All Forum Posts by: Chris Stromdahl

I plan on maintaining the landscape of my rental properties, at least in the beginning.

As a courtesy, I intend of giving the tenants prior notice with my planned arrival date/time, but is it required by law that I do this?

I understand that I need to provide them with prior notice if I intend on entering the living spaces, but does the same hold true for the yard area?

The property is in Pierce County, Washington.

Thanks, Chris

TSP. But that might be too strong.

What tools do you use to streamline work flow?

What geographical locations do you work in?

And, if it is important to you, do you own investment property?

If you are interested in working with a REA that also owns REI property or is familiar with you needs as a REI, try calling professional property managers for the areas that you are interested in buying in. One organization that I have used regularly is www.narpm.org

Just find the PM, introduce yourself, let them know what you are doing/looking for and ask them if they can provide contact info for agents that either own REI property or work with REI consistently.

@Account Closed 

Welcome to BP!

You have  a few things going on here. Refi'ing the current house, buying the new house and getting the new house rented.

I don't know anything about refi'ing yet. I plan to leverage this tactic for my third property.

I am closing on our first buy/hold tomorrow. It took us about 4 months to finally get here and along the way we learned a lot. I feel like I was pretty well prepared, but one thing that got out from under me were the closing costs. As a newbie, I was under the impression that the 20% down payment my REI calculator provided was all the cash that I needed to bring to the table. I was wrong. In the future I will budget an additional $2.5K just to be on the safe side.

Your returns look solid at a total of $700/month for two doors. Without knowing how much either house costs and what cash you have to put down, I cannot reference your Cash/Cash return or Cap Rate. If you are satisfied with the return then that is what matters most at the end of the day. Does the $700 return include property taxes, PMI, maintenance, etc? It is also a good idea to calculate the strength of an investment property including cost of property management, even if you are not going to hire a property manager. Otherwise, you are buying a job.

As for the lease, I compiled material from the BP file section, online resources and other people in my network. I created a solid final draft, then sent it over to my lawyer to review. I plan on owning multiple properties and it was important to me that I have a comprehensive document from the beginning. Yes, it cost me money. But not much and the value far exceeds the cost. You can always download one for free online though.

Good luck, Chris

All purpose cleaner.

@Dawn Brenengen

@Dawn BrenengenNo prob. Have a great holiday weekend.

@Adrian Valdez 

@Robert Rainey 

With regards to Robert's comment, my sentiments exactly.

I spent about 2 months looking outside of the greater Seattle region only to find that there are affordable properties in the area.

I am focusing on short sales and houses that need work.

@Adrian Valdez 

I live in Seattle, WA which is also a more expensive market.

I considered investing outside the area and used the following organization to familiarize myself with the cities I was looking at:

http://www.narpm.org/

Property manager are great because they have less of an agenda than real estate agents, are very familiar with the area and are typically investors themselves. Plus, my experience is that many of them are licensed agents, so it is nice to have the buying and managing under one roof.

No car, no big deal. Just start making the calls.

@Dawn Brenengen 

Check this out:

http://www.biggerpockets.com/hardmoneylenders

@Joakim Esaiasson 

I have not done this type of deal before, but my experience is that your traditional lending institution likes to see properties in reasonably good shape before loaning any money on them. As a remodel, if you are experienced, you may be able to make the case that they will easily get their money back but you will have to sell the concept to the bank...and especially the underwriters.

If you move into it, you can consider an FHA 203K Rehab Loan. Just do a web search for this term for additional info.

A hard money lender is an option. Once the repairs are completed you can then refinance more easily through a traditional lending institution. They come with their own set of risks and from what I understand, they do not typically loan money for the repair itself. Check out the following link:

http://www.biggerpockets.com/hardmoneylenders

Good luck, Chris