All Forum Posts by: Dave Poeppelmeier

That's a pretty broad question. I would settle on what city you want to invest in first, the like Remington said find your "boots on the ground" and go from there. I'm here in Toledo, let me know if you want to talk about the pros/cons of investing around here. 

Hi @Hailey Lanier, I invest in Student Housing around where I went to school at the University of Toledo. A lot of it depends on the local culture of Student Housing that you have to find out about it around the school you're looking at. Around UT, the preference is having a SFH instead of a duplex because then you can hang out in the yard, no immediate neighbors, etc. But the demand for off-campus student housing has been incredibly high, since students don't want to live in close quarters in dorms/apartments due to Covid, so even a duplex is more preferred than dorms/apartments. UT's numbers fell a little, but regarding the students that currently live in my houses, I have heard zero concerns of going to school with Covid or even letting me come into their house to fix things. As long as it's a large University that's too-big-to-fail, I would say you're fine, it's the smaller colleges that I would be worried about regarding long-term financial health of the school.

@Jacob Laginess welcome! You're in the right place. What kind of properties do you want to get into?

What I would do is find a couple people who invest around UW currently and find out about the culture of student housing there. At Toledo, our rental season starts in February, while 20 minutes to the South Bowling Green State University theirs start in October. Find a realtor out there who is familiar with investments and see what student housing comps have gone for.

@David Colson that is fantastic that you're doing the mental prep to get started in Real Estate! I would suggest joining one of your local Real Estate groups: REIA (Real Estate Investors Association) or another organized group. That will let you meet more people in the local RE space and they might be able to help you. But, keep in mind that finding a Mentor is a 2-way street. How can you help them and make it worth their time to give you their time? If you were just straight-up asking people to be your Mentor, that's probably why you heard crickets. If you're an HVAC guy, who of your current clients are investors? See if you can cut them a break on your service fees (or do it on the side for them) in exchange for a lunch or cup of coffee with them occasionally and ask them questions. Don't expect them to just teach you. I hope this helps!

That was a fantastic Podcast. I lived in Seattle for 5 years and I can totally see that model working in huge Metro areas. Regarding Student Housing, what I do is keep everyone on 1 lease instead of renting by the room. 1. It puts peer pressure on everyone to pay their rent and not destroy the house, because they all get evicted if one moron does something. 2. It's also hard to just evict one person out of a full house, creating more "this is mine!" issues. 3. Sometimes local ordinances don't allow renting by the room because then you become a Halfway House or something dumb. What I can do though is let everyone pay individually so you don't have one guy/gal trying to collect all of the money for the house, and that has been very well received. 

This falls into the "You get what you pay for" category. By joining an organized local group, a REIA or other organization, you'll be getting more formal organized activities, monthly meetings/education, chances to meet people, etc. One thing I would make sure is to make sure it's not an organization that's just trying to sell you the speaker's weekend seminar that following weekend, marketing programs, etc. Most groups will let you come to a meeting or two to see if you like it. Now, at the same time, I love having a beer with MeetUp-type settings (prior to Covid of course) and just casual chatting about RE with over investors. I would do both to learn more about RE in general. Have fun with it!

Hi M, I love Student Housing and is what I invest in around the University of Toledo. Are you looking around UW?

@Noah Milstein Hi Noah, glad to hear that you're interested in the Toledo area. I'm both a local Realtor specializing in working with Investors and our brokerage is one of the best in the area for Property Managment. Let me know if you want to chat more about the area!

Regarding PM, you have to ask yourself why are you looking at/using PM in the first place? Do you still want your hand in the pot? Do you want them to do everything? That's going to determine what kind of company to look for. Like any industry, there are good ones and bad ones out there. We are in Toledo and provide 100% hands-off management for the owner, since 90% of our owners are out of town. Do we charge fees for performing maintenance and and all of the other PM duties? Of course we do. But we also have all of our own office staff, maintenance team members, etc so we control the quality of the service out tenants receive. We don't want to have to go out and find new tenants either, we would rather keep people in their homes and paying rent. Our tenants (for the most part) are happy, stay in the properties, and therefore don't turnover and cost owners more fees for finding a new tenant. Is that worth a fee here or there to keep the cash flow coming and peace of mind for the property owner? Absolutely. For a local owner that just wants someone to take calls, or to do maintenance, and is going to complain about every cent we spend then we are not the company for them. But does someone in CA really want to be the one calling local contractors/plumbers/HVAC people, chasing late rent, performing their own evictions, etc? Not likely. That's where a great PM is invaluable.