All Forum Posts by: Adelola Sokoya

For my first house hack, which I have been doing for 1 year now, I used turbo tenant for managing the background checks and room payments. I used roomies.com for finding and interviewing potential roommates, in person, before deciding the best fit. I do a month to month lease, allowing flexibility for both my wife and I, as well as the tenant. We have had the same tenants since the beginning, and this is solely because of our due diligence in choosing the right tenants and laying out the rules before anyone moved in, as well as getting signed documents. The more work you put in on the first few deals will create your own well oiled system to replicate down the road when you expand, if you choose to do so.

On the contrary, I have had a friend who keeps renting his room out on Airbnb and keeps getting subpar tenants that he is not pleased with. These software and apps promise a lot, but do not do the due diligence that only you can provide for a good experience.

Best,

Brandon 

@Adelola Sokoya I've worked at PadSplit for 4 years, bringing on over 4000 rooms to the PadSplit platform. I'd love to help you - please send me a message if you'd like to set up a call. 

Hey @Adelola Sokoya one of the pad split guys came to our meetup in Colorado Springs. I enjoyed speaking with him and pad spit sounds like a really good idea to me. 

Doing background checks and getting leases signed isn't that hard. If you are trying to manage yourself, you can certainly figure that out with a little research. Happy to send you some tips I have on that as well. 

@Adelola Sokoya, the links posted above are great references. I would first encourage you to try to source your roommates/tenants on your own before resulting to PadSplit. For a house hack deal with several roommates, I don't necessarily believe PadSplit is the answer. Moreover, their fee will add to your monthly expense. Sites like Facebook marketplace, Zillow, Zumper, etc., will get the job done when marketing your rooms for rent. For properly screening tenants, you can either result to a service like TurboTenant, RentRedi, RentPrep, etc. Or, if you're still not 100% confident, then you can always work with a local property manager, but again, this will add to your monthly expense. When we last communicated, you mentioned you were interested in house hacking in Athens, GA. Is this still the case? If so, work with the UGAs school housing board and let them know that you have rooms available. Hope this helps! 

@Adelola Sokoya I haven't used it personally but here are a couple recent threads from other users:

https://www.biggerpockets.com/...

https://www.biggerpockets.com/...

I am currently a college student looking to invest in real estate. I have begun to do research, reading books, and listening to podcasts. My plan has been to purchase a single family home semi near campus, hoping to easily appeal to college students. Planning to use the house hacking strategy by living in 1 of the bedrooms and renting the other rooms out to friends for the first year before moving (hoping for a 3 bedroom). The university is the University of South Carolina in Columbia, SC. I am originally from Charleston, SC where the price of homes is astronomical. Prices in Columbia are much more affordable and I can house hack it. Thoughts on buying in a college town and my plan? 

Hey Christopher,

I think this is a great plan for the digital nomad life, as I am doing something of similar caliber to have goals that fall in line with yours. In the city of your choice, I would start with finding a good agent. I interviewed 4 agents before picking the one I wanted to work with. My agent brought me a deal before it hit the market and I was able to make an offer 1700 miles away while heading to the slopes in Aspen. A Rockstar agent has the ability to supply you with the good B to C class neighborhoods that you'd choose for higher cash flow. Also I found city-data is a great resource to get household and crime statistics from. 

My first rental was a duplex that is a good student rental seeing as its nearby the city's university. I have heard Atlanta has a lot of SFH available seeing as majority of people rent there, you may be able to find a good deal. Knowledge is everything so I advise continued efforts into learning about real estate strategies and studying your market. Turnkey may be your go-to as opposed to fixing up a place seeing as you travel a lot. Hope you have great success in your real estate career and are able to travel to amazing places.

 Sure thing. CIT Bank. Minimum deposit of 5K to get the 4.85%. Was relatively quick and easy to setup. 

No debt here, not even a car payment! 

Yes I’m going to keep adding savings to my high yield savings account and save for a 6 month safety net on both my primary and my rental property then add onto it for a down payment. 

I'm very interested in a hard money loan for a BRRR. Being able to take most of my money out after the refinance stage is the most important variable for it being a success. I understand finding a deal that fits this criteria is hard but if I drive around enough and knock on enough doors surely it will happen.

Thanks for your contribution to my post.