Hi!

Total newbie here, currently doing the research analysis piece to find our first deal.

I wanted to ask: what systems do you recommend having in place BEFORE you make that first deal?

I will be setting up an LLC, and I'm in the process of getting my RE license but I'm curious to know if there are things we should have set up prior to making the first deal, or things that can wait until after.

For example:

- do we need our rental management system set up yet (planning to self-manage the first couple of properties) or should we do this once we actually have a property to rent?

If anyone has any recommendations they'd be willing to share, or could point me in the direction of some resources I'd really appreciate it!

Make sure when you open your LLC that you open a bank account for it and that you separate the rents and deposits into two accounts. I'd recommend using a pm software tool before you even purchase a home and create your files such as your lease and put them in there. Saves you a lot of time. Let me know if you need any suggestions!

Thanks @Stephen Brown ! Would definitely appreciate some PM tool recommedations - I've heard about RentRedi on the BP podcast, interested to compare against some others, thanks so much!

Originally posted by @Gemma Collins :

Thanks @Stephen Brown! Would definitely appreciate some PM tool recommedations - I've heard about RentRedi on the BP podcast, interested to compare against some others, thanks so much!

 I've been using Innago... it's been pretty good!

@Stephen Brown

I’ll check it out - thank you!

@Gemma Collins just to make sure I understand, are you analyzing deals or picking a market right now?  Or focused only on the PM aspect once you've placed a tenant?  Or all of the above?

@Nicholas L. All of the above 😂

Mainly picking our area and analysing a bunch of deals in that area so we can get really efficient with it - but wanting to have everything in place so when the right deal comes along we’re good to go

@Gemma Collins cool - one area to focus on then will be your process for listing your rental, accepting applications, and screening applicants.  There is tons of info on BP for this - ways to list, products that will do screening, etc.

Thanks @Nicholas L. - I definitely need to get clued up on this piece, I've seen there's a blog about screening tenants that I need to get into - I'll check out more of the resources on here to look at the process for getting it listed etc.

Thanks!