All Forum Posts by: Naga A.

some of property managers in Atlanta I will be interviewing are not a member of NARPM. What significance of this? Do you guys check if your pm is the member when you hire your pm?

At least in my market, pm has to be a licensed agent. So, not being a member of this does not mean he is not licensed. If so, the NARPM is more an org of which to be a member is totally voluntary?

@Mike Jakobczak

That was my thought. We'll too late now, I already told my contractor that I live oversea. From next time, I will not say that. How did you get a local address? Please pm me if you don't feel like saying herer

@Mike Jakobczak

So do you pretend to vendors that you are a local investor?

Do you use the US address?

@Jonathan Twombly

I own my properties under my name for some tax reason

@Engelo Rumora yes but until trust built I want my vendors to think that I can monitor their works anytime

I have a dilemma. When I talk to contractors, agents or property managers and get asked where I live or my current address is, I cringe and reluctantly say I live in japan. I don't want to say it because I don't want them to think they could take advantage of me or I can't monitor their work.

So i am thinking of getting US address and phone number (apparently there are some services) to hide the fact that I live oversea. To those foreign investors here, do you use the same tactic and if so do you use the US address and phone number and which company you use?

I used to see a plenty of properties at the 30-50k range in stone mountain or lithonia areas two or three years ago

It is hard for me to adjust the mentality to the market reality. I don't mean to dampen your enthusiasm. But is it worth investing in the areas paying that much money(looks like the current market is more like 70 rather than 50k, not sure if you can find any house in snellville even with 70)? We probably will not see any appreciation in the areas and the rent is 800-850 for 3bd and it takes more to place a tenant now because of glut of rental houses. If you have one bad tenant you will start losing money. Not sure buying a house in the areas with that much money makes sense any more from a buy and hold stand point.

@Pyrrha Rivers

Inspectors usually do not do a rehab estimate. They are simply not trained to do that. I was surprised to hear that your inspector is willing to provide one for you. The other way to get an estimate is to ask a general contractor to walk through the house and give you an estimate. They might charge $50 -$100 per estimate but typically credit that amount against the entire rehab expenses once you ask him to do the rehab work. One caveat is that you should not ask a general contractor to give you an estimate unless you intend to use him for the rehab work too. They just do not like being asked to give an estimate to someone who does not intend to use him for the rehab work.

P.S. By the way, can we talk on the phone? I will be in Atlanta next week and would like to talk to you before I take off. I will send a PM and give you my phone number.

@Pyrrha Rivers undefined

Congrats on taking a first step on purchasing your first property! Seems like you are doing all the right things and taking proper analysis and due diligence. What area are you usually looking at? I am guessing your target area is Stone Mountain since you are from there?

@Rachel H. undefined, @K. Marie Poe undefined, @Dawn Anastasi,

Thank you for your advice. Sounds like I should hire an agent or somebody to oversee the rehab work to be done by a GC. But, as long as I have somebody local supervising the rehab work, rehab remotely would be doable. When I posted my question here, I was expected everybody saying "don't do it, you will be ripped off".

Assuming that I engage a general contractor (who was recommended on BP) to do a rehab work on a property (nothing heavy, probably a 10K to 15K rehab work (external and internal painting, flooring, kitchen etc.), being an out of state investor and not being able to monitor his work directly, do you think I should hire someone local as a project manager to supervise the GC's work (that is if I find somebody who can take such a project manager job for 1 or 2 thousand dollars) or can rely on the GC to do his work and may be ask my property manager to check his work a couple time during rehab ( in the middle and after the rehab work)? This is not a flip, but a buy and hold (and rent) property. What do you think?

@Carson M.

Thanks for the tips. I did not know crimereport.com. I used spotcrimes.com but crimereport.com is better.

Regarding my acquaintance, I do not think he will ever invest in the US RE market again. He invested here without conducting due diligence and totally relied on words of a turnkey property company, which is too naive IMHO. Unfortunately, he is just not cut out for this.