All Forum Posts by: Bonnie Low

Quote from @Joseph Nguyen:

Hello! I wasn't sure where to post this, so hopefully this is fine. 

I'm a new investor in Dallas, TX! Hoping to connect and learn from others! I recently purchased a SFH (4 bed/ 3 bath) in Plano via First Home Buyer/owner occupied conventional loan and am renting by the room. I currently rent out 3 of the 4 rooms (all MTRs) and keep 1 for myself. However, I'm also a travel professional and am usually away from my home months at a time for each contract that I do. I originally thought I had to occupy one of the rooms (it being owner-occupied), but I've heard people say that they were in the same situation and would just sleep on the couch. My question is:

For the time that I am away, would I be able to rent out the 4th room as a MTR as well? 

As for HELOCs, how does one use one? I know it's a line of credit, but would I receive a card / account number? Wondering how I would access it.

Also, looking at opening a HYSA with Sofi or Ally for when I get more properties. I was seeing if anybody had experience using either one? Wanted something for easy transactions for rent collection, bookkeeping, etc. 

Thanks in advance for any advice!

 Hey Joseph - it sounds like you're already off to a great start! House hacking is so smart and you absolutely can offer your room for rent as well. Your lender doesn't care where you sleep ; ) You are technically supposed to use your home as your primary residence for a defined amount of time according to the terms of your loan. However, circumstances change and people do sometimes end up using it for something other than their primary. As for rent collection, bookkeeping, etc I recommend you go through some online demos of different products to see what works best for you. I used several before I landed on Baselane. For me, it's a great blend of banking, bookkeeping and tenant management software. It's quick to set up, has a very intuitive interface and has a lot of flexibility. It was designed specifically for real estate investors BY real estate investors, which is one of the things that differentiates it from other banking and bookkeeping platforms and why I think it serves its purpose so well. It's also free and considering how much other programs are charging, this is a huge plus. Check it out!

I've used Avail in the past, but switched to Baselane last year. I did like some features of Avail as far as using it for developing the lease and collecting rent but that left me with too many other functions I had to handle elsewhere. And not being able to issue the deposit refund via Avail was the final straw for me. With Baselane I have the ability to do everything from initial vetting of the tenant to drawing up the lease to collecting rent (and issuing deposit refunds!), plus all of the banking and bookkeeping features. It's much, much easier to have all of this available in one place. And it's helping me keep my transactions organized so I'm prepared for tax season. That alone was the biggest improvement for my business practices and allowed me to take all of my bookkeeping in-house and eliminate the expense I was shelling out for a bookkeeper.

Congrats - Columbus is a great market! It is totally feasible for you to self manage, even if you're just getting started. In fact, BP just released a new book on self managing written by Grace Gudenkauf and Amelia McGee from the Women Invest In Real Estate (WIIRE) podcast. I recommend you start by reading that. There are a lot of options out there for your tech stack. I've used a lot of different programs, but currently I'm using Baselane for banking, bookkeeping and rent collection along with their partner Rocket Lawyer for lease creation and another partner, TransUnion, for background checks. I love that with Baselane you can access all of these through your dashboard. It's very streamlined. Whatever program you choose, you'll want to run a credit check, criminal background check and eviction check. The tenant pays for it (~$40) and the report comes to your inbox. Make sure you use a state-specific lease so that you are incorporating any specific regulations and disclosures relevant to the state you're doing business in. Don't forget to verify income, too. Most people provide recent paystubs and/or a letter from their company HR department verifying their current employment and monthly take home pay.

Quote from @Brent Logsdon:

Hello, I'm looking for bookkeeping software that works with my real estate business and can work with my personal rental properties. Any recommendations?

 Yes, I highly recommend you check out Baselane! I love it because it's made by real estate investors FOR real estate investors so you get everything you need to manage your property finances and nothing you don't need. I wish it would have been around years ago when we started investing. I used to use Quickbooks but it's clunky and overkill IMO. Even our bookkeeper was impressed with Baselane and she's the one who used to maintain QB for us! I am using it to manage finances for my long term rentals, midterm and one short term rental so it's very compatible with most portfolios. It's very intuitive and has key functions that I really needed like the ability to quickly categorize transactions into categories that sync with your Schedule E for tax time, the ability to set up accounts for each property and sub accounts for specific things related to each property. I love the virtual credit card option as well, which makes tracking expenses so much easier. These are just some of the great features Baselane offers. I recommend you attend a free product demo webinar so you can see if it's right for you.

Thanks for that explanation @Jeremy Torres!

Quote from @Jeremy Torres:

Right now I use apartments. Com for background screening ($25 tenant handles the fee) and rent collection.   It’s free.   No monthly fees for tenants or me.

 Just curious what kind of screening apartments.com offers. Do you get credit score, eviction and criminal background checks for that $25 fee the tenant pays?

BP has calculators you can use for this. It doesn't matter if you're using it as an MTR - you can just input all those data points. You can also use a product like DealCheck or others that are out there. Some people build their own excel calculators. There are many different products out there that should fit your needs.

Quote from @Jeremy Torres:

my current cpa has been in the business for 40+ years.  He’s about 70-75 or so.  This year I just felt like it’s complicated to keep up with my invoices and give him itemized numbers.   he wants it broken down specifically (repair, supply, maint., rent , etc)  is this normal???    I have 5 properties that seems hard for me or is that normal?   Anything y’all do that makes tax season easier?   I just had to file an extension because I bought two properties last yr and my CPA was booked up and wasn’t able to complete my return due to me ‘not having my information correct.’
I felt like I was ready, given had all my 1098 statements from the lenders. 
 I thought about doing my return through Dave ramseys tax pro. they are state based and are certified through your state.  You can upload all your invoices online (year around) and it seems like it’s more easier. Every invoice you get you can upload it on your portal and they do they need to do witht them for you.  (It is more costly though)     I gave my cpa my income & expenses per property he said that’s not enough.   I hand wrote each transaction for each property and nope that wasn’t enough.  When he said that wouldn’t work I felt like selling all 5 of my rentals on the spot!      What do y’all do to make things easier and simplified for multiple properties?? 

Whatever you do, don't sell your properties because of your bookkeeping experience! I know people are going to recommend Quickbooks to you, but I strongly recommend against it. If you don't like bookkeeping ( and it sounds like you don't), you're probably going to find QB overly complex. I know I did. In fact, we had to hire a bookkeeper just to keep everything straight in QB for us and it was expensive! Last year I switched over to Baselane, which is a banking and bookkeeping platform and let me tell you, it's been a total game changer. It is very, very easy to use. Since you're writing out all of your transactions anyway, you can essentially do the same thing only much easier in Baselane by "tagging" each transaction when it appears. You simply identify which property it is associated with and what it's for. The categories are the same as your Schedule E your CPA will prepare for you at tax time so it's very simple to run a report at the end of year. Baselane has many other features you need also, like the ability to screen your tenants, draw up lease agreements and collect deposits and rent. I don't know what you're using for all of those functions now, but it's really awesome to have it all in one place. 

Quote from @John Underwood:

It seems to me that if you are running a MTR it will be common to have a month or more vacant between renters. I don't think you can expect to have 100% occupancy. 

This is a big negative for me from ever wanting to do a MTR.

There may be exceptions to this if your property is in a high demand area like a large hospital where there are many traveling nurses.

I'm always curious where these assumptions come from. Maybe working in the STR space just makes it hard to imagine that there is significant demand for longer stays? Most successful MTR operators are seeing very little vacancy. The key is knowing what type of traveler is looking for the type of property you're offering in the location you're in. If you have those dialed and the space is well appointed, you should be on the higher end of occupancy. Unfortunately, there's no single source for data like AirDNA for STRs, but I'm sure that's coming. But I talk to folks in the MTR space day in and day out who stay booked as much as they want. For example, since launching our first MTR a year and a half ago I've had a total of 6 days' vacancy. IF I can get my unit turned over fast enough, I can potentially have a new guest in the day after someone moves out (move out in the AM, new guest in by late afternoon the following day). I did take an extra day between my last guests because we had to swap out a water heater and do some touch up painting. Like I said, I talk to hosts all the time who have similar experiences so I think you might be surprised how full you can stay with MTR with the right property and the right strategy.

Quote from @Nicole Heasley Beitenman:

Quote from @Bonnie Low:

Hi, Amy. I'm not in your area, but I am launching a virtual MTR meetup you might be interested in. It's a weekly call and a collaboration space for networking and sharing resources. I see a lot of need for hosts to connect with others to share best practices, problem solve, make connections and so on in a live, interactive way so that is the purpose of this group. Let me know if you'd be interested in joining!

 I'd love the info on that!

Hi, Nicole! I'll send you a message with the link. We'd love to have you join us.