All Forum Posts by: Wendy Lavana

@Bill Gulley Thanks for all the great advice. I'm going to start by going to the neighborhood meeting tomorrow evening and I'll take it from there. 

Great thread, so nice to see investors here in South Florida on BP. It is not all that common. I have been searching for multifamily investments in Miami, a few years ago you could find a couple things now there is nothing worth buying unless you are buying in for the appreciation.

Last year I purchased two fourplexes in a low income housing neighborhood in Ft Lauderdale. Three years prior to my purchase I lived no more than 3 blocks from the area I recently purchased in and while I was there I considered it to be a decent area. I see now how 3 blocks make a big difference. Anyhow, I'm having a hard time keeping my buildings looking nice, my tenants are dirty and erratic with their payments and movements. I want at a least 50%of them out, but that means I need to find new, better tenants and yesterday as I drove around the neighborhood I realized that it looked simply deplorable. High grass, trash everywhere, toilets and mattresses left on the curb or even worse my property. There are people lying on indoor furniture that is being used as outdoor furniture outside of their buildings. The sit there all day long. 

This morning I was tossing and turning in bed, wondering what I could do to get better tenants, some properties next to mine have been acquired by decent landlords and this I can tell because they have made small but good improvements. So I thought I might go to the neighborhood meeting this week and meet the neighbors, I imagine that I will meet most of the people that lived where I lived before which was an area that is mostly owner occupied and better kept. But I was considering the idea of reaching out to the landlords in the area and bouncing around the idea of creating a fund. A fund that those interested could donate to, so that we could pay individuals to cut the grass in the common areas around the homes that has been left unattended and to pick up the garbage on a regular basis around the neighborhood. Has anyone every tried anything like this? I'm wondering what are the advantages and disadvantages of trying to pool money to keep the area looking nice and clean. Would other landlords find that this might help them raise their rents and keep better tenants. The neighborhood is close to downtown and the beaches, I believe it has potential to be better. 

@Bruno Demir Thanks for the tip, maybe I should stop wrecking my mind and just a bit, at least until something really makes sense. I sure hope your mentor is right. 

@Rafael Saldana Hialeah is a good market and the tenants there are rather decent. 

Thanks @Mitchell Jaworski for the referral. It can't find any deals Miami which is why I jumped into Ft. Lauderdale last year. I've had 8 units (2 Fourplexes) in Ft Lauderdale in a low income area for about a year now. Worked real hard to get decent tenants in them and now I'm running pretty smoothly, but turn over is high. I'm use to dealing with fairly stable tenants who don't trash my properties and I honestly I wouldn't jump into the low income housing again. Tenants will burn you out. 

Is it possible to get a neighborhood to turnaround? I have two four unit properties in a low income area that is extremely close to a better area. My fourplexes are in the vicinity of a high school that doesn't have a good reputation. I was thinking of getting involved in the community, finding out if there was anyway to better the neighborhood. It seems like it could have potential. Anyone ever had any experience with turning a neighborhood around? Am I just wishful thinking?

Is there a BP Meet Up in Miami Florida?

I buy and hold property and recently did my first flip with my fiancé. We did well with the flip, it was a distressed property that was banked owned and we decided to take a risk with it. It had several violations and we did a lot of work to the house but came out with 60k in profit. We were happy with this but it did take us a year from purchase to finish the house. We actually worked on it for about 3 months, the rest of the time was spent at the county getting permits, approvals and fixing issues with past violations. I did the rehab as an owner because I refuse to hire a GC. Besides the fact that a GC eats up your profits, you can learn a great deal by finding and working with the subcontractors on your own. The knowledge I got from the rehab helps me out with my rental properties and is definitely going to make my next flip easier. The problem I'm now running into with the buy and hold as well as flip opportunities is that I simply can't find good deals in Miami anymore and I wondering whether this market is just tapped out. Any property worth purchasing is being sold at auction and ends up getting bid up to almost market price. The buy and hold investments available have cap rates below 6%. I was also just starting to consider the idea of getting into 10 to 30 unit multifamily and I can't find one in Miami. Last year I purchased two fourplexes in Ft Lauderdale in a low income area and those properties took me 6 months to get together. I'm finally cash flowing approximately $250 per unit in those two properties and I'm wondering to myself whether that was a good investment or not and whether to start looking for property in other areas of Florida like Jupiter, Stuart etc. Anyone else experiencing this in Miami? Whats your take on the Miami real estate market? Is it still a workable market for the average investor? Or do I now have to be a Russian billionaire to invest in Miami?

Thanks for all the advice @john holdman @aly l @thomas morgan @jay hinrichs @james wise. I'm fairly happy with my investment, I'm aware its in a C and D area and I guess I just have to get use to the idea that there is so much I can do. The reality is out of the 8 new tenants I acquired in that area, less than half have been a problem and I did process my first eviction about two months ago, did it on my own and had my tenant out in about month.