All Forum Posts by: Greg Scott

Please ignore a "call me'", "call me" from a 1st time poster in BP from Florida on this issue.

If you have been curious how people have achieved financial freedom through buy & hold real estate, you will want to attend this event. I am very excited about this upcoming gathering in Nashville because we have some amazing presenters. Normally, you have to be a member of Lifestyles Unlimited or one of their guests to attend. I'm offering to let you come as my guest as I will be the MC for the evening. If you wouldn't mind, please DM me on BP that you want to come and I can make sure your name is on the list.

What is being presented?:

Single Family - A couple from Hawaii has bought 5 single family rentals.  The one being featured is in Tennessee.  Guess what?  This couple has never been to Tennessee.  If they can do it, why can't you?

Multifamily - Another couple from Houston has been buying apartments in Tennessee with amazing success.  They have roots in Tennessee, but still are making it work from afar. 

Come see how to start changing your life!

I hope to see you there.

Yes.  It is a great way to accelerate the start of wealth-building.

There is not nearly enough information to make a fully-informed decision.  Based on what is in here, I wouldn't buy it.  

1) Your forecast to get to fully-leased at market rents could take weeks or months.  Can you float another $20K-$30K of negative cashflow?

2) I wouldn't buy in areas with rent control laws

3) Forced appreciation may require investing more in upgrades.  I'd want to see cost / benefit of achieving that.  If you are counting on natural market appreciation, that is something you can't count on. Nobody can accurately predict when or where appreciation will happen.  In this very forum, about three years ago, I argued that same point in a discussion about Austin TX and most argued against me that Austin could only go up because of tech jobs.  Guess what?  Austin is experiencing one of the biggest declines in values right now.

@Drew Sygit is very familiar with the different submarket of the City of Detroit

Yes, you can househack a single family, duplex, triplex, or quad and qualify for low-money down through FHA.

Here is a link for you

FWIW, here is the link to the HUD guidelines for ESA.

@Alecia Loveless it is worth parsing the technicalities here. 

Only people can be in a protected class.  If you deny entry of a service animal, you have discriminated against the person, not the animal, and people with a disability are protected by Fair Housing. 

The main problem with Fair Housing is if someone files a complaint, you have to defend yourself even if the complaint is false or the evidence inconsistent. The complaintant does not have to prove their case first.  Fair Housing has become a very expensive law for landlords, and arguably unfair to the industry.

So many things wrong...

1) The partners should not be staying there "frequently" unless they are on the lease as occupants.  The property manager should have required a full application, plus credit and criminal background checks. If they are not on the lease, why are they being allowed to stay there?

2) How do you know they are emotional support animals? If they aren't even occupants, I doubt your property management has the correct documentation. If your property management says they verbally told them they were ESAs, fire your property manager immediately. They don't know what they are doing. If they have documentation, ask your PM if it complies with the guidelines published by HUD. So many PMs are total whimps when it comes to ESAs. Know the law.

3) One of the guidelines for ESA, published by HUD is that if an ESA shows any aggressive tendencies (arguably lunging towards the neighbor counts) the ESA designation is immediately voided.

I'm guessing the main problem is you have an incompetent manager. 

You do not need a reason to non-renew someone in most locations.  Recently, certain jurisdictions have started requiring those, but only in the most left-leaning areas.  The fact that the leases expire concurrently is not important.

Having a vacancy and turnover adds a lot of cost, and we do the mental math.  If they are sucking up our resources so much that it is worth the cost of a unit turn, we non-renew.  If they are hurting the peaceful enjoyment of the property for other residents and we are concerned they will drive people to move, we non-renew.

If they asked why we non-renewed, our staff just tells them we do not need to provide a reason.

I would be very surprised that the ARV would be the same for a 4/2 as a 5/2. You may want to look more carefully at that before making a decision.