All Forum Posts by: Corey Hawkinson

@Sally Fairchild yes

@Lisa Gauff If you’re considering Hawaii for short term rentals I would encourage you to follow along with what is happening between the state and AirBnB. The State of Hawaii seems to be very against short term rentals. That’s just my 2 cents.

@Brandon Washington No, if the tenants already paid the deposits the issue is between you and the prior owner.

@Zachary Schimenz The third party fees are normal. For example, Minnesota has a Mortgage Registration Tax.

Those are pretty good terms.

@Johnathon Kim You’ll find plenty of people who got to 87,469,412 units in 2 days through using no money of their own on this site and others. I’m not one of those people. My recommendation is to have a goal in mind for where you want to get to, but also just have a closer goal in mind. Just focus on what you want to do and how you’re going to get that first property. Don’t worry about properties 2-50.

Also understand that this can sometimes build off itself. Buying my first rental property took more effort (mental effort mostly) than my 4th.

There are several routes, and this site has great information on all of those routes. Pick the one that’s best for you and start there.

@Nick Tenge I agree with the others. It will be tough to find that in the Twin Cities right now.

@Lam N. The main issue would be cost. Typically, I’m with you and the others that I want to offer a place that I would live in. That means it would have a dishwasher. But if I bought units without dishwashers I very likely would not put them in until it was part of a bigger remodel.

@Corey Hawkinson and by “market research” I really just mean that I check listings around my properties. I don’t mean to pretend that I’m fancier than I really am.

@Didier Alex I don’t know that there is a magic rule. I try to watch the market and compare to other units. I like to set the expectation when we first meet with the tenant to expect an annual increase. Typically this is around $50.

This year I’m questioning the increase because my market research is starting to show that I’m $100 above market on 1 property in particular. (The others will see an increase.)

@Nathan G. Not sure this was ‘starting out’ but my biggest mistake was being afraid to raise my rent. I made all the excuses to myself, mainly telling myself “You don’t want to lose a good tenant.”

Now, that statement is true, but by the time I raised rents through finding a new tenant the rent went from $700 to $1,100. Over the course of 5 years without raising rents I missed out on a lot of income.