All Forum Posts by: Diana Dorantes

@Tie Lasater Totally agree with all the comments about being inspirational!  Sat down this past weekend and wrote out goals for 2019.  I too have gotten in the habit of writing lofty goals.  I don’t always hit them, but by visiting the goals frequently it keeps me on track.  

Congratulations and wish you nothing but the best for 2019!

@Ryan Wood Welcome to BP!  There are many areas of the country which can be good strong rental markets. If you are planning to invest out of your area, look in areas where you have friends and family.  Look at many factors including who are you looking to rent to.  Low/high end, college students, families, singles, mixed use, single family or apartments.  Other factors include location, employment, size of town/city and lastly interview property managers.  

We have properties about 5 hours away but prior to purchase we researched about 4 months and visited 3 times before buying.  

Best of luck!

@Bola A. 1. location is critical but also look at 2. school quality if it may be for a family 3. Exit stategy if the SFH is in a smaller town may be harder to sell. 4. The percentage of people in the area that rent vs own 5. Lastly if you are not self managing interview 2-4 property managers and definitely ask for references and call them.

Nothing but success for you,

Diana 

@jimbryant I have searched in Peoria, went to visit a couple of times, however don’t know what areas are best.  I need to do a bit more research.  Are you finding good deals/areas? 

@Rowan Yearwood, This is a very interesting question. I guess you could say I have purchased one property without seeing the inside, however I did see the outside of the property. I did have boots on the ground that saw the inside prior to me forking out some money.  I had purchased and Rehab at the property next-door and in passing I mentioned to my property manager to keep his eyes open in case any other property close by was for sale.  So it wasn’t totally sight unseen I knew the neighborhood and I had someone else look at the inside and give me a pretty good estimate of repairs.

I think you could buy property on scene however you need to know the area extremely well as well as someone you trust being fairly close that they could stop by. Google earth is good however sometimes it’s a year or two later and you never see the inside.  

Hope this helps, 

Best of luck in your endeavors!

@David Atchison this is a subject I am looking into also.  I have some friends who own 5 condos from Cocoa beach to Vero Beach.  They live in Illinois but they do spend about 4 months in Florida every year.  I know they do well from these rentals.  I’m looking into possibly buying a couple of condos in this general area.  

Best of luck, let us know what you decide.

I would have to say NO.  Rented to a family member, then they got very ill and had to stop working. I could not ask them to leave while they were going through treatment.  The relationship was very strained for quite a while afterwards.  I did help them find and move into a much smaller apartment a couple of towns over.  

Sometimes unexpected things happen such as this case but after about nine months of no rent but still had to pay house payment it was very difficult and luckily enough we were able to continue to make the house payment.

If this would have been me helping out a family member perhaps we would’ve helped them with a couple of months rent or something similar.

Just saw this, we cannot make this unfortunately, please let us know what happens or who we can contact.

@Keith Jenkins upcoming meet up being planned now.  More information on ‘Joliet real estate investors’. Looks like end of November, but not certain yet.   

@Gideon Blustein, count us in.  See you then!