All Forum Posts by: Tyler Watts

is this near a college or university?

[email protected] 

Please share!

@Will Gaston. Duplex potentially for sale. 

Sent you a PM!

Where is this located?

Furnished from our perspective, is refrigerator/stove/washer/dryer for student rentals. With that being said there are many factors that go into this. Are you paying for their water? If so, you will need to change this or your units will turn into a laundry mat. Depending on your competition this may be edge you can get by furnishing appliances. No student or student's parents want to deal with moving in appliances and moving them out so if you can solve this for them then I'm sure they will pay more. Work in the contract about appliances and the details of it something breaks who pays for it. Make sure to address the contents inside the appliances as well. Otherwise they'll have a $10,000 filet Mignon steak that they want you to pay for. 

Your PM may be able to to schedule times for students to move in and run a more efficient schedule if parking is a problem. You could hire a couple strong college guys for cheap and have them help tenants move in. Advertise it and there is your selling point. "College Hunks moving service on site today"! Get 3 or 4 guys and they'll move people in within minutes! May take some more back end work, but can be worked around. Your PM likely doesn't have the fin. motivation to do it like you would.

As far as the numbers go, they're better. Renting by the bedroom/student will 99% of the time increase your profit. Management is the key, but that's the key with any rental. I've had a C class duplex get $1500 worth of damage b/c the tenant and his girlfriend got in a fight. Somehow my property got in the middle and said something out of line and they started throwing rocks thru his windows. Ha. So it damage can and will happen in any class if you do this long enough. Just have your reserves ready and write it off on your taxes. Get them out and get new ones in. 

Either way it's a management game. There are tons of investors that are horrible landlords. Weigh your options on a PM company if you're nervous or want to learn how they run their systems before your self manage. It's a self reflect question; do you have the mentality to PM this and all the hard decisions that come with it or do you want to pay someone to do it. Money is made thru the management side of it. Yes you have to buy correctly, but the asset produces cash flow thru the people living in it. If they are not managed correctly, the asset can quickly become a liability.

BB&T in Charlotte will run loans. They maxed me out at 4. 15 year notes. I have a duplex thru them.

Your knowledge and connections is worth at least 50% of the deals. If he knows anything about real estate he would agree with this. I have partnered with guys and ran a 50/50 split and I brought all the money to the table and half the work as well. Great deal for the other guy but many great things came from this. We developed a relationship and have done more deals/we both learned/we both gained each other's contacts and developed a stronger team/we made money!

Each relationship is different but your have the connections/knowledge/drive/education/experience/time/etc. Not saying your potential partner doesn't but if he strictly only wants to be the bank then 50/50 is more than fair to him IPO. Make sure to get an operating agreement set up with the LLC before you dive into all this!

Oh BTW I'm in on student rentals as well (Southeast Market) -Good luck!

They may not allow new construction to be a a 1:1 ratio along with requiring commercial in your 1st level. 1:1 ratio isn't the end of the world, but does lower rents to an extent. Biggest thing is what @Jeff Watson mentioned about "4 unrelated parties" on existing structures. They may further enforce other codes such as tickets for noise/parking etc. After 3 tickets the city may pull your "ability" to rent to students in that house for 1 year, etc.  Each town is different. See if you can find an angle into who is on the board or has connections and speak to them or attend the next meeting.