All Forum Posts by: Zach Davis

I've been there recently. I let myself rot in a job that I hated for nearly 9 years. It was easy, brainless, low paying work but I became complacent and didn't move on when I should have. When the company began to struggle I was let go despite being "integral." Basically it came down to the money and I made more than many of the others. I was terrified. I had been at that job for 1/3 of my life... Long story short I now have a job that helps me with my investing in a very real way and that pays better to boot. As funny as it may sound, the physical, out in the elements, body hurting all the time type of work is an every day reminder to save and invest because I can't do this forever.

@Jay Hinrichs

I've actually been very fortunate to find some good ones with almost no turnover. It makes it really nice when you find someone as dedicated to their job as you are to yours and it helps when they themselves are interested in investing. 

I actually saw your development out in Gresham a week or so ago. I have a buddy that lives out off of 23rd and saw them going up. Had no idea they were yours, they look like they'll be pretty nice places. I'd like to get into newer stuff eventually but for now I'm stuck in 60-70s built "sweat equity" type plexes.

@Jay Hinrichs

True enough, I guess I've been up here too long... I'm originally from the Midwest so between here and there its likely half of the population has no idea what I'm talking about. ;-)

Its funny, I picked up the term out of stater from a timber land owner a couple of months back. He was talking to me about all of the out of state owners that had bought timber land around him. I also use the terms rig and spendy although those came with me from KS.

@John Upperman

If anyone can help you with the ins and outs of making turnkey investing profitable its going to be Jay...

@Garrett Brunell

Come to Portland some day. I buy low end properties and turn them into middle income/working class rentals. Its amazing how fast unemployed, penniless people can find a lawyer when you evict them.

If she meets ALL of your pre-determined screening criteria then it would be illegal to rent to her because of her pregnancy. If she doesn't meet ALL of your criteria then you shouldn't be renting to her anyway. There is no room for grey area when screening tenants, either they meet the criteria or not. Bending the rules is how you get sued for retaliation or discrimination. Landlord tenant law has its own version of ambulance chasers that would love nothing more than to make a few bucks off of a landlord that tried to read further into a tenants life than just criminal history, verifiable income, credit score, and rental history.

Logically, we would all like to be able to make decisions based on personality differences, family size, possible income drops, or whatever gut feeling we have. My lawyer likes to say laws replaced logic and now legal precedent is replacing actual laws. You can deny her for any reason you want but if she finds one of the aforementioned "ambulance chasers" you had better have a legal reason to point to or you may end up renting from her.

They will likely write off the unpaid balance, although they could go after the previous borrower for the remainder if they really wanted to, unless they filed chapter 7. Best to do the transaction through a title company, then you have the pros make sure there are no other liens on the property and that the title is free and clear. Then you have insurance that its all yours and no one else has a claim on it.

I told the realtors and loan broker I work with these 5 things up front.

1. I work long hours at my day job and run my REI business on nights and weekends, that means you do to.

2. You will likely have more negotiations while representing me than with the average couple buying a home because of an emotional response. It either makes money or not and in order for it to make money it has to be below market.

3. I buy rehab properties. You will likely have to show properties that are not very nice to look at or smell and are probably occupied by unsavory individuals. And you will likely have to negotiate with the slumlord that let it get that way.

4. You might have to show 10, 20, or even 50 properties before finding a deal that works for me.

5. You will probably make less money per hour of labor with me, but in exchange you get repeating income from a frequent buyer.

They all told me the appreciated the warning. LOL

Just thought of 6. You might end up looking like this...

I used to do property management and have seen first hand the numbers and issues with out of state or even local, hands off investing. After dealing with all that, I believe in the hands on approach. I self manage, and will do so until I sell or my kids take over. Never met an out of stater that made any more money than they could have at home. When you take into account travel, property management, and the additional cost of paying someone else for maintenance, turnover, and repairs. The deal starts to look less impressive. Yeah, I can invest in BFE and probably gross more than I do at home but how much of that is going to property managers and contractors just to run it? Personally, I'd rather pay myself to run it. But that's just me, I don't trust other people with my livelihood.

There's several excel spreadsheets floating around here. I modified one to suit my needs. Didn't cost a cent and maybe an hour on a rainy Sunday. Its nothing special but I use it all the time for my own investing and you can modify it to whatever you need if its missing something or has something you don't need. My banker and private money guy love it when people show up with actual numbers and not just a feeling that it will pencil out.

https://www.biggerpockets.com/files/user/zadsent/file/property-analyzer

If you use it rate it.

I always charge for shampooing because I have a professional system and I always do it on turnover. Since I always do it I can always charge for it unless they have it professionally done themselves. In my market, you can't charge for the first coat of paint if they've been there more than 18 months. If it needs 2 coats, that's excessive and you can charge. If it needs painted and they've been there less than 18 months, that is excessive and you can charge for it. Replacing the carpet is on you unless they damaged it. Even then at 10 years it would be on me since that's about how long I expect to get out of carpet.