All Forum Posts by: Alex Johnson

I’m stuck in DC for the next 2 years as my fiancé is at law school and am thinking of purchasing a property that we could live in then rent out or sell out when we move back to NY. With that said we found 2 places were really interested in, one in west end of DC and one in Arlington Virginia. Both properties need to have work done to them need work which I intend on working on myself/ getting contractors for some of the more technical bits. Does anyone know how to evaluate pricing of properties, rent estimates as well as have any contractor recommendations (one of the places has a basement that needs to be underpinned)?

Rent on any given property is typically about 0.5% of the properties value in DC and Arlington. Pricing the property, you just need to look at comparable sales to see what they sold for.

The issue I’m having is I can’t find many houses that have sold in the are to comp this property to. Also because of that I’m finding it difficult to value and price out the house in terms of potential rental income.

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Washington, DC

Quote from @Jack Seiden:

Quote from @Alex Johnson:

Feel free to reach out, I will say underpinning is extremely expensive, usually in the 6 figure range.

Do you have a contractor or 2 you can recommend?

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Washington, DC

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Washington, DC

Quote from @Tim Johnson:

If you have no personal or family reasons to prevent it, why not house hack to begin quickly, even if this means just renting out a room of a SFR? Helps you jump in with less risk as you're learning more and meeting up with other investors in your area.

Yea I thought about it but the Fiancé isn't up for that and multifamily homes are too pricy $1.5m+

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Quote from @Joshua Messinger:

Hey @Alex Johnson!

Kudos to you for getting started! Mainly all the metro areas will have ordinances in place that don't allow your property to rent out for a 30-day or less basis so I would recommend looking in more vacation-type spots (rural) if you are looking to go the STR route. Otherwise, if you are looking to go the LTR route I would recommend looking for something that meets the 1% rule to make it a viable LTR opportunity, or just be super conservative with the rates that you are aiming at and with the interest rates you are using when running the numbers.

If you need help running the numbers please don't hesitate to reach out and I can help you through it!

Josh

Cheers mate! My biggest question with STR is how do you go about forecasting demand/ vacancy rate? I was thinking of either getting a place on the water or out in the country that I could try and AirBNB.

1 Vote

Quote from @Conner Olsen:

Quote from @Alex Johnson:

I am in my mid 20s and have been wanting to get into Real Estate investing for quite some time mainly so I can have a secondary source of income and not be so dependent on my day job (long term I want to try and do this full time) . The main issue I have is I don't know if I'm effectively evaluating potential properties in the DC/ Maryland/ Virginia area (I recently moved down to DC) especially in terms of vacancy rates, whats allowed in terms of STR vs LTR, etc... I have read The Book on Rental Property Investing, but would like some help and guidance especially on purchase my first property. I've got some decent savings and have access to more capital if needed, but would ideally like to start on the smaller side, prove the concept/ investment then grow.

I don't know the STR laws there but many cities have a minimum requirement of 30 days to be considered a LTR. I rent my properties as 30 day minimums for that reason in Austin and have had great success. I improved my cash flow from -$500/month to $2,000/month

Would you be up for chatting about your process and amount of active effort you put in on a monthly basis? I recently got a remote job, but will be visiting their headquarters in Austin on a monthly basis so I'm considering that area too!

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2 Votes

All Forum Posts by: Alex Johnson

Alex Johnson has started 2 posts and replied 7 times.

Post: Arlington Virginia investment

Post: Arlington Virginia investment

Post: Arlington Virginia investment

Post: How should I get started?

Post: How should I get started?

Post: How should I get started?

Post: How should I get started?