All Forum Posts by: Tim Lindstrom

Having wifi is a perk for your rental.  When I use airBnB, I look for units that have free wifi.  as long as you need it for the locks,  you might as well set it up and offer it as a perk.

I haven't done any multi-family deals yet, so my comments might not carry any weight...  

Do you have the rent rolls?  If those look good, and the numbers make sense,  I'd go ahead with the purchase.  I'd love to buy a property with no leases.  That gives you the opportunity to vet all the tenants, and give notice to the ones you don't want to keep,  while signing leases with those that pass your screening criteria.

very nice.  Thanks for sharing with the community.

I think buying a quad, and moving into one of the units is a good idea. if you buy at the right price point,  the other 3 units will pay for the property, and provide some cash flow.  This will allow you to live mortgage free at retirement.

Get a management company to handle the tenants, and try it out for a couple years.  If it still seems like something you really want to do,  why not go for it, and buy some more?

Rent is based on what the market will bear.  you need to make sure when you buy a property that your costs will be covered by the rent.  Not the other way around.

If the market will only bear $1000 a month rent,  you aren't going to get $1500 just because that's how much it costs to finance and maintain the place.

I think adding doorbells is a good idea.  I had a wireless doorbell on a previous property.  It had a bank of tiny switches that you use to set a code for the doorbell.  I don't remember what kind it was, but if you get one that allows you to adjust the code that the doorbell responds to,  you could set all 8 to a different code.

I have the same problem.  I come home from driving for dollars with dozens of properties sometimes.

I am also a tech guy.  I have a mySQL DB to hold all my properties, and built a customer mail merge that prints out new listings, and any that haven't been mailed to in over 30 days.  

There is a lot of time spent getting what I consider good leads into the system.

I'd love to find a more automated way of getting the info I need. I have to use 4 different county sites, that all have different interfaces, to pull my data.

I look at last purchase price/data, to try and guess how much is still owed.  I look at back taxes (those get a different letter).  I look to see if the owner owns any other properties in my 4 county area (they get a different letter).

I found the best solution is to hire my kids to gather the data.  I pay them .25 per lead to enter all the fields into my DB.

Do you have specific properties that you are trying to locate owner/address for?  If so,  the county/town websites are probably your best bet.

If you want a list of all properties/owners that meet certain criteria,  then listsource is a great resource.

@Wyatt Dixon, Start by meeting local investors at an area REIA. After making contacts, run the deals by them. If they are truly good deals, someone should be willing to partner with you.

I only contribute up the amount my employer will match.  It's the same as doubling my money.

For many years, I maxed out my contributions, but now I see all that money sitting there, that I can't touch (without penalties) until much later in life. 

I like having money liquid and ready to go when I need it.  My rental properties are going to be my retirement, why would I tie up money I could use to buy those properties in a retirement account?