All Forum Posts by: David Leggett

There's definitely a lot of good cash flow positive opportunities in the Cleveland market, especially if you're looking to buy and hold.  Prices have gone up, but rents have gone up as well so there's still a lot of good areas to invest in this market.  The best thing you can do is find an expert realtor in the area that specializes in investment real estate that can cut your learning curve in this area down significantly and help you stay away from the poor property management companies.

Awesome!  Real estate is a great place to place your money if you can be patient for 5-10 years, but you always have the option of refinancing your properties and using the capital to keep buying more properties.  The best thing you can do is to find an expert realtor in the area who specializes in investment real estate and buy and hold properties in the Cleveland market who can help cut your learning curve drastically and start showing you some options and different opportunities in this market, it's still very lucrative as Bob is saying!

This is definitely the best place to be looking, I honestly learn something new everyday by just reading through the message boards!  You're already off to a great start my man!

Lots of great advice on here!  After working at several large property management companies in the Cleveland market I can tell you not to trust their reviews.  A lot of these companies manipulate their reviews by having their employees seek out positive reviews for cash incentives, so it's a lot of positive customer service reviews from customers being repeatedly asked to leave a review after every mundane interaction, instead of telling the true story about the company's competency instead of something they're trying to manipulate to look better.

Also, I would ask about how many employees they have in key positions like how many leasing agents, maintenance staff, maintenance coordinators, ect.  Because property management software can do so many things, these companies will work with the least amount of staff they can get away with.  While that's business, it's not good business when they have one leasing agent for 50 properties and one maintenance coordinator who is 3 weeks behind on emails and looks like they're going to quit at any moment.  I've worked at several places like this and it's pretty common, so it's smart to try and dig a little deeper and see what these companies will tell you about how they run their business.  

Hey Niv, I've worked at several local property management companies in the Cleveland market and can definitely give you a heads up of some of the good ones in the area, and some you definitely want to stay far, far away from!!  Best of luck!

That's great to hear Dustin!  I hear a lot of great things about the KC market, that's great there's still a lot of deals out there to be found!  I'm a little late to the party, but echoing a lot of what other people are saying, I used to be able to find 2% in Cleveland pretty regularly, but prices have gone up over the last 4 years, but the deals are still plentiful in the 1% range, especially now as inventory is opening up. 

But it's also important to keep in mind certain cities and municipalities might have city or point of sale inspections that can cut into those numbers, as well as rising taxes as I'm seeing a lot cities taxes going up recently.  Great post!

That's smart to ask for more earnest money, especially with these condemned homes in Cleveland!  Those can be hard to sell, especially when these investors actually find out how much work these properties are going to need and it's not really going to cost them 12-20k like they were hoping and then they're running for the hills never to be heard from again!  You aint lying!

You weren't lying!!  Thanks for sharing the article!

The property looks good!  From my experience doing tons of leasing in the area, you'll still find a renter no problem, as long as the price isn't too high.  But the rental market in Cleveland is still very good right now so you shouldn't have any issues.  Normally, some renters might be turned off, but you'll always find some that will make it work, even if the layout is a bit awkward, it might just take a bit longer to rent out.  

Lots of great comments and info!  As a Realtor who specializes in investment properties in the Cleveland market, I've done about 100 sight unseen deals for buyers, who are out of state, or out the country.  99% of the time they were happy with the video calls, or me just sending detailed video walkthroughs of the property.  It's important to have a trusted home inspector as well on your team, but I also suggest making connection with local contractors who can do a complete walkthrough and can give you an accurate scope of work so you're not relying on the realtor's assessment since they're not generally experts in repairs and construction costs.  

But Cleveland is a great buy and hold market so I know you'll do great and it sounds like you're already off to a great start!