All Forum Posts by: Alex S.

Thank you, guys, for the helpful insights! 

@Jaron Walling When I was investing in Washington (before it got crazy expensive) I was able to go and check neighborhoods myself, or at least had some level of familiarity with cities/neighborhoods. Now I try to invest out of state, and every day I'm looking into different states even cities within new states it takes a lot of time to get familiar with a city so I was looking for some visual help and existing maps to benefit from, at least with a quick overview. 

@Scott Mac startup idea to automate data collection and aggregation and put it out as an interactive map :) Thanks for sharing your approach.

@Evan Polaski I'm sure that once a property is selected for purchase there should be much more due diligence but at the research stage an error between B and C or A and B is fine with me. Now when I look at each new city, I cannot tell if it's F or B, and having even a rough map would help to cut on bad neighborhoods and warzones. Totally agree that the dynamics are always changing so I'm looking for dynamic maps, which are automatically updated based on schools, crime, walk scores, transit scores, desirability, etc.

I got pretty confident with numbers while analyzing deals but one thing that always gives me a lot of pain is what is the best way to analyze a particular neighborhood (s). I can find a crime map, can see schools, walk/transit scores, median income, rent growth, etc but all this information is in different sources, and for different states it's even more diverse. Everyone is saying  A-B-C-D-F neighborhoods, where can I find a rank for the neighborhood I'm interested in, and also compare it to a nearby neighborhood like a heatmap or something visual? Is there a single place to check the neighborhood class-type map for a selected city/state?

Thanks for the congratulations, although I'm slightly overwhelmed :) This is a great checklist, thanks! Most of the non-money related items were on my too, could you please tell more on the two followings, which I didn't have:

1. Last month's payment - what is there reason to ask for that?

2. Copy of renter insurance - is it a best practice or a mostly required item? I couldn't recall it was discussed on a rental book...

This is my first rental property and first tenant and first least. What should I request from my tenant upon signing a lease? I assume it should be:

1. First month of rent

2. Security deposit

3. Pet deposit (if any)

4. Move in-out (including cleaning fee)

Did I forget anything?

Thank you, Grace! I'm now considering the Facebook marketplace even more, after your comment. I had this idea but after checking the listings it seemed to me not that popular because of the lack of listings (I'm in WA, probably it's less popular here). I guess I post and will see :) 

I self-manage my only investment property (just starting out) and wonder what is the best place to find tenants these days? Zillow so far has a pretty decent engagement, while others like Craigslist are fairly silent. Any other good places to look into?

Registered yesterday per your recommendation and it seems to be a pretty decent option for my current scale, will give it a try.

 Thanks for the advice!

I saw a few references to 3x ratio, sounds reasonable. Thanks!  

Is it a good practice to set rent-to-income ratio requirements for applicants? 

What is a good number considered as an industry standard?

I appreciate your advice. All three look complete but also overkill. I'm planning to grow the portfolio, but not significantly, probably less than 10 units in total.