All Forum Posts by: Tyler Munroe

@Griffin Malcolm Interesting stuff! Would be great to reconfigure the lot lines on the two additional parcels so they'd both meet the minimum to build. I just completed a small subdivision myself - just a word of advice that if you do sell any of these you'll need a release of mortgage from your current lender to do so. Might want to start that conversation with the lender if this looks like a possibility. Good luck!

@Matt Wan In the Boston area the inventory is so tight I'm not even sure there's "deals" in the off season. I think you'll just generally have less competition, so your chances of landing a property are higher, but I'm not seeing any bargains due to seasonality like there used to be. If you do land one in the off season, build in 2x as much vacancy as you think or about 20% less rent than market for the first year. You may also have to pay a broker to rent it, when usually the tenants cover that during peak rental season (May-July for 9/1 leases).

Good thing is once it's rented you should almost never have vacancy if you're mindful of re-listing it in a timely fashion. I've owned property in the Boston area since 2013 and have never had a vacancy aside from when I was doing renovations.

What @Nathan Gesner said AND:

You're in a great market! Population and economic growth, strong tourism, proximity to other New England cities. It's pricey and competitive, but stay in your own backyard, consistently look for deals, and you'll find a great asset. Consider different strategies like mid and short term rentals as I believe the Portland area would allow for success in both (although I have heard Portland proper is tough on STRs).

Best of luck!

Definitely try to get pre-approved through a lender so you know how much property you can purchase. This price point will determine what markets you can invest in, what type of projects you can pursue, or if you want to hold off completely and save more. Honestly, I would start here and THEN start networking, reading, researching, etc. If you know what you're financially capable of then you can pare down your research to those markets/projects and accelerate your investing. Best of luck with it!

Congrats Abby! Property management is not for the faint of heart, so glad to see you're enjoying it and thriving. I feel like it's a space where great operators can really clean up, since the bar is set really low, in my experience at least. Boston should be a great area to expand as there is plenty of investor-owned rental property. Good luck in the future!

@Katharina Bormann They don't seem like very respectful tenants. How long is left on their lease? If the cost of the couch removal and other items isn't that significant, maybe just pay out of pocket and don't renew them for another term (or take it out of security deposit if you have one). If you go to court, there's some cost to that and you'd be risking more escalation if they sought counsel as well.

My approach for problem tenants is just appease them if the cost is minor and then not renew the lease, or even cash-for-keys if necessary. MA is a very tenant-friendly state so I try not avoid the legal route, even if it costs a bit.

 Awesome vision! Glad you laid it out there in writing, you're manifesting it! You should find a lot of resources on BP but I think the most useful people to talk to would be MF builders and local officials in your target areas. Builders can give you some sense of cost and project scope and local officials can let you know if any grants exist for affordable housing, re-zoning efforts, etc. I'm by no means an expert in this, but you may want to check out the LIHTC if you're considering bigger builds.

@Tim Holt Come February, it's legal to create an ADU by-right on any single family property in the entire state. I feel like this may be the best opportunity for house hackers as there will be some early adopters who capitalize on it because you can basically turn a single into a multi. You can find SF properties that already have in law suites, garage units, etc, and now legally rent those, so it should increase the appraised value significantly. I'm kinda surprised more people aren't talking about it because it's a fairly transformative law, allowing investors to create ADUs as well. Anyways the link is below of you want to take a deeper look, feel free to connect if you want to chat more about it!

https://www.mass.gov/info-details/accessory-dwelling-units-a...

Wholesalers are all over FB so try joining any "off market" type property groups. If you search for groups with "wholesale" or other keywords you'll see them, there's a lot. You'll see posts from wholesalers and agents with pocket listings so just reach out to them and try to get on their buyer's list so they send you future listings. It helps to try to build rapport with them to show them you're serious, which you may want to work on since you're relatively young and inexperienced. These deals are usually flips but these are the people finding deals so you never know what's going to come through the pipeline.

@Lorenzo L. good on you for getting into RE investing in college! I think a lot of us on here wish they got started that early, I sure do. Lot of great info on this thread so hopefully you can see how networking can supercharge your investing career (also something I wish I started earlier, ha). 

I've been investing in the immediate Boston area since 2013 and can verify that it is insanely hard to find deals that pencil. I find it hard to believe that investors are actually buying negative cash flow deals, but they are and then banking on appreciation. There are also a lot of foreign investors looking to park cash since US real estate is considered very safe on a global scale. Regardless, just because these properties are trading doesn't mean they're good investments for your aims, so just focus on the numbers you need and keep on keeping on.

One piece of advice is to maybe ease off direct to seller marketing and focus on networking with wholesalers and agents. That way when a deal is brought to you, you know the seller actually wants to sell. I've done a lot of DTS marketing and found that almost all my leads were either tire kickers or if they actually wanted to sell, the property had so many entanglements (multiple family members involved, tons of debt on it, municipal liens, etc.) it wouldn't even be worth it. Can waste a ton of time, money, and effort on this which could be used more effectively evaluating deals, strategies, and markets where you can find returns.

Good luck and feel free to connect if you'd like to chat more about it!