All Forum Posts by: Elise Bickel Tauber

Hey, so I see this on our mls but says it's under contract. Is it under contract or available? Are you open to seller financing? Who is the PM? I may have some clients interested and wanted to get them the info but it shows it's not available. Thanks!

Here is my personal opinion. 9 out of 10 times you have 1 of 2 different types of tenants. Type 1 is a good tenant who paid their rent and left the place in good condition and they are going to get their deposit back. Don't nickel and dime them. Thank them for being good tenants and let them know if they ever see one of your places come on the market that works for them to reach out because youd love to have them again. Type 2 is the tenant who is going to leave your place a mess. Most likely they still owe you back rent or at least a portion of back rent, place is a pig sty. They used your property as their garbage bin and left crap everywhere. You will be lucky to get everything done for the deposit amount and most likely are coming out of pocket on stuff. In that situation does your admin fee matter? No. Send them the itemized receipt back and charge appropriately for what you did. Your $100 to yourself for managing it isn't worth it, just be glad you didn't have to get a loan to fix their damage (or maybe you did).

Hope that helps!

Section 8, 5-10 years ago was the way to go. Tenants were often long term tenants and treated the property like their own. It was a long wait to get on the list and even longer to find a good place so people didn't want to move unless they had to. Inspections back then were truly on safety inspections and they had reasonable increases yearly in rent (3-5% on average). About 5 years ago, section 8 started getting crazy (imo). If you wanted the top end of the rent spectrum, your place better be top end. I had inspectors tell me the walls weren't "white enough" and that the laminate countertop was "dingy and needed replaced". If I didn't make those updates they were going to reduce the rent by $400/month! We ended up shying away from section 8 since 2021 so i'm not sure if they went back to normal or not but the reinspections we have had on the ones already leased up as section 8 have gotten better. Not quite just safety standards but not trying to make our places the Taj Mahal either. 

As for the tenants, whatever you do, you have to do the same across the board or it can lead to discrimination suits. We have a standard lease process and for section 8, we give them full points for rental history (as long as they dont have evictions) and income. They still have to pass our criminal history and background check. But most section 8 tenants do get approved. 

Hope that helps!

I would highly recommend for your first few deals you stick with lower rehabs which also may mean lower profits, but usually way less risk. If you do need some connections to lenders or anything though let me know. I have a couple good lenders!

Lots of great options for you. House hacking is a great way to start and the way most of our investors start since then they only need to put 3.5% down. Another option is to start flipping properties to build up a reserve. I know a few investors we work with use other people's money to invest in flips when they started and got a good headway. One last option, you could look into STR or MTR and see if you can arbitrage. I know quite a few landlords who would be open to it and then you investment down is just the monthly rent which theoretically would be offset by the str or mtr income.

Hope that helps!

 Rubs is short for ratio utility billing system. We have it as part of our property management software however there are rubs software availanble online through many sources.

Hi Davin,

I think the guys have done a great job giving you some insight. I agree with a lot of the areas Jeremy spoke of. I've had a lot of investors house hacking in those areas and also using FHA loans. Are you trying to be within a certain distance from any particular location for work or schooling?

Hi Lora. Are you saying you want to figure out a way to pass the cost of utilities onto the tenant? If so, you can do a few things. You can rubz the utilities to share the bill, flat fee the utilities, or submeter. Hope that helps a bit!

How much work is needed? I have a buyer in that area who isn't an investor.

McKeesport is an area that you really need to be careful in. The area is street by street. Some areas are better than others. The roi if done right is fantastic! We manage a lot there.