All Forum Posts by: Todd Pultz

@Ivan Franco I love seeing new investors get the courage to jump in! Best of luck to you! Cleveland can be a solid market, but depending on what your open to investing in there are lots of opportunities in Ohio. I am an investor, Agent, Property Manager in Dayton, OH. I would be happy to chat about Dayton, Cincinnati, Columbus or Cleveland with you. DM me

@Victoria Ghafoor I am a licensed agent, investor, property manager in Dayton, OH. We have several projects in Columbus right now. Let me know exactly what your looking for. DM me

@Tyrone Marson I wish I would have seen this earlier, so I’m sorry for jumping in late, but lots of good advice from others. A few things that caught my attention though I wanted to give my two cents on.

I own and self manage a few hundred doors in Ohio while working a full time job. I also am a licensed realtor. Transparency, my boss is a partner on some of those and I manage a lot of things for him including his real estate, so I have a flexible job and great boss! However, I focus on C properties and often we buy distressed multi-family in challenging neighborhoods which brings challenging tenants. I use Buildium software and I manage every aspect of my business from my IPad! Best investment I’ve ever made! Hands down!

My advice, manage your own stuff! The #1 reason I’m able to buy multi-family at deep discounts and cash refi out at 6 months very successfully is due to poor property management companies. PM companies typically do not and will not treat your property like theirs and as long as they don’t drop you below your reserve, they can be a little loose with spending. Not all of them, but a large majority. If your using the Brrrrr, you need your numbers to look good which typically means forcing your appreciation through rent increases, reducing expenses, reducing vacancy etc. in your first 6 months as a new investor that 8-10% pm charges you can take a huge toll on your re-fi.

The one thing that caught my eye is when you said you didn’t want them to know you are the owner! I know some friends that believe in that, but I personally do not and here’s why. I run less than 5% vacancy on a few hundred doors. It’s because my tenants refer so many people to me I barely ever market units for rents and I have very few move outs. I have waiting lists currently. This is because my renters know that I am the owner and the manager and I treat them with respect. I stop by at odd hours and after hours just so they see my face and know I’m actively involved. If something is broke we fix it, if they have an issue I listen, if they get out of line I have real talk with them. I am fair but firm with them always! They know if I say something, it’s exactly what is meant and not distorted by a PM. Don’t be afraid to be the owner, there are a lot of positives and I truly believe tenants are better to your stuff when there is a personal component. At Christmas, my wife and I buy toys for properties with kids, I give the kids small $ amounts for A’s on their report cards, I randomly pop up with ice pops or popsicles on hot days, I’ll crossover a few kids on the court or just chat with tenants while I’m at properties. My number 1 rule, Always......be good to tenants and treat each how you would want a landlord treating your mom, dad, kid, brother or sister even if it means you don’t make a few extra bucks. The rewards for being good to people will be infinite!

Build your team! If you don’t have time to show units or lease your own units, use someone you trust to do this for you. I DO NOT KNOW YOUR MANAGEMENT LAWS THERE, but in Ohio as long as your owner in a property, you can do all of it yourself and I’m sure your law is similar, but make sure you understand it exactly. The reason is, you can be creative with “ownership” and what that means if you have a friend or family member you trust to do leasing instead of paying higher amounts to an agent or to a PM. I would be happy to share a few creative ideas on that. From there, have your maintenance man ready to roll! Find you a solid attorney to handle your needs including evictions!

I wish you all the luck in the world and PM if you need anything at all or just want to talk through some things

@Matt Ridenour we use lots of hard money for flips and even to get into multifamily before refi. We have learned how to manage the rehab budget to ensure the LTV and ARV numbers make sense based on that lenders criteria. It's also important to understand how to write the scope of work matched on the draws you plan to take. You made need to hike 1 number up and drop another to make sense on your draws. PM me if you need referrals or have questions

@Katie Miller I’ve thought about this a lot and had an opportunity to do something similar. However, it was not a gift, but rather insurance money from a tornado! Due to having the proper insurance with “rent loss” for 12 months we were able to place it into a diverse aggressive stock market portfolio. The market was hot at the time, but this can be risky. From there, we leveraged a credit line against the investment account and were able to draw 80% out at 4%. The investment account continued earning on entire amount as along as thresholds were not crossed with market

We stretched the rehab across 12 months because we had rent loss, so why not. The leveraged money was used to fix and flip. Fix and flips were funded by our lenders at 90% LTC and 100% rehab, so we only needed 10% down. Several of these were completed and those funds were used to purchase multifamily after credit line and rest of principal was paid back.

Large rehab was completed and we were 100% occupied at 13 months!

Some funds were also used to purchase development land in which we sub-divided and sold off to developers for new build!

@Melanie Stephens I’m almost embarrassed to tell my story, lol! About 7 years ago when I first started investing, I purchased my 2nd multi-family property which was a 6 unit. I stole this building for 20k which was back taxes due to the family just wanting to move on after their loved one had been shot in the building during rehab. This building had 4 of 6 units completely rehabbed and they were done well beyond what the neighborhood called for. So, I was walking on clouds knowing I was going to be in at around 50k with fully rehabbed building that at the time would have appraised at about 175k and rented at $695 per unit! We closed at 6pm on a Friday night...............wait, what did I forget to do????? Yup, forgot to bind insurance on it, so I said to myself I would do it Monday morning. Monday morning, 6:30am drinking my coffee and watching the news, I saw a building on fire completely engulfed! That’s right, it was my building I did not have insurance on. Someone had thrown a Molotov cocktail inside. This building had set vacant for two years without any vandalism. Complete loss and required asbestos removal (55k). So from an immediate 125k equity and cash flowing like crazy, to 75k loss in split moment.

@Bryce Witcher I think most others said it, but I never look at price per door, rather I’m looking for the return and cash flow. In Dayton, OH we have a unique market where C class can sell for 12k a door or 40k per door, so it is extremely hard to use that as a factor. The biggest hurdle in these smaller affordable markets is forcing appreciation for refi or Brrrrrr. It works if your going to sell, but because the market still has many distressed properties selling to guys like me, our comps stink and it’s hard to get an accurate appraisal. For us, if the cash flow is right and the debt service is right, we buy. If either are out of line, we pass. If you need any information in this area, let me know! Have a great one!

@Bob Romano, lots of good experienced investors on here. I’m in Dayton, OH. I’m Currently 38 with 125 doors all multi-family with a few more SF’s in the mix. We flip and wholesale and develop, lol, to find our landlord addiction

@Patrick C. I've been there personally just a little differently. I moved a tenant in a few years ago knowing she had a small dog and we charged an extra monthly fee. However, several months later, I was served a notice from the local human rights counsel that I was being sued through them by the fair housing counsel on behalf of the tenant for damages due to the pet fee. Tenant tried to claim, she told me it was an ESA. This was not true. HUD wrote language a few years back that states you can not charge any fees for these ESA. Additionally, they do not have to be a patient of someone like an earlier comment said. The preacher at their church could write them a letter. Anyway, this drug on for 6 months and finally I agreed to go to the local landlord class, let her break her lease and give her $100 back from the pet fee. Unfortunately for her at move out, she lost $475 in deposit for damages. Earlier comment said treat them like a wheelchair........do it!

Now let’s add the spin....ready? Tenant comes to you and gives you ESA paperwork for their Pit Bull? What do you do???

Owning right at 100 doors and still buying, I manage our holds alone and find it fairly simple. I also manage several for “friends” out of state that I have a small ownership in. My team looks at a lot of multi-family buildings and we see a common theme that helps us buy cheap always...........a lot of property management companies in this area are just plain horrible and ensure that owners never make a dollar. I see it time and time again pouring through financials for deals. I will never ever use a 3rd party. My question is this...........are there out of state or even local owners that are frustrated in this area (I know there are, just posing the question lol) and would it be beneficial to start a legit PM business that focuses on increasing the bottom line for the owners instead of themselves? How do you portray that message that our PM is Different than others?