All Forum Posts by: Bruce Glenn

Hi Matthew, welcome to Birmingham! And congratulations on your decision to invest in real estate here. I actually started in upstate NY many years ago and ended up in Birmingham. We love it here. I've been an investor here for over 30 years and also an appraiser for almost 30 years. If you ever have any questions about the area, or anything about investing here feel free to reach out. Good Luck!

This is the first time back for REI Live. It is this Thursday.

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Hey Pope & David. I'm an investor in Birmingham along with being an appraiser for the last 29 years. I mainly do fix and flips for myself but I know the Birmingham market pretty well. If you ever have questions, feel free to reach out to me. Another property manager I know of is GK Houses. If you wanted another person to talk to. I don't know Mark personally but have heard good things about him also.

HI Lisa,

Have not used AHI but, I have a good inspector that I've used several times. His name  is Tim Goodsell. He was a builder for years and really knows what he's doing. Email me if you'd like his info.

Hi Lisa,

I am an appraiser here in Birmingham, but I'm also an investor. I do more fix and flips but I've had a number of rentals through the years also. I like the Pinson area. I flipped one there about a year ago and I know a number of people that have rentals in that area. I've known a few of the people at GK Houses for sometime and they do a good job with rentals. If you have any other specific questions feel free to reach out. I'm pretty familiar with the entire Birmingham area. Good luck!

Some great advice so far and I have to go along with all those talking about keeping screening standards the same. As soon as you vary you open yourself up for problems. Now, having said that, the rentals I had for some time did not attract people with high credit scores. In my case that was not a high priority. I loved calling past landlords. You can learn as much from what they don't say as from what they do.

Hey Marty,

She probably just needs to contact them directly. When I did it, all my classes were nights and weekends I believe.  I was working full time during the day also so I couldn't take day classes. It took a number of months to get through everything. It is not really hard, just a lot of material.

I personally would go with someone established starting out. You learn a lot of "book stuff" in class, but you need someone to show you all the ropes and what it is like in the "real world". I think that first year is well spent with someone.  As far as which one, I would tell her to interview with a few. To me it's all about getting the right fit.

Hope that helps,

Bruce 

Hi Marty, I'm an appraiser and have held my Real Estate license for some 7 or 8 years now. LAH in Homewood has classes to get your license. There are a lot of online places, but I prefer having a classroom situation where you can ask questions and have in depth discussions you just can't do online. That is the school I went through and I believe they still have them. They might be a good place to start.

Hey Jared. I agree with Mark. There are a lot of town homes in the Alabaster, Pelham, Helena area that make great rentals. I have two friends that have done really well in the past 5 years buying foreclosures, fixing them up and having great rentals. Besides being an investor, I'm also an appraiser for the past 27 years so feel free to message, email or call if you have more questions. Thanks

Hi Daniel, Like the others have said, CenterPoint can vary greatly from street to street and neighborhood to neighborhood. I had a number of rental there for years and liked them, but I know the area pretty well. I also have several friends that have rentals in the Pelham, Helena, Alabaster area and they really like that area. Of course the home prices are substantially higher but it is a totally different market. A lot fewer rental properties in relation to owner occupied so that can be a good thing in the long run.