All Forum Posts by: Alecia Loveless

@Noah Laker Will you be running the house or leasing it to a company.

If you’re leading it to a company be sure to have in your lease explicit information about who is responsible for what in terms of maintenance.

I work in similar facilities and there is a lot of wear and tear on the property.

Having the tenant be responsible for something like the first $1000 of each maintenance issue, or $500 can be a big help.

My company has gone through 3 dishwashers in the last 12 months and it has been an added expense. If a landlord was responsible for each replacement it would add up quickly.

@Rachel Thomasson It’s very hard to find great prices in great locations. When you do there’s usually lots of competition.

I like to look for locations that are good, and that I’d feel safe and comfortable living in if I was a single woman with a couple of kids.

If your market is tight it can often take a while to find the right property. Have patience.

@Jackson Pudlo I have house hacked both ways, during my 20s and 30s in large SFHs and now as I’m approaching 50 I’m in a duplex where I rent one side and have a tenant in the other.

Both situations work nicely.

It will depend on your preferences and how well you think you will tolerate having a room mate as you approach a new life with your partner.

If it’s doable financially I’d recommend the duplex. I just think ultimately you’ll be happier in the long run. If you still want to rent out your other bedroom you can have a tenant in the opposite side AND a roommate which would give you two income streams. Then later as you grow older and no longer want to share your space you can just stop renting the other bedroom.

As far as self managing, it’s fairly easy. I have 30+ units and on a regular month usually only spend about 5 hours total on management things, most of which involves collecting rents and bookkeeping.

Just be sure to be prepared to get legal advice if you run into grey areas that you are not well versed in to avoid legal implications.

@Jose Martinez I use a local regional bank that has about 15 branches in northern New England. They view each loan individually and have been lending to me even though I only work my W-2 on a limited part time basis. The majority of my income comes from my rental portfolio.

I’ve got 31 units, and have been filing my taxes on all income from the rentals since I started investing 5 years ago.

The bank does still ask for my tax returns each year and with each deal and my adjusted gross income last year was comparative to your stated cash flow from your rentals.

I would think you should approach some local banks and see how they will handle your situation. You may find 1, 2, or more that will be flexible like mine is.

@Collin Hays My favorite that came in at 6am one morning when the nights low temperature was 58 degrees and the high temperature was to be around 75 was the following.

“I can’t believe you disconnected the heat. My toilet seat is cold”.

We routinely turn off boilers during the summer to prevent them from running to keep up to temp all the time during the warm months.

@Troy Parker Every time I have rented to a friend or acquaintance it has ended poorly. The common thought is to not rent to friends or family. It often ruins the relationship.

@Brian Chadwick A cash out refinance might offer more favorable interest rates than your HELOC provides.

Personally I like keeping my properties that I know are successful and have low maintenance.

In your situation I would keep this cash cow and figure out the best way to pull out a little of the equity to buy the next deal.

Sometimes less is more and just taking the step to buy one more might be better than selling your goose that laid the golden egg in the existing successful house.

@Justin Igoe I have hired a bookkeeper for the first time in 2024. We initially spent about 20 hours getting my accounts set up and organized in Quickbooks. This included all the data from the first 6 months of the year as I did not hire her until July.

I’ve got her dealing with 8 properties which have individual accounts. As well as 3 credit cards which so far have not cooperated and synced with Quickbooks which takes some extra time each month.

I have a biweekly zoom with the bookkeeper that usually takes about 20 minutes.

I have already received my preliminary documents from her for my accountant. I expect to finalize them by the end of January.

She is also sending out my necessary 1099s. She currently spends 5-6 hours a month on my stuff. This has been well worth it compared to the 40+ hours I was previously spending doing this myself come tax prep time. It was at the suggestion of my accountant that I hired the bookkeeper. Having the books properly set up for the first time ever will help me get all the deductions I’m entitled to. This will save me much more money eventually than the cost of the bookkeeper.

@Desiree Board I’ve been house hacking for almost 30 years now and can’t recommend it enough.

If my spouse wasn’t opposed to moving I would try to buy a new house hack every 12-15 months and use low down payment owner occupied loans for as long as it made sense.

After this advice I feel it is much easier to invest locally where you can become a “market expert” more easily.

I’ve been tempted to look OOS or at other markets farther away from me in my home state but have decided this is just shiny object syndrome. I’ve built a great team, which is imperative, and have systems in place for my local rentals.

The farthest I’ve gone is about 20 miles away from my house which takes me about 30 minutes to get to. I feel the properties 5-15 minutes away are easier.

@Chris Kay I spent about $50K on a 3/1 reno about 5 years ago. We had to do a lot of electrical work, bathroom, kitchen rehab, total paint and a new roof.

This was my first investment property and I had a poor inspector who missed all the electrical and even though the roof had about 5 years left my insurance company made me do that.

Since then it’s generated top dollar and I’ve maybe had to put a total of $500 into it.

Learned a lot from that one.

Now we’re doing cosmetic rehabs on 1000 sq ft 2/1 apartments for about $7,000. Maybe $8500 if I have to replace the appliances. This includes flooring, painting, bathroom upgrades new light fixtures, usually there’s about $800 in electrical costs factored in here and all new cabinet hardware. We buy the cabinet hardware in bulk on Amazon and do flush mount hinges, new handles and knobs. Usually runs about $200 for 100 of each and then we use them over and over in all our units. Ravinte is what the knobs and handles are called. The flush mount hinges are about $8 for 2 at the box stores and I think I’m getting boxes of 50 for around $60.