All Forum Posts by: Christian Montalvo

We have provided them in our units that have proven difficult to move them in/out. We had an incident where someone banged up some walls/door frames pretty bad. I wouldn't purchase anything fancy. A string of quality tenants you won't have many problems and the washer/dryer can last a while... but some tenants do not ever clear out the lint filter which can create a fire hazard. We also had added in some units that tenants can rent them for extra $35/mo. This brings a little extra cash and I feel like it makes the renters abuse them less since it isn't something that just comes "free" in the rental.

As for water you can look at past water bills, average it out and bill it back to the tenants every month if you are worried about the water going up too much. I know cost of water varies on where you live.  

@Lynn Nguyen This may be a bit far of a commute for you but there are duplexes for sale in Glenn Heights. This is a great area to house hack considering Desoto is killing it at football right now. A lot of families want to move to the area to get their kids in Desoto ISD for football. If you're wanting to do a mid term rental I would recommend areas like Euless that are close to the airport. My husband and I house hacked in North Dallas, Irving and Euless. Our most profitable with least wear and tear on the properties were in Irving and Euless. 

Hi @Aaron Mayo, 

My husband and I have a significant amount of student loan debt (much more than you do) and we have steadily been building a cash flowing RE portfolio by house hacking over the past almost 3 years. The reason for building the portfolio was to help pay our student loans. We started with a 3.5% FHA duplex house hack that immediately cut our housing expense in half because the other tenant was paying majority of the mortgage. After 18 months we moved into a 4plex using the same strategy. When we made this move we eliminated our housing expense completely and actually started cash flowing. Sure a portion of the cash flow went into keeping up with our now 6 unit portfolio but it freed up more money in our W2 incomes to pay our loans. We have continued this process and are about to close on our 9th and 10th doors. This has actually helped us sustain a frugal yet normal lifestyle where we travel, pay for daycare and have been able to increase our student loan payments on average by $1000/mo. This is after all properties and average monthly expenses are covered. We treated the house hacking game like @Brandon Turner says... "you can either drag buckets of water or build a sprinkler system". If we were still paying what we could barely afford 3 years ago on our student loans and paying housing expenses we would be dragging buckets of water but now we are building a system that is actually helping us pay our student loans off faster. This technique is not for everyone but so far it is working for us. 

Do you have a "BIG" investment centered goal that you are working towards? If not, than it's easy to find ways to spend money. Also you are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with so chances are if your friends or family members are into having nice cars with upgrades and fancy apartments you are more likely to want those things as well. Not saying you have to dump your friends if this is the case... it just may be worth your pocketbook to connect with people who have investments or investment goals similar to what you want. Like @Chris Szepessy says it's better to maybe reward yourself after you reach one of these goals. My husband and I travel abroad after every rental property we purchase. We are about to close on our 9th and 10th doors and have already started planning a trip to New Zealand and Fiji. Travel may not be your thing but maybe if you reach said investment goal then you reward yourself with a car part!

Agreed with every reply on this post. 

When purchasing our last 4plex (with m2m tenants) the night we closed I sent out two letters one introducing ourselves and another stating the upcoming changes (from Bigger pockets forms) to every tenant explaining that they had until November 31 to decided if they wanted to stay because new terms would occur staring January 1st. There was a slight rent increase for a 12 month lease, $100 for a 6 month lease and a $150 increase if they wanted to stay month to month. I then told them we would be charging extra for parking as well (this property has a 4 car garage in which two of the units take up all 4 spots), so they had their chance to move their cars (allowing only 1 spot/unit) or pay an extra $35/mo. Then we "lightened" up to the deal with a $50 Walmart gift card if they renewed for a 12 month lease... also, understand we looked at all rental rates prior to this and found out that these tenants always paid on time and were pretty quiet, my point being we wanted them to stay. The $50 giftcards were nothing compared to the cost of turning the places if they all moved out.  I also sent them a copy of the new lease to review if they had any questions. 

24 hours later we went by and introduced ourselves in person to answer questions. A few tenants were upset but I think politely introducing ourselves pulled some of them off the ledge. We made it clear without sounding desperate that we were excited at the possibility of being their new landlords. All tenants signed with us. Things went so well we just notified everyone of a slight rent increase for 2019 and all tenants have agreed to renew. 

Hi @Rick Singh! I'm not familiar with the San Diego Marketplace. I currently invest in small mfr in Dallas Fort Worth Tx. Although I hope to do a syndication in the next few years and am always open to going into larger deals with a trusted partner, my husband and I have no partners currently. 

We have 3 different properties with a total of 8 units that we have acquired over the past 2 years. 2 duplexes and 1 4-plex. I love mfr properties. We manage them ourselves and so far they have proven to be profitable and meet our lifestyle. An example why... one of my duplexes had a 1/2 side vacant for a few months, we had some upgrades to this unit and made sure we took the time to find a good approved tenant who could afford the rent we were asking. It was as big of a deal to have that side empty because we still had another tenant in the other side covering almost all of the mortgage. Sure we have cashflow from our other properties that would help if it was a vacant SFR, but it was great still having a rental income from at least the other side.

We follow the 1% rule as a minimum requirement for our properties and they have proven to cash flow in a short time. 

Although I am not opposed to a SFR, I prefer MFR for this very reason.

Good Luck! 

Welcome @Trevor Rockhill! My husband and I invest in the DFW metroplex. We started when I was 26 by "house hacking" a duplex. 2 years later we have 8 units that are all paying for themselves and we make an income off of them. My husband works in finance and I work in food safety for our W2's, we also have an 18 mo. old son. This type of investing definitely fits our current lifestyle. We self manage our properties, but this hasn't held us back from traveling out of country at least 1x/year as well as frequent trips within the US. 

I would definitely get in touch with a few agents and let them know what you're looking for then immediately start the hunt. Be prepared to move fast (pre-approved and know what you're looking for), my two house hacks in DFW offers were made same day I saw them. Also drive around, look for "sale by owner" signs and call! If you see "for lease" signs in front of properties always call and see if they would be interested in selling. The 1% rule is a good rule to stick by especially when starting out (if the property is fully rented make sure it rents for 1% of the purchase price). What an exciting time! My husband and I have been house hacking with FHA loans since 2016 and are looking to do our 3rd one soon, we love it. Congratulations to you both! Enjoy the process!

Sometimes things are missed during the initial walk through/inspection and if they involve the safety of the tenant (locks on doors or windows), then we fix them as soon as possible. Otherwise if the tenant finds things after move-in that we know are not caused by them we just put them on a running list and work through them as quickly as we can. I just tell the tenant we will work on them but they won't get done over night. If it's something ridiculous like "our closet door won't latch well"... we don't really rush to it. 

I would try cleaning it if you haven't already. If you're cleaning it and it's not getting better maybe shop around. My husband and I got a gas oven at a scratch and dent clearance sale for around $100. You can always use the oven for another unit or sell it.