All Forum Posts by: Yanina Panfilenka

I use Thumbtack for any help needed for rental, including photographer.
Also, you might ask a referral from RE agent, PM, or give a call to a listing agent you like the photos of. 
This way you handpick the photographers with great portfolios and save time and money as not every good photographer will answer to your add.

If you still want to have some ppl coming to you, I would suggest to do the FB marketplace post of a job and run the ads for it on FB and instagram, but you need a good visual which you can create in canva.com. 

Quote from @V.G Jason:

Please don't tell me you're the goofball buying the E harris str one. And doing this to "avoid" taxes.

Either ways, are you buying DSCR to show net positive over 1 or because you want to close in an LLC? Just get a conventional lender if it's the former one, better rates too. If it's the latter, then yeah you're going to have to shop lenders.

'Avoid' taxes? Sounds illegal.
 I need a DSCR loan to purchase house(without LLC) to make an AirBnB as can't get another conventional loan because of the limit of debt to income ratio and because you can't use the income from short-term rentals as the income up until they are at least one year in service. And I added 2 BNBs in the fall of last year. 
But of course, conventional lender will give better rate.

Quote from @Richard Galante:

Does anyone know a company that manages mid-term furnished rentals in Seattle, WA?  I have a 1 bed/1.5 bath condo in Belltown that is currently a successful short-term rental.  I'm active duty military, and need to transition away from active management next year when I head back to sea duty.  

Currently trying to determine if it makes more sense to continue with short-term rentals (with a local STR management company) or mid-term (rent for an unfurnished long-term rental would not cover my costs, about 2800 per month). Specifically, looking to see what companies normally charge for mid-term rental management, and if there any that specialize in MTR. If it's 10% plus the full first month's rent, that wouldn't work on a 3-month lease.

 Hi Richard, I self-manage a short-term rental in Seattle (2bed/2bath townhouse in North Beacon Hill). It turned out to be too expensive for clients to use it as a mid-term.
Belltown is an awesome place to try mid-term. I live in a 2/2 condo which I was scouting for mid-term rental and had a lot of interest but HOA allows only 6 months so it didn't come through. So it's a matter to check first at what price you'll have a pipeline of renters. STR is more steady thing and you could increase the output with some upgrades along the way.
The standard rate for either STR to MTR is 15%. Agree with Allen on that.

Quote from @Rachna Condos:

I completely agree. We have never purchased a property so far away and it is overwhelming to think about how to furnish and manage it and finding local cleaners as well as making sure there is someone that can deal with any issues that arise for guests is very important to me.  If you know someone in Bremerton who would be good for this please let me know. 

Thanks for responding.

 It is overwhelming but doable. Purchased, rehabbed, designed, and furnished 5 bed 3 bath in AZ completely remotely. From my experience, if the place is thought through and there are stickers in place, and the cleaner's team have a check list to go through, minimize the issues the guests might have, and most of them could be solved right on the spot. I had a case when needed to clean the coffeemaker and did it during a couple hours, or organized the TV replacement with a new unit in less than 4 hours.
And Bremerton is a bit of an hour drive but totally doable for me for managing, and will definitely have a local cleaning team and handyman. 
Let me know if you need help to bring your vision of place a to live or/and management.

Quote from @Peyman Ayoubi:

Hi,

I'm about to close on a property in Seattle area. The property is 3B1B and I plan to add an extra bathroom it 3B2B. However the layout is not very straightforward (like below). I should add that there's stairs to the basement which is finished and it has a big area. What I'm thinking about is to combine bedrooms 1 and 2 into a large primary and add a full path adjacent to the current full path. 

This will make it something like this (the dimensions are not accurate, just for representation) plus there's going to be the 3rd bedrooms in the basement, making it 3B2B. 

Should I make this change? What other think about it? 

I'm not sure whether having a bedroom in the basement is good enough. I'm open to ideas if anyone would like to share their opinion. 

3-2 will worth more that 2-2. What's the basement situation? You can share the address in messages - let's see.

Quote from @Rachna Condos:

Purchasing a house in Bremerton, WA but we live in Nevada. I would like to rent it out to traveling nurses or corporate rentals since there is a very large Navy Base there and also 2 hospitals. Any ideas besides frunishedfinders as to where I can find these folks?wa

Contact the hospital and the base, also there should be the board for the nurses. However, the hospital there is pretty small and not sure if the traffic is big enough. For summer, WA state hires firefighters and we rented out at AirBnB for 4 months. There is no harm to have your listing there too just set the limit for your stay.

Quote from @Rachna Condos:

We are in the process of purchasing a home in Bremerton and we live in CA at the present time. I would like to find a local person to assist with making it an Airbnb rental since I am so far away and cannot do so. I checked out Evolve but they don't seem to have cleaners as part of their service. Any ideas on this issue would be appreciated. 

 Hi Rachna,
I'm on board with everyone about the big players. They don't care about your property, won't suggest the improvements, and just live of you.

I self manage AirBnb in Seattle and hired a remote PM in another property and should admit that if the PM is not local I could do the work and take care of the property much better than a hired PM. And we are pretty much done with that remote PM middle size. 

Everything could be managed remotely but you still need a person to inspect the property every month or more frequently during stabilization and less frequently afterwards.

Being a small-sized but with well established and automized STRs gives a better service comparing to middle size where you are just another client.

Quote from @Cameron Daste:

To be clear, I'm thinking I would do the above for several years while building my portfolio and learning, and then solely focus on my portfolio once I'm established and am generating enough income to live off of.

Hi Cameron, 
You don't know until you try. Learn along the way and check what you are passionate about and how you'd like to contribute. Each and every area might need a fresh look and improvement. BP library gives a huge boost into the knowledge area which is pretty much sufficient to get comfortable in investing and help find a sweet spot where you could use your background to shift the area. 
We were struggling/ hated hours spent on potential profitability of the purchase in all the calculators by copypasting, and using background in tech created rei-lense.com to get all the numbers on the spot which saves so much time! You can do the same, find the pain point and solve it.

Quote from @Greg Lovern:

I've been working with a buyer's agent for many years with several transactions, mostly not investment related. I'm working with a loan broker they recommended. For rental real estate purchases, should I be working with a buyer's agent with a strong background in investment real estate? What about the loan broker?

 At some point after quite some learning and studying I figured out that I do the most of the work and the best person to serve myself. My agent helped a lot when I was just a regular buyer but could hardly grasp the concepts or details/numbers in investing. And then I got my real estate license in WA.
So, if you want to get more efficient in your time spending in expanding your portfolio, I'd say go with an agent who will bring you the most value and safe your time.
As for the loan broker, it won't matter much up until you need you use DSCR loan to fund a property. Having established relationship will help to get better rates too.

Investment Info:

Single-family residence buy & hold investment.

Purchase price: $575,000

5 bed 3 bath house needed a rehab. Purchased, rehabbed, designed, and furnished totally remote! https://abnb.me/ug2awNfYPEb
Had to reinvest most of the profit to add amenities, fix pool, add replace the equipment.

Looking to add more amenities like wooden canopy with hanging chairs and fire pit, sauna, tiki bar. Which ones would you add to get the most of it? The garage is still not rehabbed. Potentially, a huge game room?