All Forum Posts by: Adam Moehn

Welcome Christopher!

I think the laws are combination of trying to deal with the small handful of landlords that don't take care of their properties and trying to push police work onto landlords.

Mandatory Class - I did the class and it was ok though mostly was about basic stuff that you ought to already know if you have a rental property. But I suppose the point is just to make sure you know the basics. The only major part I didn't like was having to take off work to go to it.

Requiring background checks - You should be doing this anyway so not a big deal, though requiring it seems unnecessary.

Nuisance properties - They blame the property for things the tenant does. I'd like an explanation of how that makes sense. It seems short sighted to fine landlords for things tenants do. I assume the point is to convince landlords to evict problem tenants, but even if they do people have to live somewhere so it's just shuffling around where the problem causers live rather than really solving anything.

@Matt Slykhuis 

Yeah, just up 380. I used to live in Cedar Falls

Welcome to BP Matt!

Welcome Todd!

I have to agree with the people that said to invest in the 401k up to the amount they'll match, it's what I do. The match is a zero risk return on your money. I doubt you can find any other zero risk 100% returns on an investment.

Will real estate have a better return? Maybe, but not certainly. The question is, at a cost of $100 to you, would you rather have $100 invested in real estate or $200 invested in a 401k?

Most of the listings on Trulia and Zillow come from Realtors. So the websites really amount to being a supplement more than a replacement. It would be nice to get a legitimate competitor into the field because Realtors essentially have a legalized monopoly. But it will be hard to replace Realtors because they have a good system that perpetuates their importance. It's quite clever really.

1. Buyers get free service from Realtors so most buyers use them. Who doesn't want free service? 

2. Realtors make commissions by selling the listings of other Realtors, so they pretty much only show those houses to buyers.

3. Sellers want the best chance of selling their house which means making as many buyers as possible aware of it. Since most buyers are using Realtors, and Realtors normally only show houses listed by a Realtor, sellers are motivated to list the house with a Realtor despite having to pay hefty commissions.

Yes, you'd first want to be sure your local laws don't restrict this. The book "Landlording on Autopilot" mentions accepting a year's rent as a possible reason to qualify an applicant that doesn't have enough verifiable income to otherwise qualify. But I've not run into the situation myself.

Depends largely on your risk tolerance. Financial consultants typically give conservative advise. It's not wrong to be conservative, but it's not always optimal. If you're willing to take more risk and can qualify for a loan to buy a rental, that would probably give you a better return.

There's no right answer, but I'd personally take care of things in this order.

1. Pay off high interest rate loans.

2. Invest in real estate if a good deal is available.

3. Pay of low interest rate loans.

I wouldn't think there'd be a problem with taking the prepaid rent. But only after doing background checks and deciding you'd rent to them even if they didn't prepay, because the fact they want to prepay is a red flag that they're trying to get you to not look closely at their background or credit. Sounds like you made a good choice turning them down.