All Forum Posts by: Troy Gandee

@Emily Peters I agree with what these other folks have said. I would also suggest chatting with @Brandon Bartley if you'd like help with the process. Brandon is one of our best agents and takes really good care of agents. He also watches the market to try to stay up to date with what's happening.

@Briana Stout No problem. Just cruise around and get familiar with the area in general. There's not much multifamily inventory at the moment, but it will eventually come back around.

@Briana Stout North Charleston is a pretty big municipality. It's the 3rd largest city in the State. It can vary pretty wildly from the Neck area to Park Circle to the Dorchester Rd Corridor. It will really depend on your personal preferences and tolerances. I will also say that multifamily tends to be in lower-income areas, so you will likely need to be prepared for that. The majority of the multifamily in North Charleston is going to be in the Neck area, the Ashley Phosphate area and the Dorchester Rd area. You can try to get some input here, but I would suggest coming to REI Central to talk to people in person to get more candid and specific answers. And it's always prudent to drive these neighborhoods to get a feel for them.

@Dev Patel I would suggest markets that are currently considered "tertiary" to larger markets. Most of them in my market are already exploding and won't be dependent on their larger neighbors for much longer. Cash flow has been severely diminished in my market, so I usually only look at markets about an hour away from me for my personal holds. Once you've identified some you like, just try to keep up with their larger economic news. New employers, current employers expanding, new home developments, apartment complexes, new food/retail centers, etc. All of those things indicate that growth is happening or expected.

@Chanel Gargula Just make sure there are 2 separate electrical meters. That's usually a distinction whether or not they're actually separate dwellings. If they City says it's ok, then you should be good to go, but they can definitely make mistakes. I've had issues with them giving me incorrect information before. They also just changed the STR requirements to allow more than 1 STR per property, so you could technically STR both if you wanted.

@Tim Miller I'm a BIC and have about 50 agents under my supervision. We're small and don't really have the infrastructure for brand new agents, so I always recommend starting with a bigger company to take advantage of the training they provide.

The 2 options I usually recommend are KW and Carolina One. I much prefer Carolina One's tactics and culture over KW's. CORE is also independently owned. Just be prepared to pay some monthly fees and lose a much higher split on your commissions, but it is worth it to get up to speed ASAP. I some times recommend joining a team so you can get into the field almost immediately. Just be mindful of what team you join. 

Sadly, I think pretty much all homeowners' policies have shot up over the last 12-24 months in the coastal markets. We've noticed a significant spike in pretty much all of our properties. I've been told the reason is because many of the carriers have been pulling out of this market, so the ones that are left are increasing their premiums to compensate for the frequency of claims made. We use a guy named Will McLeod with NavSav for our investment policies. Shoot me a DM and I'll send you his contact info.

@Lucas Osorio It depends on how you go about collecting the data, but it's not really legal to purchase lists and/or requests that public data and then attempt to solicit a business exchange. I don't know of it really being policed, but if you're a repeat offender, I'm sure you'd eventually get a cease and desist. I know there are some big marketers who have been reported numerous times but they don't seem to have been stopped. A lot of the sources will have an acknowledgment where you attest that you will not use the data for commercial purposes. A FOIA typically has language like this.

What's even more important to know is that since this law changed, the data companies haven't been able to pull very good property records, so a lot of wholesalers are mailing to lists that are essentially worthless. I still get postcards for properties I sold 5+ years ago. 

@Chanel Gargula I have an STR in an ADU at my primary residence in PC. Been operating that for about 6 years. My opinion is that STRs have been saturated essentially everywhere for many years now. We're usually about 97% occupied, but we don't charge much for our space. It's small and we don't have any debt service on it that we have to cover, so we just want to keep it rented. The new restrictions in N Charleston should help those who are already operating, in my opinion. I've heard of quite a few people switching to MTRs or LTRs because they don't want to deal with the permit or may have a non-conforming unit.

I would say it mostly depends on the expenses. STRs require much more management. The management fees are typically 20-25%. Even if you self-manage, the work can be pretty extensive. MTRs obviously have much lower expenses. 

I have a lot of clients who go back and forth or both. Most of them tell me they prefer the MTRs and in some cases, perform better with the MTRs than the STRs. 

@Lydia R. I absolutely agree with you. The examples I've been given for many of these "novations" are just single purpose joint venture agreements. They're nothing special. They are creative and take additional documentation, but there's no silver bullet with them. I brokered a triplex to some investor clients a few years ago. They took title in an LLC. They had some management issues and never really got it turned over, but values in the area shot up due to the Covid run. They wanted to rehab the units and resell the property, but they were low on funds. We also needed to complete the evictions, but the owners were out of state. What we ended up doing was adding me as a member of the LLC, so I could finish the eviction in person. Then I funded the rehab and we listed and sold the property. We just wrote a specific joint venture agreement for the agreement. I believe this would be called some version of a "novation". I would never call it that. I would just call it creative thinking and resourcefulness to get a deal done.