All Forum Posts by: Gerald Barron

Barring a couple year transition from the military into law enforcement I've spent the past 15yrs working for the government. Two years ago my wife and I decided that I needed to change my career path. So I resigned from my law enforcement position and went back to school using my GI Bill. This whole process is what got us into real estate in the first place as we have been renting our home out while we travel the country in our RV (whole other story). 

Long story short, I am almost done with college and will be obtaining a degree in Project Management. I know I want to work a position that will help my wife and I build our real estate business. So my question to the forums...

If you could pick any job in real estate that you think would be the greatest benefit to RE investing what would it be? RE agent? Property Manager? Construction Manager? Finance? etc...?

Thanks!!

p.s. we want to focus on cash flow single/multi-family homes that we can force appreciation in to. 

We charge a 500 non-refundable pet fee. We also make it clear (and write it in the lease) that the 500 dollars is a fee and does not count towards any damages the pets might cause.

@Account Closed to put a positive spin on it. You are paying/paid for an education in out of state buying. You now know that you need stronger team members on the ground that you can trust. You have a long list of things to look for (or have your agent look for) when purchasing your next property. You know you need better inspections. Just from your post you can create a solid checklist of do's and don't for the next investment. 

Also, your tenants are going to pay you back for these lessons (if you hold the property long enough). You said it'll be three years before you break even, at least you have that light at the end of the tunnel. My point is, it's not all bad, there's some good buried beneath all the suck. 

@Cara Lonsdale I believe Paul Sandhu is an investor there and is pretty active on the forums. Might be worth reaching out to him. 

Bon Khator I managed a property for my father-in-law a few years back and we had a similar situation. It was two friends sharing a 2/2 and the parents of one of them co-signed for both boys. We just added their names to the lease. It worked fine till the boys stopped paying because they had a fight and one moved out. We let the boys break the lease just to move on but we called the parents for the missing rent. Not only did we get the missing rent money the parents made those boys clean the apartment from top to bottom. Heck, they did a better job than our cleaners.. long story short, we won’t do it again but it did work (kind of).

I just went through this in November. It was also my first time using Cozy. I actually had my new tenants pay their deposit, pro-rated rent and non-refundable pet fee through Cozy. I just entered them as one time fees with descriptions of what they were. It worked fine for me. It does take several (5) days to get money though.

@John Thedford

Absolutely, we always keep on eye on Naples park just because we love that area and think it will eventually be a million dollar neighborhood. But like Steve mentioned, and you, it is very hard to get a deal in the park right now and most of those "deals" whenever they do pop up usually go to cash buyers which I am not. 

We are currently also looking in the Orlando area and we really like what Bonita Springs has done with their downtown area so we keep that area on our radar as well. 

@Account Closed   very good points and I agree with you, especially about the next downturn. Whenever it does come it will be a completely different animal than last time. 

@Nancy Bachety We love that area and we are always on the lookout for deals. We own  a SFH, annual rental, on the 600 block that we rent for 2800/mo (It's a 2/2). 

@Account Closed , You are correct at this very moment there isn't anything listed that satisfies the 1% rule (assuming we are paying asking price) but they do come up from time to time. In fact, our realtor just walked through a house for us last week on the 500 block that was listed for 270K. It was a 3/2 with a pool and needed rehabbing (hurricane damage) but it could have hit the 1% rule after remodeling. Anyways, you aren't finding the 1% rule anywhere in Naples without doing some work. 

@Kate Sobol

I'm not familiar with California landlord/tenant rules but I recently did a tenant swap in Florida and had the house cleaned. It's a 1400sqft house and it was 300.00 for a top to bottom clean. Florida isn't as strict as California but I still provide an itemized security deposit disposition to my tenants. So, in my opinion, if the landlord did have a company come deep clean the property the cost is probably in that neighborhood. 

Also, I found this website that might help. 

California Consumer Affairs