All Forum Posts by: Becky C.

Thanks Travis! Yes the pm was supposedly going to perform an inspection last month but has not provided me with any feedback which is frustrating. You're right, if I go out, I will definitely be interviewing new pms.

Thanks for sharing your lessons learned!

So one of the neighbors in the nice family neighborhood in Colorado Springs where I own a single family rental has been complaining to me about the tenant I have in the house. I have a property management company, and they seem to be completely unaware of these issues. I'm being told that large uhaul trucks and many cars are coming to the house each day which is disrupting this small cul de sac where many children often play. Also there are supposedly more people living in the house than I was told by my manager. The more I've been learning on BP, the more I fear I may have been mistaken to trust my property manager so implicitly without doing my own research. Prior to hiring this pm I managed it myself from afar with a great tenant with no problems for 4 years. What the pm told me about the tenant: one woman in her 50s and her two children who will be on the lease. She has a job as xyz and makes $$ per month (which was probably slightly below the % I've learned should be. I guess I assumed the pm did a background check and called references the ways I used to, but I could be wrong (ya know what happens when you assume!). I realized later after agreeing to take these ppl on and saw on the lease they are adult children and all three on the lease have different last names. Also there are actual children in the home which were unreported and possibly other adults too now. I confirmed all these claims with other neighbors whom I trust after hearing about all this. Through many emails with my pm I haven't gotten them on the phone but am now trying to. Should I fly out to see what's going on myself? Does any of this even warrant concern since the tenant is paying rent on time? Thanks for any advice.

@Aaron Stone Just found this website http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ma/worcester/crim...

Can't vouch for its accuracy, but looks like a cool tool for tracking crime/safety of different neighborhoods on a heat map of the city. 

This is another good article with a slide show of dangerous neighborhoods in Worcester http://www.golocalworcester.com/news/worcesters-mo... and the opposite here with nice neighborhoods http://www.golocalworcester.com/real_estate/worces... a little old, but probably still relevant.

@Nick Foundas we may have crossed paths. I was at WPI during that time and my cousin was at Assumption. I'll send you a separate note.

Hi @Richard Cook, welcome to BP and REI! I was active duty AF stationed in Co Springs and bought my first house on my first assignment there. That was 2007, so when we go reassigned a few years later, we held onto the house rather than sell it and bring 10K to closing... but its worked out really well as a rental since we had about ZERO dollars of our own cash in it with a VA loan.

The thing you should know about Co Springs is that other than the military, there's really no strong industry or job growth, so you can't count on much appreciation happening with properties in my eyes. I expect the home we bought will hover around the $225k mark going up or down by 20% over the years with the cycles. If it ever goes much further up (or down) I'd really be surprised. But the key is it cost me nothing out of pocket, hasn't had any vacancy, and since it was a new spec home hasn't yet incurred too many capital costs, so we've had time to save up some money towards that when it occurs down the road.

Wherever you choose to buy, make sure you take advantage of your VA loans! You may even want to search for foreclosed VA properties in the areas you mentioned to find even better deals. Or consider using an FHA loan on your first property/mulit-family, because you can't use that again once you have a few properties under your belt, but you could still use VA, and reuse when you move so long as you plan to owner occupy for one year.

@Colin Smith and @Bryan Rodriguez, maybe you've had different experiences with more targeted and better analyzed investments in Co Springs, which is how I am looking at things these days. I probably would've never bought that first property if I know what I know now, but I'm still glad I became an "accidental" landlord and am learning more. I am thinking of investing in more properties in CSprings because the prices are much more attractive than in MA where I currently reside, but not sure I want to do so through my current property manager. Going to follow this topic to glean more of your advice about the area! 

Also just wanted to say hello to @Brendan M., as its always nice to connect with other AF investors in the same areas. What part of town are you investing in?

Originally posted by @Nick Foundas:

I heard to stay away from the "Main South" area.  Other than that Im not 100% sure of where to stay away from, I hear it can change a lot from street to street

Agree with Nick, I went to college in Worcester. Living there for 4 years, I got to know some parts of the city fairly well (around Assumption, Holy Cross, Worcester State and Worcester Polytechnic as well as the Airport, Downtown, Rte 9, Indian Lake, Salisbury St) but even in those areas it really varies street to street. 

I lived in a pretty nice 3 family home that was a rental by a park, but two streets over was a completely different story with more crime. That was 10 years ago or so, but going up the hill up Salisbury from WPI or over to Indian Lake there were very nice neighborhoods, and I'd often run over that way. There's a lot of new growth near the biotech park, so that could be up and coming. 

Closer to the different colleges you would have good luck with rentals and probably be fairly safe (though if you're flipping a SFH I can't speak to the market), but you should definitely go drive or walk around and get a feel for the neighborhood you're targeting.

Welcome to the area! 

Thanks @Nick Aalerud, will definitely check out your blog post. Your advice is much appreciated. Noticed you were from Woburn, I grew up in Wakefield, so very familiar with the area up there! Sounds overall like you take a variety of approaches you have at your disposal to solve problems for folks and create win-win situations for all involved. This is exactly what I aspire to do in the real estate business. 

@Mike Hurney definitely agree that disclosure is king, and being transparent about your intentions is required for getting into these type of scenarios. Thanks!

I've been watching multi families in Waltham for some time. You'll need to act fast if you find something you like on MLS. Great idea to house hack your first deal. Straight cash flow in the area is challenging on MLS if you're not finding better deals off market since everything is so inflated here. Consider running the numbers on what it would cost you after you move out down the road if that's part of the plan eventually too. I've heard a lot of great advice on the podcasts about approaching owners that might not be currently listing their properties (craigslist, out of state owners, eviction notices, etc.) but haven't tried this myself yet so not sure if one works better in town than others. Assume this is a lot of trial and error but applies in most markets. Guessing these types of negotiations but you some more time and creativity (seller financing for example) in negotiation than MLS also if that's something you need. Good luck, we should keep in touch and compare notes on what we learn in the area! There's a big meet up group here I am planning to check out too (Black Diamond).

Hi Chris, there was another recent post that was similar, though not exactly the same. Some folks offered opinions on the value of the license and others recommendations for MA real estate school. Agent or Broker? Also cheapest class in Mass on the BiggerPockets forums http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/21/topics/245988-agent-or-broker-also-cheapest-class-in-mass