All Forum Posts by: Tom O.

Cash for keys costs money. It may save you money when compared to a formal eviction, but it does not save money. Saving money is what happens when you invest in a city/state with a fair judicial system that evicts misbehaving tenants in less than 30 days.

@Noah Lomax you're already committed, so I applaud you for doing the work to learn the ropes in this market. However, future purchases should consider property management fees as part of your calculation. If you need it, you can afford it. If you don't, that's an extra 10% to set aside for the next investment. I would also recommend you consider investing in a state that is not so heavily slanted towards favoring tenants. Chicago was a mess before COVID started and it's only getting worse. Yes, you can be successful there, but you can be successful much easier in other places.

Here's my experience:

$550 x 12 = $6,600 per year

You are subsidizing her rent by $6,600 a year. Every year you are losing enough to replace the flooring, paint the interior, replace the furnace, or replace the windows. Every two years you are losing enough to replace the roof or the driveway.

I think it's acceptable to keep rent 5-10% below market for a PERFECT tenant, but I don't recommend letting it get more than 10% below market. You're over 30% below market.

There are many, many excellent tenants that will pay market rate. You're essentially putting the financial well-being of your tenant ahead of yourself. I doubt you got into real estate investing to help other people get ahead in life.

@Christopher Tokarski You can put down 20% on conventional but I put way more investors into DSCR loans nowadays since I can get them 20% down in DSCR too and its easier. We dont qualify based on the borrowers income history at all. Its much more about qualifying the property of interest than looking at the borrowers background.

 @Tom O. In my experience, many commercial lenders won't do personal loans on commercial properties. They require an entities (LLC, S or C Corp, etc). Your a perfect example of an exception, which is why I said I don't know if I totally agree with that statement. There are exceptions in every case.

I did misspeak that all loans require an entity. I used LLC as an example but should have kept it more broad.

As far as the LLC conversation, there are tax strategies that make LLC's favorable. They are not just for protection, although that is the most common reason people use them.

Hi All

I have a 6 family apartment building I've been starting to look a little deeper into.  I've done the underwriting of the property first from a distance, and then zoomed in a bit closer and underwrote the deal as both a before, and after some common space renovations.

The property is owned by two brothers who definitely want out.  They've been handed the property down from their parents, have mismanaged it pretty poorly, and now have had to property fall out of escrow twice over the last year due to hard money falling through.  Nobody is on a lease, and although some capex stuff has been done over the last couple of years (roof, sewer line), many other things have not.

For starters, the four upstairs units are on their own electric meters, but the two downstairs units as well as the common spaces are all on one meter.  At the very least, all the electrical meters will have to be moved outside once any work starts, and I'm looking at 7 new meters and 7 new panels.  My question is, what are some resources I could look at for commercial that will show exactly what type of things will be tripped once I start doing some work.  I'm ok with the electrical work, but if all of a sudden all the plumbing needs to be replaced because of something, and then the fire suppression system etc I'll be in trouble real quick.  

I've never bought anything over 4 units so this is me wading into uncomfortable territory, but I do feel like with the right value adds over time this thing has the potential to be a great buy for me longterm.

Thoughts?

ps as far as building codes go, I'm in the state of Massachusetts

I usually just say I'm mostly retired if anybody asks, but they rarely do. 

I have quite a few retired silver backs I work out around  at the gym in the quiet mid-morning hours. They ask sometimes. 

It was tougher when I used to buy a lot of construction material in the middle of the day.  Are you a contractor I would be asked.  Nah, just a bad handyman patching together a rental I'd say.  A few would ask about that but for the most part people are just doing their own thing and really don't care.