All Forum Posts by: Ed Lopez

https://www.biggerpockets.com/...

Opinions, comments appreciated.  Thanks,  

Thank you for the input @Darius Ogloza makes a good point and I feel like maybe that is the component that doesn’t add up for me.  The towns I was looking at are mostly farming communities which for some reason I was correlating in my head with better quality tenants.  Or at least tenants that pay on time.  I’d be curious to know more specifics on your experiment.  

I have about 200k to invest and I thought utilizing it in parts of the country where the buy in is cheaper made sense. 

I’m flying out to stay in Illinois for a couple weeks to see what it’s like.  Hopefully that will give me a better idea of what I’m looking at. 

I've really just dabbled with SFH rental properties in the past but am now looking at making more significant moves with a goal to be done with my 9-5 job in 6 years.

I started looking at smaller town properties in Kentucky, Illinois etc mostly because the buy in was reasonable and I could at least get proof of concept without too much risk.  

I'm ready to make some purchases but had a slight hesitation. A fair number of these deals seem to cash flow exceptionally. To the point if you are paying cash you could have a 100% ROI in 5 years or less. I understand the property values In these areas will probably not increase much overtime, but I feel like I'm missing something.

I always wonder why people would rent instead of buying when the rents are so much higher than a mortgage.  Mind you, I’m from a California market where the complete opposite is true.  You rarely if ever meet the 1% rule however my last property literally doubled in value over the last 5 years.  

Some of these investments just gave me pause because they seemed to be too good to be true from a cash flow standpoint.  

Thoughts? Opinions? 

Thanks. 

Thank you @Landon Bleau. I will check it out!

Hello Everyone, 

I realize this is a broad question. I have owned a couple of single-family home rentals in the past but it has been more as a side hobby keeping our primaries after we moved out of them. We did pretty well recently selling our primary residence and are going to have about $200,000 to invest. I’m still working full-time and will have cash flow from that for now, my primary goal is to be ready for retirement in six years (I will have a 60% penchant starting at that time).  I’d like some investments that are reliable and low risk.  Our California market here is pretty wild and I would like to stay away from it for now. I’d like something that is relatively hands off possibly handled by a rental management company.  The idea of Airbnb appeals to me because we could have places throughout the US that we wouldn’t mind visiting on vacation. I’m trying to do my homework I brushing up on the podcast and the webinars. Just curious what others would do it in the same situation. 

I’m in a similar boat. We just sold our primary residence which had a rental on the property as well.  Looking to downsize and invest the cash with a goal of passive income when I retire from my day job a little early in six years.  Our central California market is just far too hot right now and there are no foreclosures to speak of due to covid relief. We are in a cash strong position for once but I’m not sure what to do with it.  

Hello all.  We've decided to change things up from real estate and invest in a franchise.  We have found a location to rent in the city and have a proposed lease from the owners.  This has all been through our commercial broker.  I would however like to have an attorney lay eyes on the lease before I sign on the dotted line.  Any recommendations?  We are in central CA, (Fresno/Clovis area) though I don't know that it matters.  The lease looked ok to me, just want to make sure I didn't overlook any caveats so to speak.  Thanks. 

Here is my situation. In January of this year I purchased a new primary residence. When I bought the property I was planning on holding some cash back to do improvements however I ended up needing to add those funds to the down payment to avoid a "jumbo loan" at a higher rate. So now I am looking into doing a HELOC to free up some of that equity for our improvements. The problem that I'm running into is that there are several buildings on the property that were included in the sale price and appraisal (it is a 10 acre rural property). There is a separate house on the front acre that is occupied by renters, a 1700 sf workshop, a 1800 sf professional recording studio and of course the primary house. All of this was taken into account on the appraisal but now that I am looking at a home equity, the first lender I checked with said they would only count the primary home in the valuation which does not leave me enough equity for the loan. Are there any lenders that would loan on the appraisal that was made earlier this year when the property was purchased? I have another investment property with about $100k equity in it but I would really like to keep them separate. Thoughts?

Thanks for the replies everyone.  @Account Closed It is a sought after neighborhood however there is new construction all around as well.  We purchased it in 2012 for 305K and identical homes in the neighborhood have sold for 395-400K in the recent months.  

I was mainly curious about the pest issue.  I don't know how much of that responsibility falls upon the renter.  Obviously cleanliness and living style can play a big factor in that.  I think I will contact a pest control to come out and do a one time or quarterly treatment and revisit the rental agreement to make sure that responsibility lies with the tenant in the future.  

Hello, I was hoping to get some advice on what to do with my renters and property management company.  A little background, we had a home built in 2012 in an A neighborhood.  It was our primary residence until January of this year when we purchased a new home.  We rented out the 2012 home through a property management company.  There is not generally tons of cashflow in rental properties in this area, but considering we had a conventional loan with 4 years worth of equity in it, we were able to rent it to a family in which the husband and wife are both doctors at a nearby hospital for a small amount of cashflow.  The home rents for $2000, property manager charges $100 per month, my payment is $1800 and change.  I pay a gardener $30 per month to pull weeds so as you can see, its tight.  

Initially the property manager contacted me with a few requests of the renters such as  changing some light bulbs, a fridge filter and installing a garage door opener for them.  He mentioned he was telling me in case I wanted to DIY to save paying someone to come out to install these items.  I appreciated that and installed the opener.  Two weeks later they called me directly and complained about a mildew smell in the front loader washing machine (we left all of the appliances to rent with the house).  I went and installed a toploader.  The following week they called me complaining that the garage door opener wasn't working.  I went back by and found that someone had pulled the manual disconnect rope.  

I mentioned this to the property manager and he said he would talk to them about contacting me directly.  This morning the property manager contacted me saying they were complaining about the house being full of ants and cockroaches and requested I contact a pest control company or said he could do it and bill me.  Mind you, this was my primary residence for almost 5 years and I never saw one cockroach there.  Ants are seasonal in the area (its near a golf course in the country).  We usually set out a couple of ant traps near the doors and that's all it would take.  I have no more room to pay a pest control company $35/month. With the garage door opener and general maintenance, I will be lucky to break even on this property this year.  

I suggested to the property manager that since it seemed like the renters had priorities other than price, maybe we could offer a revised rental rate where all of those things were included possibly including a cleaning service or water delivery or whatever lumped into a new rental price.  That way, no calls for me, easy comfort for them, win win.  The property manager seemed opposed to this idea and said as renters, it is illegal to require them to have any services.  The property manager is also a realtor and has suggested selling the home multiple times.  I really want some steady passive income and have no desire to sell.  

Any suggestions? I am new to the landlord game.  Thanks guys.