repair ($750 per- 2x/yr) $125.00
mortgage 6% APR $2,160.00
Insurance ( $3600/yr) $300.00
Taxes $351.00
Gas/Electric $1,400.00
Total Expenses $7,592.50
Total Operating cost (no debt service) $5,432.50
Income Rent (100% occupancy at current rate) $7,770.00
Income Storage/parking $-
Income Other (Laundry+ water) $920.00
Total Income $8,690.00 
Cashflow monthly $1,097.50
Cashflow annually $13,170.00 

Although current rent is $455, a lot of the units are on leases that are less, so actual gross monthly income currently is $7770 from rents. 

I tried to be as conservative as possible being that this is our first apartment deal and I know there is a lot we have to learn. I factored a higher interest rate, added in $ for turnovers, increased the vacancy from 8% which is what the building has to 10% and factored 10% mgmt although the plan is for us to manage. 

My concerns are the following: 

-Area- its more rural, not a up and coming city, will this make it hard to sell later? Hard to rent in a down economy?

-The current owner took great care of the property so there is not a huge amount of obvious value add things. We can update 3 units that but the rest have been updated. We could also add washers/dryers in each and convert the laundry room to another unit or two. We have thought about adding covered parking or storage as well. My concern is that there may not be as much room for value add opportunities

-Unforeseen things-mitigating risk: what else can we do to mitigate risk and plan for the unforeseen? Am I too low on cap ex /repair amounts? It has  a new roof, new sewer and all exterior plumbing so a lot of big stuff has been done. 

-Exit strategy- how realistic is it to think that we could add some value and sell a place in a smaller town in 5 years? Do these types of places usually take longer to sell?

Thanks so much for all your feedback in advance. Any input is appreciated. 

Post: New to the investing in real estate desperately need advice

Tip LeePosted
  • Kailua, HI
  • Posts 12
  • Votes 4

Tatiana, Im definitely not an experienced investor by any means, more just started out and was where you are about 6 months ago. For me real estate investing was something I really wanted to try, which sounds like you do to. However it was not my only source of investing. My wife and I still contribute to our Roth's, and 401k's but I really wanted to get into real estate. Like the more experienced people mentioned, having a goal in mind really has helped me. I wanted to shoot to replace a certain amount of my income, however I wanted to be conservative starting out because I wanted to see if I liked it and it was something I wanted to keep doing. 

That said I can only tell you what I did that made me feel comfortable. I made sure my wife and I had 3 months of living expenses in savings, plus another 6 months of being able to cover the mortgage on the investment property we were looking to buy. On the flip side, we definitely did experience "analysis paralysis" because we were in a position to invest about 2 years ago but I just kept analyzing everything. 

If I were to rewind to the beginning I would have done the same thing

1.Saved up a emergency fund of living expenses

2. Identified my goals in real estate investing (obviously this will be fluid and change over time)

3. Saved up 20% down

4. Saved up reserves for the property

5. Start looking where you live or where you have people you trust (for me it was out of state where my cousin lived)

Best of luck!

Ok thanks so much for the info!