All Forum Posts by: Ben Freiman

I guess I was one of the lucky ones. From start on BP to first deal was ~2 months and it was something that I just sort of fell into... Found it on Zillow and noticed it had a price decrease only 2 weeks after being listed, so I made an aggressive offer which the seller countered still in my favor. Came down quite a bit actually. Not much to fix it up and rented really fast. Though it’s not all roses, you should see my post about the Carbon Monoxide problem we had. Yikes!!

Wow Colleen that is so sad. I’m sorry to hear that about your friend. Goes to show how serious of an issue CO can be. Thank you for sharing.

I just purchased a property off market and the reason was for the seller to not have to pay commissions to an agent. Saved them a few thousand dollars. I got a pretty good deal too, so I’m not complaining. Also if a buyer is willing to pay what the seller is asking for then there is no need to list the property. Listing can require the seller “sprucing” up the property and some people may not want to go through that hassle.

@Matthew Olszak You said it perfectly. It is a very cheap device to install and it will save lives. It's one thing to have a broken dishwasher, where you can fix that in a few days, but you can't underestimate CO. 

Originally posted by @Marian Smith:

What was fixed on the furnace? I always understood carbon monoxide leaks were due to cracks in the heat exchanger? and required a furnace replacement. Thanks.

 Hi Marian, yes it is usually the heat exchange (per the technician), but in this case the air intake has a bees nest lodged in it, so the furnace did not get enough air flow to expel the gas. Luckily it was an easy fix. I plan on having the same company come back in about a month to do another combustion check to make sure all is good. This is a huge safety risk and I want to be sure the furnace is operating properly. 

Hello BP thought I would share a scary landlord story with everyone and how I reacted. This just goes to show it’s an up and down business, just like any other W2 job, good days and bad days. I was literally on my way to close on another rental property when I get a call from one of my tenants. “Ben, our Carbon Monoxide detector(which I newly installed before they moved in) went off, fire department is here to secure the premises, and it’s the furnace.” My thoughts were, holy crap what am I gonna do now. I went to close on the new prop and called the gas company to have them make sure there’s no gas leak. Then after close started calling multiple heating companies (Mind you it’s 6pm and 20 degrees outside so lots of furnaces are going down) and personally went to the property to make sure everyone was ok. The heating company could not come out until the next day so the tenants, unfortunately for safety reasons, had to stay somewhere else. Next morning 730am my *** is on the phone with 4 heating companies to get the person who could come out right away and fix the problem. By noon that day the furnace was fixed and tenants were happy. I wanted to share this because of the severity of the safely issue with CO leaking in the house and my personal response for my tenants to make sure they are safe and show how much I care. (I also work a W2 job and had to leave that for about 3 hours while the furnace was being repaired.) If I can make it through this then all of us here at BP can make it through anything.

I would highly recommend creating a separate bank account for your rental activities (cash in and cash out). Much easier when it comes to tax time to separate your business expenses from personal. Otherwise it would be a nightmare going through all those bank statements and “proving” the expense was for business purposes. I also recommend creating an LLC. It’s very simple if you get on your Secretary of State website. There is usually a step by step guide and it’s not too expensive for a single member LLC. But that’s up to you.

Not sure if I have enough information to make an informed decision for you, but I have tenants with a 530 credit score and the only reason I rented to them was the glowing reference I got from their previous landlord. They rented for 7 years before moving to my city and always paid on time... For some people the credit score doesn’t matter for small items, but when it comes to shelter, everyone “needs” shelter.

Welcome to Real Estate Investing! I would say depends what type of REI you’re doing (flips or BRRRR or other). I didn’t have true contractors lined up from the get go and it wasn’t a problem for me. Though I was looking for better properties and not true fixer uppers. My father and father in law happen to be do it all contractors so I could ask them questions, but ultimately I used recommendations from my realtor, people I work with, and even sites like Thumbtack and Angie’s List for specific help. Keep asking around and use your judgement when talking to contractors and hopefully you find one you like.

I echo what everyone else is saying. About a 5 point hit that doesn’t drop off for about 2-3 years. I purchased 2 buy and hold Properties 2 months apart this year and the bank still had to run my credit since it had been longer than 30 days. Above 760 you should be fine, otherwise look at your report and see how you can bring it up.