All Forum Posts by: Troy Gandee

@Allison Hodges You can probably use one of those generic forms, but may be worth having a RE attorney draft the lease for you. There's also a standard SCAR lease that Realtors use.

Be very careful not to be discriminatory for any reason. Fair Housing Law are no joke. 

I would usually suggest having a parent be a co-signer for a college rental if the student doesn't meet certain credit/income requirements.

Definitely require that they carry renter's insurance. Even if you just bake it into the lease amount. College students tend to be pretty rambunctious, but it will not hurt at all to require them to carry renter's insurance. 

And be mindful of the sub-letting stuff in the lease. College rentals are pretty infamous for having roommate disputes leading to sub-letting or swapping roommates around. Just go ahead and set some rules for that in the lease. 

I would also put something in there about a maximum number of guests the tenant can have. This could reduce the likelihood of parties. Or if they do have a large party, this would be an explicit violation of the lease terms, which could help with eviction, if necessary.

I can only speak for SC. The due diligence only period is relatively new for us. Our contract changed last summer to remove the traditional inspection period know as the "repair request" procedure entirely. Now we only use the due diligence period in the standard SCAR contract. This gives you an agreed upon amount of time to do anything you want as far as due diligence goes and can terminate for any reason during that period. The due diligence fee is not typically regarded as a deposit meaning you don't have to pay it to an escrow or trust agent up front. It's usually a "fee" you have to release to the the seller in order to terminate the contract. The fee has to be released along with the appropriate notice document to fully terminate the agreement. For properties that are in poor condition, we're usually able to get the purchaser a fee of $0.00 because we expect there will be issues. For properties in decent to great condition, it's usually hundreds to thousands of dollars depending on the price range. Ultimately, all of this is negotiable, but this is generally how it works. 

@Matthew Cope Pretty much all of my premiums have already done up by 20% approximately. I'm also in Charleston, SC in a coastal market, so we'll likely be the most affected. A lot of carriers are pulling out of the coastal markets because the hurricane claims have been so excessive over the last few years. There aren't many carriers left, so premiums are surging.

@Jeramey Rogers Myself and many of my investor friends/clients use AccountFin. The CPA is Justin Welch. I don't believe he's taking new clients at the moment, but if he's not, I'm sure he can give you some referrals.

@Justin Montoya You don't have to be licensed in SC to buy or sell your own properties (or manage your own properties) without a license. You should disclose that you're licensed in another state just to keep yourself out of hot water if you were to get sued for anything that were to occur during the transaction.

The license gets involved when you try to assist anyone ELSE with a transaction or try to collect any sort of compensation from a transaction. Most investors that get licensed do so in order to get access to the MLS and and so they can legitimately collect a commission out of transactions to offset the closing costs.

If you want to just hire buyers' agents, you wouldn't have to involve your license. How much of the commission they get is between the buyer's agent and their broker. If you were too collect any sort of referral fee for these transactions, those checks would have to be sent to your Utah broker, though.

@Gabrielle VanCopeland REI Central is the bigger series of meetups. We have a large general meeting the 1st Thursday or each month. We have 4 more specific sub-groups that meet throughout the rest of the month for our annual members including a women's group. The "Landlords" group, which is the one I run, includes STR stuff. We don't always focus specifically on STRs but we usually have 30-60 minutes of Q&A and networking where we can discuss whatever comes up.

There's also a very large investing group on Facebook called Charleston Area Real Estate Investors Club. Just make sure you answer the membership questions or we won't approve the request to join. We get a ton of spam in there since we have about 3,500 members.

Thanks @John Semanchuk

@Brianne Lewandowski We're an investment focused brokerage. I have no issue with agents having other work obligations or buying/selling investment properties for themselves. We can allow self-management to a degree, but it gets a little sticky managing your own properties. It technically has to be done with BIC or PMIC supervision, so I don't prefer it. We have a small management wing, but don't have big ambitions to grow that out.

We don't offer a monthly fee, but the split is low and there are no junk fees. I am going to start charging a small monthly fee next year for agents producing less than a certain amount because I provide E&O and software. Feel free to shoot me a message and we can arrange a call.

@Rick McGuinness It's not uncommon Downtown for parents to have to be co-signers on leases. That market is chock full of students and young professionals who are not going to meet the requirements. The next best option is to get a parent or family member to co-sign. If you're struggling to get it leased, this is probably the best you're going to get in the near future. The rental market Downtown slows significantly near the end of summer. I would probably ask for a higher deposit as an assurance in the event that they stop paying. 

@Victor Garcia We do double closings often. I have 2 pending at the moment. You just have to find the right attorney and it's generally better for everyone if the end purchaser knows it's a double closing. It's problematic to try to sell a property that you do not hold title to in SC. Many attorneys will just outright avoid it. If all parties are aware of your true position in the transaction and wish to proceed, then it's usually fine. You just have to structure it right. There are also quite a few banks that won't finance them to due to deed restrictions and seasoning period. I will also say that a lot of attorneys are avoiding certain partnership structures and creative finance transactions because many of them are being done incorrectly. If anything, you should run a situation by one of these attorneys and have them help you craft your documents in in a way that will comply with SC laws. Too many people are using Googled agreements and templates that aren't really state specific.

@Joseph Escamilla You're more than welcome to add events. The REI Central meetings are pretty large. Our main monthly meetings draw around 100 people every month. The sub-groups are anywhere from 20-40 people each. None of them are targeted specifically at new investors, but we try to keep the topics pretty broad so everyone can participate. We also have a really active Facebook group in addition to the REI Central one called "Charleston Area Real Estate Investors Club". At the moment, we have 3,300 members on that group.