All Forum Posts by: Alyssa Dyer

First, congrats on your first deal! Whether it's this one or another. 

I have a couple thoughts. 

1. With cheaper properties / low income tenants your team is absolutely critical. If the team managing the property is comfortable with low income and has systems to protect you, go for it! If the team isn't "sold" on the deal, don't do it. The process is nuanced and mistakes are easy. 

2. Personal opinion on this one- I think you can win with *almost* any type of deal. New construction. Historic. Single family. Multifamily. Low income. Subsidized. Private pay. I always say "know your goals and buy with eyes wide open." There's a switch cost for everything. 

If high cash flow is important to you, you'll *likely* have to make concessions on location and/or condition. If you concede on location, just make sure your screening is tight. If you concede on condition, make sure you have reserves in place. 

If low maintenance is important, you'll *likely* have to concede on equity or cash flow. 

3. I buy low income so I am biased but I think it sounds like a stellar deal. 

Not a right or a wrong here IMO. I'm happy to take a look at inspections or whatever if that would help you! Hope this helps! 

Oh man, I love these questions. 

There are winners and losers in every market. There are deals in every single market. The market won't make you or break you. 

Know your goals. Develop your strategy. Find the deal. Analyze it. Buy if the deal aligns with your goals. It's not about finding the perfect deal or the perfect market, it's about knowing what you want and taking steps to get you there.  

To actually answer your question (haha), I'm buying in the midwest (where I live) if the deal has equity. I don't care much about cash flow. I'm leasing almost exclusively to subsidized tenants. 

Leave it! You'd be surprised how many people love the "charm" of a creaking wood floor. 

I'm not in FL so take this with a grain of salt. When the shelter in place really started to become a reality we went ALL IN on customer service to solidify the relationship prior to the (inevitable) stickiness that was to come. 

Anyway, we checked in with all tenants every other week thanking them for paying, reminding them we are a small business and their payment (even if just partial) was really helpful, helped several file for unemployment, and offered to pick up rent so they didn't have to come to the office. We reminded them all late fees and NSF fees would be waived. We also (after getting permission from our property owners) took an extra step and told our tenants that if their financial position became burdensome, if they could communicate that with 30 days notice we'd allow them to terminate their lease and retail their security deposit. Mostly, we let them know that we were here to help them. 

I only say all that to say, most of our tenants were so grateful to have communication from us that they reciprocated. They'd make partial payments, pick up extra jobs, communicate proactively if they wouldn't be able to pay, and/or voluntarily move out. We only had a single eviction to file (out of 140) when the moratorium lifted. We had 2 (if I remember correctly) voluntarily move out and left the property in good shape. We have ~10 who are still a bit behind on rent. 

Anyway- it put us in a really great spot on the eviction we had to file because we were able to show overwhelming support of our tenants. We had the ruling immediately and moved right along.

Tenants are people. They want respect, compassion, and to know their options. :) 

Couldn't agree with this more. Start with what you need/want. Implement. Test. Grow. Repeat.  

Man, one of my favorite topics, haha. 

Short answer, Cozy was great when I self managed and hadn't jumped into real estate full time yet. I kept documentation in Google Drive, did screening and payments in Cozy, and it was easy for the bookkeeper to log into both and get what she needed. 

Longer answer- Once real estate was my full time gig we looked at Buildium, use Appfolio, I started with Cozy, etc., etc. Ultimately (and after hours of wasted time on demos) we decided to take a step back from most of the industry products because they were so limiting. Sure, it was "all in one." But the switch cost was super frustrating. We felt like we had to build our business/model/service around the technology (rather than having tech that really served our needs as a business). We use Airtable, Stacker, Google Drive, and Quickbooks now. The solution is way too complex if you're just managing your properties and aren't scaling quickly. 

Hope this helps!

I don't think there's a right or wrong on this one. Like anything with investing, know the pros and cons of different solutions and make decisions based on your risk tolerance and financial position. 

I have a ton of equity in almost everything I own, so I am fine with my reserves being low. In the event of a catastrophic event my worst case scenario is a refinance or selling the property. I also work in sales/real estate full time so it's pretty "easy" for me to grind out some extra hours and come up with cash. 

If I didn't have equity and/or if I had a set income I'd likely be much more concerned with having a higher amount of reserved. 

Hope this helps!

Man, we started running into this more lately. 

It's a bit of a pain, but we've started meeting the tenants at the house with our iPad. We walk them through setting up an email, setting up their ACH, etc. *A small lesson learned, we also ask them if they want us to use a family member's email instead. We had a couple calls from elderly tenant's kids and grandkids concerned that we had access to banking information, understandably. They normally decline but it's gone more smoothly in those situations if we call the family member because they aren't caught off guard and protective. 

Send a written notice to them outlining the violation, your expectation, and where those two aren't in alignment. 

Mad tenants leave, and we hate vacancy so we care a lot about the tenant relationship. It's abnormal for the industry but we will generally call the tenant, give them a heads up that the notice is on the way, and talk to them about options for moving forward. The preliminary conversation helps them feel like we're on their side and want to keep them protected from breaching their lease. 

I have warranties on a couple of my old historic properties with dated mechanicals. If I have something small (backed up plumbing, outlet not working, etc) I don't call the warranty company. I'd rather just have my guys do the work quickly so the tenants are taken care of and happy. 

I'll only call for replacement of major mechanicals.