All Forum Posts by: Wenyu Zhang

The same incident just happened to me too. They left my property before the lease ends next year because they bought a new house. Based on my understanding, I could file a small claim but the court will not execute it, which means if the tenant decides not to keep paying rent, I couldn't anything with them even if I won. Is this correct? Would a collection agency be better for this incident?

@Mike Radnothy Mind share your builder/GC? I have a land around Ocala and want to build a duplex too. Appreciated.

Wow while your story is really inspiring, I found the most impressive part is your credibility and reputation. Because the key is you were able to borrow a large chunk of down payment rather than doing generic house hacking. Based on your numbers, it turned out to be around at least 50k? Who would lend 50k+ to a grad fresh out of college??? What I found these days is that most of the time people's success is not based on the hardwork or intelligence but they personality. If they are credible and let people like them, it's easier to get enough funds and start to be successful.

 I had a similar experience. Whoever I found as my roommate, they always had random person sleep over in the room, they always preferred to keep the AC lower than I do, etc. An interview or questionnaire is the key when looking for roommates. Now I will always ask a bunch of questions before letting someone in the house to be safe than sorry.

I'm in Orlando as well. 250k for a 2b/2b seems to be high. Is it a SFH or apartment? Also, your can buy points to lower down the rate. I would say as long as you can make rent and expense (mortgage + maintainence) equal, go for it.

Hi Adam, did you get any connections so far?

I'm running the same situation now. How did it finally go?

Hi All,

I'm purchasing a small commercial lot in Florida and planning to build a mechanic shop (wanted to start a small used car dealership as a side hussle). Now I'm facing too issues. First, I need to know where I should start the construction project. I talked to a GC and they said I need to have an engineering plan before they can give me a quote. From my understanding, plumbing should be the first thing to do before pouring the concrete slab. Second, I might need some finance help with the ground up construction. The entire project (utilities + foundation + interior + landscaping + exterior paving ) should be rought at 100k, just very rough estimation from my perspective. Many steel building companies provide installation and rent-to-own option so that should save a lot of upfront cost.

Here's what I'm planning to build: A 1000 sq ft warehouse-like steel building with two 10' x 10' doors and one walk-in door, plus one office and one restroom inside the building. So eventually it will look like a two-bay mechanic shop. 

Can anyone recommend someone who provide engineering plan drawing service in Florida? And what's the step by step for me to start this project?

Investment Info:

Single-family residence buy & hold investment.

Purchase price: $180,000
Cash invested: $52,000

My first rental property. A 3b/1b single family house in Orlando. Brings me about 12% ROI.

How did you finance this deal?

15% down conventional loan.

Lessons learned? Challenges?

Bought with tenants who stayed there for over 6 years. Rent is very lagged compared to current rental market. Thought it's a turn-key deal since there's no vacancy. Later realized that it's hard to increase their rent with a huge leap. Lesson learned: long-term tenants' rent is usually lagged probably because most landlords are very kind with their tenants. In a hot rental market, no need to purchase a property with tenants inside.

There gurus on the internet not all those YouTubers. Rule of thumb, they don’t make money investing in real estate or they probably used to. But they are now making money being a YouTuber by attracting more subscribers. They have to make something “surprising” so people will watch them, just like newspapers. There has to be some kind of big news so people will buy newspapers, regardless true or not. 

For me, I do buy and hold strategy and basically do long term rental business. As long as there is cash flow, I don’t give a damn what they “predict” the market is going to be.