All Forum Posts by: Dan O'Neill

The Northern Michigan chapter of the RPOA meets on the first Monday of every month.  The meeting alternates between a lunch meeting and an evening meeting.  The next will be June 5, at 6pm at the Elks Lodge in Traverse City.

@Account Closed is right.  Probably avoid your beginning in Detroit itself, especially from so far away.  But the metro area has lots of places that would be great to start in.  I grew up on the western edge of Wayne County, solid blue-collar area with lots of renters.

I think "Detroit" is a bit too broad.  There are good submarkets within the Detroit metro area and also bad ones.  Just curious, what led you to Detroit?  What areas around Detroit specifically have you been looking at?  

The Northern Michigan Rental Property Owners Association meets on the first Monday of every month. The meetings alternate between a noon lunch meeting and a 6pm dinner meeting. The lunch meetings occur at the Flap Jack Shack in Traverse City and the evening meetings occur at the Elks Club in Traverse City.

The Northern Michigan Rental Property Owners Association meets on the first Monday of every month.  The meetings alternate between a noon lunch meeting and a 6pm dinner meeting.  The lunch meetings occur at the Flap Jack Shack in Traverse City and the evening meetings occur at the Elks Club in Traverse City. 

@Kamren Longton  Drop me a PM.  If you are interested in buying and living in a multi that needs some work, I have a lead you could check out.  I looked at it this past summer and it wasn't going to work for me for a few reasons but it may be worth following up on.

Thanks for the replies.  As long as everything checks out with him, I am ok signing remotely.  I think I will do a Skype call though and go through the lease together.  How about the initial walkthrough?  Wait until he comes to move in?  He has parents in the area, they are the ones who came and looked at the unit.  Maybe we could set something up where he delegates walkthrough sign-off to his parents?  Any thoughts?

I have a potential tenant relocating to the area from the east coast.  They want my unit for Feb 1 but are not planning to move until late March.  Rentals, especially decent ones, are tight in the area so he's willing to take it for the month before he's planning to move.

Curious to hear how you would handle lease signing in this circumstance?  Purely electronic?  Mail?  I had the idea that I would have him do a Skype call with me so I can see him face-to-face and walk through the lease and set expectations that way.

Thanks for the feedback.

@David Hicks I've just seen that you didn't get any responses here.  Did you end up purchasing a quad in TC?  If so, where?  I looked at a couple about 4 months ago or so as well.  As for lenders, I am currently working on a property with First Community Bank in TC.  It is a local 100+ year old family owned bank.

Hello @Kamren Longton.  Good to see another Traverse City person.  Welcome.  I agree with Matthew's advice.  If I had to start over this is the way I'd go.  I didn't get started until later after I had a family.  By that point, it wasn't such an attractive option.  Look for a small multifamily (2-4 units) with some value add to be done and live there.  You can rotate through the units, fixing them up and all the while collecting rents from the others.  Then, you can move and do it again.