All Forum Posts by: Christina Linn

I was a young, extremely reluctant landlord!  We could not sell my house for what we had into it and we had moved out of state.  We didn't rent the house out until we didn't feel we had any other options, mainly because of the risk involved.  Everyone in our lives told us it was a bad idea - and we definitely believed them.  We were poor and I was working two jobs to put my husband through school - we definitely couldn't afford it if someone took it upon themselves to destroy our one asset.  It turns out that renting our first little house was the single best thing that ever happened to us - other than each other and my husband's clone.

Our first experience was HORRIBLE, as the PM we hired rented it for $450 a month and we were taking a loss every single month; furthermore, it sat vacant for 6 months after we had it listed.  I took over management and it was rented in days for $650.  Since then we have gotten another 18 rentals.

Congratulations!!!  My husband and I own and rent the house I grew up in, as well as the first house we bought!  Those are the two I would have a hard time parting with - everything else is just dollars, no emotion.  Good luck on #4!!

Rawlins is a fantastic place to invest if one has the resources to do so.  The stability of this market is exceptional.  Every time I buy a new property here I swear it is my last; alas, I continue to break that promise to myself.  My husband and I are both from here, so it is easy to manage properties here.  What property did you look at?  We have 14 rentals in Rawlins and 1 in Sinclair (6 mi away) now.

If you want top dollar you definitely need glass top stove.  In my experience, separate stove top and in-wall oven or double oven are extremely desirable in higher end rentals.

I would not put a jacuzzi tub in a LTR, but would be fine in STR since it will be cleaned regularly.

I don't have any experience with a similar insert, so no opinion there.  I do know that tile is MUCH easier to clean between tenants than the standard inserts.

I find that properties that have been on the market for 90+ days - especially 180+ days - are willing to move on price a lot more than those that are fresh.  That being said, your realtor or broker knows the market you are purchasing better than anyone who's not in that market does.  I bought a house 2 years ago that was listed for 160k and reduced to 120k over several months; the seller's realtor reached out to me since she knows we invest and we offered 90k and the seller accepted!!  It was worth the 160k if it didn't smell like smoke and have dog poo on the floor.  Since we weren't scared of those things we bought it and rehabbed it for 10k and collect $1525/month in rent!  Your market will affect things a lot though.

Some states have public sales prices. The best place to start would be to check with your County Tax Assessor to see if this information is public, but there’s much more to value than similar size and rooms. It takes a lot of research, but you can certainly get an idea of value; it gets easier with time.

Investment Info:

Large multi-family (5+ units) buy & hold investment in Rawlins.

Purchase price: $345,000
Cash invested: $75,000

8-Plex with 1, 2 and 3 bedroom LTR units.

What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

My husband sent me a message and asked if we could buy a different property (5 unit) and I initially said “no”, but then realized we could refi our primary residence and buy it. We did tons of research and found a much better property in this 8-Plex.

How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

We found it on realtor.com and I called the owner directly and got the property information from him. We had a deal worked out before his real estate agent became involved and it was a very easy process from there.

How did you finance this deal?

Traditional financing with a local bank on a 5/1 ARM with 25 yr amm.

What was the outcome?

We closed remotely, as I was a month away from my due date in a super high risk pregnancy. We didn’t visit he property until over a month and a half later. We had weeded out all but one tenant by then and got units cleaned/fixed and rented over the next two months. We cash flow great with this investment and it really got us into investing in other properties. We ran into issues with one platform to keep track of all our rental information, so we designed GovernRent.com.

Lessons learned? Challenges?

Adjusting to life as a new mother and landlording 10 rentals instead of 2 was challenging for obvious reasons, but I learned so much in this experience and was able to network a lot due to this deal. I learned that the shortest way to one’s goals is a straight line - in my case, directly to the owner. I also learned the value of a full inspection, which we didn’t really take the time for since it was such a great deal (new roof needed replaced because it wasn’t done correctly).