All Forum Posts by: Vanessa Peterson

James don't get discouraged! The hubs and I are in contract on our first sfh investment home in SE Portland. We made 3 offers before we had one accepted. We stuck to our numbers and looked for cash flow. Assuming we close with no hiccups, we'll have a 3bed 2 bath ranch with garage that we got for 13 grand under asking price and will cash flow approx $300/month. Sellers and real estate agent were green. Motivated sellers who were moving. We got to know them personally and we got an amazing deal. Comps came in 50-70k over what we are getting the home for. Only took us 2 days of looking with our real estate agent. We are using a conventional loan 30 yr fixed at 3.95%. The deals are there you just have to be persistent! The market is crazy look for the homes on Redfin/Zillow that are being sold where the sellers didn't stage the house. If the pics are crappy it might mean the sellers have no money and need to sell quickly or their real estate agent may be a little green. We also had found another 4bed 2.5 bath home that almost worked for us cash flow was awesome we were 2nd highest offer. You can do it!

I'm planning to be there!

Thanks guys! Here's a snafu I've run into...have you heard of any insurance companies covering 14 days of short term rentals? I've got MetLife for our home insurance and I called them today and they don't cover short term rentals at all. My father was in the insurance industry and strongly recommended we stay with MetLife as we have guaranteed replacement coverage with no cap where as most insurance companies will only do extended replacement up to 125 or 150%. Finding a company with no cap is almost impossible these days. I've heard of Allstate and safeco covering up to 14 days for short term rentals in primary home owners insurance but both don't offer guaranteed replacement, they are only extended replacement up to 150%. I called CBiZ but haven't heard back. Has anyone ever used anything else or a per renter insurance thing...I saw one on the forums that was like $39 per booking.

I used to be a Dave Ramsey fanatic. I think his stuff is good for budgeting, paying in cash, etc. but his audience is really blue collar lower to middle class with stupid consumer debt. If you are responsible with your money and have higher income, Dave Ramsey misses the boat on leverage when it comes to real estate investing, tax advantages, and overall financial strategies for people who dream big with $ goals etc. he's great if u want to live a simple life and be debt free but I don't believe you can be truly wealthy following his plan. Plus he estimated everything in the stock market as a 12% return which I think is unrealistic. My two cents.

Hey guys! I'm looking to earn some extra cash to help us continue to save for a down payment on our first sfh investment (we are 2/3 there to our goal!) I'd like to rent out our personal home when we are away for weekend and holiday vacations up to 14 days per year so that we can get a few thousand dollars of tax free income each year. We live in Portland...looks like we need a permit, business license, and I'm planning to call my home insurance to check if we need a rider. We are planning on using air bnb which also provides $1 million liability coverage. I'm thinking we can make about $1400 the first year (after approx $800 start up costs (locks, sheets, towels, permit, toiletries, etc and air bnb's cut is taken out) and about $3000 the year after that. We'll lock our stuff in the garage and our office so only the bedrooms, bathrooms, and living room/kitchen is available.

Anyone doing this and have any advice on things they wish they had done when they were getting started?

Thanks! 

As a newbie to bigger pockets and just in the grassroots of getting into real estate investing, a win like this with the help of bp really gets me excited! Thanks again!

I just want to say a big thank you To Damian! I used your letter as a template for our own situation. We are refinancing our primary home to get a lower interest rate and get rid of pmi. We bought the home for 415k, it appraised at that time for 438k. The market has appreciated in our area 10-20% so we expected a higher appraisal. However, we were definitely disappointed when the refi appraisal just 9 months after purchasing our home in an appreciating market came back at 426k. With your letter, our appraiser revised the appraisal value to 450k. Woo hoo! P.S. I think I incorrectly used the term ARV but oh well, still got the point across....

Here's a copy of my letter...It took about 1 week for our appraisal to be revised. 

April 29, 2016

Dear __________

We are writing this letter to appeal the appraisal we received which we do not believe fairly reflects the true ARV of the property. This home appraised for $438,000 just 9 months ago. (Previous appraisal attached) It appears incorrect that our home would depreciate in value $12,000 in an area that has seen significant appreciation (18%) over the last year.

http://projects.oregonlive.com/maps/housing/hot-neighborhoods

http://www.oregonlive.com/front-porch/index.ssf/2016/04/looking_for_a_home_in_the_red-.html

http://www.pdxblog.com/neighborhoods/se-pdx/creston-kenilworth/

One of the items that is not reflected in the appraisal is the fact that our house is on the west side of 52nd avenue. In a market where homebuyers are trying to get as close in to downtown as possible, these differences matter. Four out of the six comparable homes in our appraisal are east of 52nd avenue.

I have gone more in-depth on why I believe there are faults in the comps used below:

Comp #1 - 

This house is comparable in home size, lot size, and location, but is significantly older (built in 1959), has only 1 car garage, and does not have 2 full bathrooms. Additionally, the bathrooms, kitchen, and closet doors are dated and do not compare to the remodeling that has been done in our home.

Comp #2 - 

This home is just slightly larger and is comparable in home style and layout, and was built more recently, but is in an inferior location, has a smaller lot size, and only has one car garage.

The location alone makes this house’s value much less than ours.

Comp #3 - (

We believe this home is a fair comparable to our home.

Comp #4 - (

This home is comparable in home size and lot size, but has an inferior location, does not have a garage or a fireplace, and is a much older home (1951).

This comp sold two times in a span of 6 months. This appears to be a flip and was just sold for a quick profit. After it was sold the 1st time it was re-listed 5 months later and then sold a little more than a month after.

Comp #5 - 

• This home is a pending sale that may sell above list price, which is currently the trend in the Portland area.
• This home is comparable in home size and lot size but inferior in location.
• This home also does not have a garage or a fireplace and is a much older home (built in 1950).

Comp#6 - (

We believe this home is a fair comparable to our home. It is in a slightly better location but has much older bathrooms. All other factors seem comparable.

Below I have listed other nearby comps that I believe also support that the subject property has a higher ARV than suggested in the appraisal.

Additional Comp #1

This property was sold on 4/7/16 for $445,000

Home is 3 bedroom, 2 bath, 1420 interior sq ft, 5200 sq ft lot size.

This home was built in 1979. Our home was built comparably in 1984.

This home is slightly larger in square footage than the subject property however the location is inferior.

It also has a remodeled kitchen like ours but the bathrooms are dated.

Here is a link to the listing: 

Additional Comp # 2

This property was sold on 1/7/16 for $435,000

Home is 3 bedroom, 1 bath, 1490 interior sq ft, 4000 sq ft lot size.

This home is slightly larger in square footage (only if you count the basement as square footage), but is in an inferior location, only has one bathroom, only has a single car garage that is detached, and is much older than our house.

This home was built in 1925. Our house was built in 1984.

Here is a link to the listing:

With all due respect, we kindly ask for you to review this information and we hope you find that the information we have provided does in fact support a higher valuation for the home. Thank you.

Warm Regards,

Hey guys! I'm Vanessa. I'm from Portland Oregon and am a newbie to real estate investing. My husband and I want to buy our first investment property this year. Our goal is to keep things simple, buy and hold strategy. We like our day jobs, we are just looking for a tax break and to build wealth using real estate as a fun and exciting investment strategy. Our plan is to buy a 3bed, 2bath single family home <2000 sq ft on Portland's east side to rent out. The market is a little nuts right now so it will be interesting finding the right home and trying not to overpay for it. Currently obsessing over the podcasts and reading every real estate book I can. So far I've been gleaning as much info from two of my coworkers who are also on bp and have been renting mutlifamily units in our area for a few years. Thanks in advance for all the great posts! This forum has lots of great info and I'm looking forward to learning and growing with this community!