All Forum Posts by: Alecia Loveless

@Gary Abner I bought a 4Plex in February. In the paperwork the seller stated the coin op laundry, there is 1 washer and 1 dryer for the 4 units, brought in $40 a month for a total of approximately $500 a year.

Currently there are 4 single tenants living there, 3 men and 1 woman. The property is about 30 minutes away from my house so I go to check on it about every 10-12 days unless there is a problem and then I go immediately.

During this time I have never gotten more than $7.00 for a week and a half period, usually it’s about $5.00. One tenant appears to fry their clothes by hanging them up.

Based on my own households laundry usage I figured that if the 2 two bedroom units had 2 people in them instead of 1 person likely that $40 a month would be made.

Mine run on electricity and with maybe 14 loads a month and 2 lights it costs me $25 a month for the most expensive electricity in New England.

My advice is that I wouldn’t go nuts and buy 4 washers and 4 dryers but based on how many bedrooms you service and your typical tenant composition maybe 2 of each especially if you’re isolated.

@Sean Steward I have separate checking accounts for each building I own. It allows me to keep finances separate and not commingle funds.

I put the address of the building on the checks with the mailing address from the bank to my Personal P. O. Box.

All of my vendors have my mailing address and if I have to send a check somewhere else I am sure to include my mailing address along with the check for clarification.

This system has worked well for me so far.

@Sarp Ka I’m doing a second loan fairly quickly from the first one I did using my personal bank where I’ve banked for about 25 years. They’re taking into account the income from both properties using the tenant leases even though I’ve only owned the first property a short while and the second property has a month to month tenant in it when calculating my debt to income ratio.

I know it varies between lenders how they process things and what they consider but if you are up front with them about your specifics such as two loans at once or even see if the same lender will do both it should work out fine.

@Tanveer Ahmed Denton is nice, has two universities for as far as rentals go, is growing, and has the train line for commuting. Not sure if it goes to Plano as I only visit my family there now and live in New England. Has lots of homes and nice new neighborhoods in your price range.

@Marquise Williams I’ve dabbled in real estate for 20 years but it’s only in the past 3 that I’ve decided to get serious about it when I realized I would never have enough money to retire if I didn’t dramatically change what I was doing. I’ve currently got 10 doors which is a work in progress as I sell to buy and buy to sell.

I realized my job wasn’t enough as it supports me and gives me enough to qualify for some mortgages but isn’t nearly enough for where I want to go with investing so I found a second job that I work on my days off.

If you feel motivated to be a real estate agent go for it! Big you should have money saved up first to live on while you are waiting for your first sale, and then your second sale as you build a clientele. Find a brokerage that does a good job of sharing leads so they don’t all go to the top dogs in the company.

My best advice is to figure out your goals for what you want out of real estate, then figure out how you think you can best accomplish them and start the path in motion. Be sure to write all this down so you can review and revise this often!

@Damon K Verellen I'm not really certain why you'd be paying for trash for a SFH unless it's standard in the area. Where I live it's either curbside pickup that's paid for in your taxes or by tenant or you buy the bags and take them to the transfer station.

Also I think $45-50 for repairs is fine. I bought a well maintained building in February that has had little maintenance since then other than a flickering light. We changed out the light bulbs but now the tenant is complaining again and the electrician says $200 for the service call. $50/month.

@Ianne C. I try to put funds in the checking account for each property I own up front. Then each month the CapEx, Vacancy and everything else goes into that account along with any cash flow to build up my reserves along with the rent. I pay the bills and leave the rest. I typically don't see any draws(owner profits) for at least two years while my reserves are being built up. I want to build up enough reserves to pay my bills for at least a year in case of emergency.

I know everyone has their own method and many will say pay yourself first. I do start paying myself just as soon as my reserves are built up. Being able to have enough money set aside to know that if there’s an emergency I can still pay my mortgage is important to me. Even after I begin drawing money from a building I don’t take the whole cash flow as I want the reserves to continue growing.

For the record I use about 5% for my number for the CapEx, Vacancy, etc.

@Linda Hines Hi Linda! I might be biased but there’s some great areas in New England. It is a little colder than you might like and a little harder in certain places to find homes with lots of bathrooms but lots of places to invest in real estate. Plenty of places for outdoor activities skiing, hiking, kayaking, golf, camping, you name it!

I’ve turned down 4 opportunities for properties that could have been great rentals in my area the past 6 months because I’m not particularly handy myself and they needed work. All were priced below $100,000. Two below $90,000 and I feel certain you could have negotiated lower.

In general the market where I’m at in northern New Hampshire is running the nicer homes between $200-300,000. It depends on what town you’re in, your amenities, and how much land you have just like every where else.

I’m sure there’s some nice affordable areas elsewhere in New England too. I know you’re thinking Tennessee but we have no state income tax and no state sales tax so that is also a benefit! Just my thoughts.

@John Osborne I think around most campuses if you’re in the correct markets students will return. I’d make sure your housing is in the right location, ie. not too far away from campus, and not too expensive, and I think you’ll be fine. While I think some campuses have a market for luxury student housing I believe quality housing at around the going rate is going to be the best bet right now.

I have a family member trying to buy some campus housing in Texas and her market is too hot to handle still. Existing landlords are not selling and there’s absolutely no multis to be found anywhere in this two university town that has about 60,000 college students.

Stick to your own goals and guidelines you’ve set for yourself and don’t let FOMO get the best of you and you’ll still find things to buy.

@Vidyadhar R. I’ve hired a tax abatement specialist here in New Hampshire to fight mine for me before. He was also a real estate investor so was familiar with how our state system ran. In New Hampshire you first appeal at the town level and then if you think you should have gotten a bigger abatement you go to the state level. My guy did all the work and research and charged 25% of your initial tax bill savings for the town level and if you weren’t satisfied he charged 50% of the savings on the first tax bill of what he got off from fighting your taxes at the state level.

It was worth having a professional do this for us as we saved $3500 off a $10000 tax bill. We only reassess about every 6-7 years so my savings was considerable.

I doubt you will get an abatement on already owed taxes and I don’t know if NJ reassesses on purchase but if you can get a professional to fight it for you reasonably and it will last for several years I recommend it!