All Forum Posts by: Troy Gandee

@Tim Schmitz I would recommend you give him ample time to move when he does find something. Sect 8 is horribly backlogged. Simple tasks are taking weeks for them to complete. It'll take a while for them to process the new application and inspections on the unit. It's ridiculous how slowly they're operating right now. 

@Hilary Graves Shoot me a DM and I can send you a lender referral that we use for most of our clients. They should probably use an FHA, but there may be some additional grant options available for them if they qualify.

@Victor Medina There aren't many doing them at the moment. I know First Citizens was doing them, but I think they've stopped due to the rates. I would try the smaller banks like Beacon and Pinnacle.

@John Semanchuk North Charleston finally approved their STR regulations a couple of weeks ago. They still don't have any enforcement and aren't even sure yet on cost to permit, but it is finally fully approved. Their regulations are pretty light, though. I haven't seen the final bill, but most of it is to require a permit, limit bookings to 2 adults per bedroom and some parking restrictions. At one point, they had some multifamily restrictions, but I don't know if that made it through or not.

@Amelia Foronda It mostly depends on what resources you have available. If you have the capital, I would go multifamily. If you don't have a lot of cash, I would buy affordable single families in lower income areas that have long term prospects to gentrify. I bought a lot of single families in what were bad neighborhoods 3-6 years ago. Those neighborhoods have grown tremendously. They went from low income to near median prices in a couple of years time, so I was able to sell almost all of them for 2-3x what I bought them for. I rolled that into multifamily and effectively tripled my unit count in less than a year.

I think Charleston will continue to grow substantially. I think we'll fare well through inflation and moderate recession, as well. We'll continue to see lots of transplants despite inflationary prices. Inflation hurts a lot more in a HCOL city than here even though our prices have spike. I think we'll keep seeing a steady influx of high earners moving down from up North. I do think we need more industry in the tech field. We're a little heavy on manufacturing at the moment.

@Andrew Merritt I think most of the folks visiting are there to see family, attend things like weddings and graduations, etc. We have one in Park Circle and it's about 50/50 vacation to visiting for a specific reason. We also get a lot of people visiting town for job interviews/work stuff.

@Robert Frazier I don't think the categorical imperative comes into play on this one. Kantian ethics are a stretch for something like this. It's usually applied when you're doing direct harm to another group or party. It's way too black and white for the modern world. That's the same simulation that posits if an axe-murder asks you if your family is home because he wants to kill them, you must answer honestly because lying would be immoral. I appreciate the reference as a philosophy major is college, but it doesn't really apply to this argument. 

I operate a couple of STRs and I stand by the owners' right to use their property to it's highest and best legal use so long as it doesn't violate any state or local regulations. However, it's clearly created huge pressure on affordable rentals. This creates longer term economic issues because it drives away your work force. We see it really significantly in my market. My biggest issue is the number of out of state investors who operate these STRs. The majority of the proceeds don't stay in the area they affect. If you're going to inadvertently drive away the work force, the income from the property should at least stay in that market to be recirculated. 

I'm in favor of tight local regulations to thin the herd. The good owners that take the time to work within the rules tend to be much better in the long run. 

@Mary Davidson Unfortunately, that's pretty standard in the current market. Those rates will eventually settle back down, but it would be a while. Investment rates are almost always higher than primary residences. Investment & 2nd home rates were the first to spike and then primary residence rates followed. Rates are expected to stay higher until the Fed feels they can be lowered again.

I don't specifically seek them out, but I have and have had a lot of Sect 8 tenants. I've also brokered a lot of properties with Sect 8 tenants.