All Forum Posts by: Aubrey Page

I thought I heard on a podcast 079, the interviewee (yes, I messaged her) talking about their points system for tenant screening.  We are renting in a low-income area so a general "no criminal history" and "credit history must be x" or "must have had job for a year" may not be the right approach.  Whereas seeing how many points are deducted may give us a better idea.  With the understanding that certain things are deal breakers.   I am also thinking it may allow us to show that we are not showing any favoritism towards one individual or another if it is numbers based.  Does anyone have an example of this process?

Side note: Had a guy stop by the house today inquiring about the apartments.  He made the mistake about lying about his time in the Navy.  I asked him about what he did in the Navy and he gave such a confusing and convoluted answer that ended something like "I mean...I don't really know what it was called."  Well...I was in the Navy. On ships. Like he claimed he was.  When I told him I was in too I think I saw a flicker of fear in his eyes. lol. Don't lie about that stuff!

We had the cash up front so we got a loan from a local credit union. 3.75% with 25% down.  We have had a multi-family in a low-income area of North Avondale since last week if you are interested in talking through that.  My husband also works full time.  Right now I am running the show and he is my helpful electrician/strongman. Feel free to connect!

Alex Jagoditz it is really weird people are asking our advice. We have no idea! So if you want to check out North Avondale, there are a few multis and SFHs for sale now. We wanted a multi so that put us in specific parts of the city. If NA seems like a good idea, I recommend looking up the North Avondale Neighborhood Association. Go to a meeting. Hang out on a street to see what's up. Yesterday I witnessed a car repossession. There was also a man who wanted his driver back in the car so he honked for a full 60-seconds. My street is a little rough, but we have met several of the neighbors who are REALLY sweet and responsible. I want them in my property! But there are a lot of properties that are being rented for super cheap because they are not being maintained. Some houses have fewer windows broken than ones that have glass. The city has decided to invest more money into NA so that's good. From the recent flooding I see a lot of trash around. I am hoping they take the time to clean that up, but I'm sure it's not even their 48th priority. So, I only know my street really well and we didn't look only in specific areas. We looked for houses anywhere. If the numbers worked, we looked into the neighborhood. We are new to the area so we don't have strong feelings on most areas.

@John Cohen so you live in NY and buy here?  Maybe we're doing the right thing then, @Brad Miller!  Well, John, if you ever come down in person let us know and we can all meet up.

Thanks everyone!

@Adam Curry - I'll contact you for a list.  We are trying to keep a list of them for when we are out of town and need someone ASAP and many people aren't available.  We have everyone lined up for now.

@Paul Sian - Well, we looked for about a year in Middletown and Hamilton (a little closer to us), but we just didn't find anything where the numbers worked.  We found the property and didn't know what North Avondale was, but we drove around and were pretty happy with it.  There are portions of it which are built up like the suburbs, other parts with mansions that need some attention, and our road is all quadplexes that mostly need work.  It's a quiet street (except for the one guy with the huge speakers).  We drove by at a few different times of day before purchasing.  So, mostly that the numbers worked, but once we started looking into it, we liked it.  We always intended to go into low-income.

My husband and I just bought a property last week in the North Avondale area.  It is a quadplex in a low-income area.  We have met several neighbors who have been very welcoming.  We are excited to become a bigger part of the community.  We live much farther north of the city in the suburbs, so we like the closeness of the city.

My husband has been trying to talk me into getting into REI for years, but it always made me so nervous. I listened to Marcia Maynard's podcast about being a landlord with integrity and it really opened my mind. Many of the career-fields I have been in are built to favor men and don't have a lot of focus on ethics. Marcia's talk showed me my ability to set my own ground rules for how we interact with our tenants.

I was still nervous about dropping a lot of money after purchasing our first house in March 2015. So we looked for low-income properties. We searched for about a year for the right deal. We found a property that had great cash flow (better than the stock market!) and we could ROI in less than 5 years even at a 75% occupancy (we hope to do better!). It was a manageable mortgage financially on top of our own and we finally got a credit union to agree to give us a 15y 25% down mortgage.

Now that we have closed and we actually owned it, we are working on a lot of things to set us up to have tenants before the first mortgage note is due in December.

- Hiring responsible contractors
- Screening tenants well (2 requests for information already!)
- Legal boundaries (security cameras in common spaces, renting out garages - per zoning, required code updates)
- Balancing fixing it up *too* much for our rental market
- Transferring our mortgage to an LLC (credit union wouldn't allow it initially - looking into whether we have a due on sale clause)
- General asset protection

I will post a more specific tenant screening question in another post, but that is us.  I am primarily handling the property.  My husband works full-time and I do not so I am fixing up the house, finding replacement parts, and coordinating contractors.  He comes at night to move heavy things and rewire things for me.  We are excited to get beyond this hurdle of initial repairs and get into tenant management.  We know low-income properties can be tough, but we hope to provide safe housing for people who are truly looking for that in their price point.

Let me know if you take that 4-unit in North Avondale! We own a 4-unit in N Avondale.  Would be willing to talk through how our deal went and the state of our property if you think it will help.  I suspect you are looking at the one just down the road from us.

My husband and I just bought low-income multifamily in North Avondale. No advice because we are new to it too. Good luck!