Investing out of state in Milwaukee, looking for local contacts.
Hello everyone,
My partner and I are both based in California and are looking to invest out of state. We are buy and hold investors and have a little bit of experience in California. After doing some market research, we have decided to expand our portfolio in Milwaukee. We have already researched the demographics, and have narrowed down our criteria to specific neighborhoods.
We are planning to make a trip to Milwaukee in August 2014, to scout these neighborhoods live, and hopefully to meet a few locals that could help us in our future operation. We are now looking for recommendations for:
1) A real estate agent
2) A property manager
3) A contractor
It would also be great if we could meet with fellow BP members out there during our trip.
Please feel free to reach out if you know anyone in the area!
Thanks.
Look forward to your visit.
Maybe we can do coffee or tea in August.
Good luck investing in Brewcity / Packerland.
Thanks Jenkins, I will make sure to contact you when I come out there!
Hello Khang,
I too am investing into the Milwaukee area, I'm planning a trip out there in August as well, perhaps we can coordinate. I'll be closing on my first rental units about 4 weeks in the greater Milwaukee area. Happy investing!
Anthony
Oakland, CA
I would be happy to meet both of you while you're in town. Milwaukee is a great city to invest and visit. @Steve Vu I am interested to hear what neighborhoods you have chosen.
Hello, I am both a Realtor and Investor in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Currently, I employ several marketing campaigns to find houses in the area. Their are so many leads that I wholesale frequently. Lets Talk.
Doug
Hi Khang,
I'm also a WI licensed broker since 2004, have been investing since 1999 and have lived in MKE area for approximately 38 of my 40 years so far. I'm not really looking to take on any clients as a broker right now, I'm busy enough with my investing work and just a few serious investor clients that I'm currently working with now, but I'm always happy to chat a bit about the local market, etc so feel free to shoot me an IM if anything comes up. Not to "toot my own horn", I'm a pretty modest guy but I'm very confident about being pretty spot on as far as valuations go here, at least for anything above "war zone" level properties. I also do a good number of rehab/flips here, specializing in $150k++ up to near $1M.
Yes, numbers-wise, Milwaukee can be an EXCELLENT place to invest, you can buy in reasonably for a medium sized metro area, especially compared to the Bay Area and SoCal, our prices are a fraction of what they are there! Rents are quite decent, we have had a pretty stable economy for decades and we really don't go through boom/bust cycles here, other than end of 08 of course, which hit EVERYWHERE!
One note of a bit of caution for you though. I've been a landlord in the area since 99, both in the city of Milwaukee as well as several suburbs and I'm not saying that the city of Milwaukee is "anti-landlord", but I think most landlords, especially bigger ones will certainly agree that the city of MKE is at best just so-so or ambivalent about working with landlords. Its a strange attitude at times, where they'll bend over backwards to try to promote owner-occupant homes (which is fine and understandable) but it often goes to the point where they'd much rather try to put an owner-occ into a distressed property that they know darn well isn't even close to really being qualified to be an owner-occ for many reasons, long before they'd ever think about partnering with any landlord, even one with a good rep. I think it might even trace back to our local history of socialist mayors, etc back in the 30's, 40's, 50's where anyone looking to make a buck (like that's some evil thing!) is sort of suspect! Its not that bad, but you really should learn as much as possible about the various rules AND the various unwritten rules as well!
There's an EXCELLENT blog that's written by a local landlord who's been very politically active for many years and has really done a lot to level the playing field for local landlords, without his years of hard work, it would be a hell of a lot tougher to be a landlord here. I'm not sure if I should post the link, last time I did something like that, the BP police came and slapped me down, but just google "just a landlord milwaukee" and it should be top result, his name is Tim Ballering, he owns many hundreds or even thousands of units here and has been through it all! Its packed with tons of excellent info about literally every facet of MKE landlording and includes the many "unwritten rules" you'll NEVER find on the city of Milwaukee website!
@Anthony He It would be great to meet up there. We can try to coordinate that via pm. Best of luck with your deal, do you mind sharing the details? (Price/location/projected rent/# bedrooms/# baths).
@Ed Riggenbach I will make sure to contact you before coming. I narrowed down the neighborhoods by setting up some metrics (median household income, crime rate, median house value), and ended up with specific neighborhoods/cross streets. Some of the locations are in the following zip codes: 53207, 53172, 53219, 53220, 53221, 53222 just to name a few. Again, this is all on paper and I am just going by numbers. That's the reason I am planning to go out there and check it out for myself as well.
@Doug Martens That's great I will send you a PM.
@Robert Taylor Thank you for the insight. I will make sure to contact you to chat.
Hi Khang,
My brother has been a Contractor in Milwaukee for 35 years. I dont know if he is taking on any projects right now, but I can talk to him. At the least he might be interested in hel
Opps... In helping you get started. He has intimate knowledge of the various markets and can do pre-purchase rehab estimates, etc.
If interested, let me know and Ill get you connected.
@Randy F. Please private message me more details.
Hello BP,
It is now official, I will be coming to Milwaukee on August 21-24th to check out the city for my future out of state investing project. I have already booked my flight/hotel/car, so there is no turning back! I am currently setting up some meetings with a few local BP members, but I am always open to meet more people and chat! So feel free to reach out and we can arrange something for that week end.
I am really excited about this trip, and will make sure to give you guys a trip report when I come back.
This wouldn't have been possible without this amazing forum, thank you again BP!
Khang
Khang,
I'd have to say that I think you have picked some very decent zip codes, which isn't always the easiest thing. Of course, picking the various super expensive ones usually are good choices, but when you factor in the reality of having to buy and make money on rentals then you're certainly not looking in the big $$ zips, so out of the more moderately or eve slightly below moderately priced zips, I think you're choices are very good. 53207 and 53222 have a few smaller areas in certain spots that get a little bit rougher at times, but not a "war zone" type area for sure.
As a bit of a follow up on my earlier advice on landlording in the city of MKE and also seeing an awful lot of people here on BP, both local and all over the USA such as yourself getting pretty excited about owning rentals here, I'll again HIGHLY recommend that you check out the "Just a Landlord" blog of Tim Ballering, a major landlord as far as non-big corporation landlords go, who has MANY years under his belt being a successful landlord here in MKE, as well as one more I forgot to mention, also just an EXCELLENT blog as far as for the very valuable info inside, is one created by a local MKE attorney who's pretty well known as one of the best landlord/tenant law lawyers in MKE or even all of WI. His name is Tristan Pettit, if you just google "Tristan Pettit Milwaukee" his blog should be #1 or #2 on the list. He's got just TONS of great info too and of course his info is based on being a top landlord lawyer here! (and check out his little part about if you should buy rentals in Madison, which is our state capitol and 2nd largest metro area in WI, about 500k in the metro area) Madison has a very long history of a lot of aggressive and very liberal or even radical activism and politics, which has led to all sorts of local regs being passed over the years, ALL favoring tenants and as he explains, in Madison if you get some bad tenants who know even a little bit about how to game the system, you're SCREWED!!!
Now, MKE is a much different story and in general our WI laws aren't too bad at all from landlord's point of view. Yet, as Tim Ballering explains in much depth in his blog, if you manage to get on the wrong side of the city here, or even just one inspector, it can really hurt and for some it has basically ended up ruining them financially! Now, DO NOT get alarmed yet, that's an extremely rare type thing, but getting on the wrong side of city of MKE can get pretty rough for a property owner. From all I've seen over 15+ years now, if you (or your properties) stay off of their radar, nearly nothing ever happens! The flip that I just accepted an offer on last week is in the 53211 zip, which is easily the most expensive zip code in the entire city for single family homes. On this block, its about 2/3 single fams and 1/3 duplexes and because its a block from UW-Milwaukee, there are a lot of students in the duplexes and some are very well preserved, while others such as the one immediately north of my flip house are basically kept in barely acceptable condition. This one next door has the original wood siding with the paint just peeling badly, all over the house! Yet, no one from the city says a word and I've heard its been that way for many years and this is right in the most expensive single fam zip in MKE! Yet, I've also personally seen MANY examples where the city will ride hard on owners in some of the really rough or even war zone zips, where having any peeling paint means it has to be fixed ASAP or they'll get whacked hard by the city with fines!
My quick advice is if you buy ANYTHING with ANY open repair orders and especially if you buy multiple places that need even a moderate amount of work, really mainly exterior work, which is very common on REO's, make damn sure that you or someone like maybe your local contractor gets in touch with the city ASAP and does a great sales job about how even though you may live 2000 miles away, you're going to fix it up ASAP and you'll be the best thing that could've happened to these places! BUT, if there are NOT any open orders, don't say a damn thing, BUT get things moving ASAP and be totally ready to do that sales job at a moments notice! Also, the city now has a vacant property registry going, supposedly to keep up on these places, but I'm also thinking about the big $$$ they're seeing from reinspection fees, etc so make sure that any vacant places are registered ASAP on that one. All the info on this program as well as looking up any open orders can be done via the city website.
Keep us updated on your arrival and if I can, I'd enjoy meeting up with you and any of the other MKE locals here that might too!
@Randy F. Thanks again for getting back to me, greatly appreciate it!
@Robert Taylor Thanks for taking the time to write that long post =) I did keep a lot of the better area in my criteria, just in case something cheap showed up there. I will, however, most likely focus on slightly worse area where the crime rate is still relatively low, but with lower house prices. I checked out the blog you mentioned and read a bunch of his posts. I think it is a very good blog and gives really good insight on landlording in MKE. At first I got a little turned off by some of the posts (ie: how the city essentially drives foreclosed homes to useless pieces of junk or how some inspector would give a landlord a hard time for minor items such as a small crack in the exterior paint every time he would come by the property), but I then realized that these were mostly extreme and worst case scenario. I am now aware that these things happen, but hope it isn't the norm or a daily occurrence. Maybe we can chat some more about it when we meet. I will make sure to contact you via PM to set up a meeting in Milwaukee; it would be great to meet you in person and chat some more!