All Forum Posts by: Greg Gaudet

I would add into my lease that "landlord pays water up to $100/month, tenant pays anything beyond that" and divide it evenly; or just say the water bill is divided evenly among the units. It may not always be fair if one of the tenants is conservative and the other is not, but it's more fair than you paying their excessive bill! 

I know this is too late to help now, but may help for future...

The Hawaii lease states that tenants cannot have visitors for more than 14 days without my written approval. Not sure how that helps... but I'm sure it can be tricky proving breach of lease by having additional occupants.. 

Sounds like you're asking for a referral for a lender to refi with based on appraised value? 

I haven't refi'd any of mine yet, but the local CUs I've met with have told me that I could pay for an appraisal and go off that amount. 

I suspect that they wouldn't care as long as they're first position and the buyer brings the minimum down payment... so maybe the bank would do 50%, seller carries 30%, and you put 20% down? That's my guess... 

I'd like to ask @Chris Mason for clarification. What are the CLTV limits? Like the general investor loan limit of 80% LTV? Does that mean that banks should be ok with the scenario I just described?

@Dina S. I think you're getting ahead of yourself. It seems like you're looking 5 steps ahead. I recommend focusing on your next step - find your next deal. Once you have that deal work on the funding. If at some point during the deal you find out you really should have an LLC, then you can start one. I don't have one, but I use traditional financing to purchase single family units. To protect myself I have good insurance and an umbrella policy. There's no reason for me to have an LLC at this point. But I can always start one if I feel like it'd be best for a future deal, it doesn't take long or cost much to get an LLC so I wouldn't worry about planning it out too far in advance.

It's very common for beginning investors to get caught up on obstacles that are way down the line from them; like worrying about how they're going to get financing on their 11th property before they've even started. Like Brandon Turner says, when you get to your 11th property you will know how you're going to finance it. It's important for me to remember this advice too, I think we all get ahead of ourselves. 

Originally posted by @Phillip Williams:

Greg, I am trying to do something similar to what you are doing. I live on Oahu, but due to the market and available cash have been looking at other islands. I mostly was looking at from Hilo to Volcano on the big island looking for either a long term rental or vacation rental. How does the Maui market compare to big island or Oahu? Any tips for someone trying to get their first place?

I'd say Maui is more like Oahu.. it's not cheap like Big Island.. But make sure you look at your own island really thoroughly first.. I was just looking at a couple condos in Waianae that are similar to my condos here on Maui. A little rougher neighborhood, maybe C-/D class, but if you screen your tenants super thoroughly and get really involved and don't take any BS it should work out. That's pretty much what I've done; I've rented to the families that had kids when they were 18 and make $15/hour and are good people but just can't afford normal rents. Just let me know if you make an offer on any of those condos because I was thinking of making some offers myself haha 

@Amit Kal I also like Venmo. It’s super easy, free, quick and I just transfer the funds straight to my business account. I may look into something more scalable/professional as I grow, but for having 3 units Venmo is perfect for what I need now.

Originally posted by @Duc Ong:

Congratulations!  What has your experience been dealing with section 8 on Maui?

Mahalo Duc. 

HUD adds a couple steps and can be a little more drama, but it's guaranteed rent on time every time and they've continued to increase their rent standards to compete with other rentals. Rental standard for a 1/1 is now 1421/month and a 2/1 on Maui is now 1781/month, which may be low or average rents for average Maui properties but for condos that sell for under 150k it works well! I hear the HUD rental standards are higher on Oahu.

PS - I love that I can evict a tenant if they fail to pay their $115 portion of their rent and still collect the majority of the rent from HUD and continue to cash flow until the day the tenant moves out of the tenant defaults (tenants with higher income will pay a greater portion of their rent)

Hey you’re in the right place. That’s a very vague question, and I don’t know sh!t about taxes, but “tax free wealth” is a good place to start. 

To be clear, I haven’t read it yet I just heard the author on a podcast and he was full of knowledge. I also hear a lot of people suggest that book. I believe the author is a rich dad advisor. But I’m more focused on accumulating rentals now, I’ll focus on taxes when the time comes, and when I do I will be reading that book. 

From what I see it’s a great cash flow market but stay out of the war zones. 

I almost invested there bc I thought Maui was too expensive but I’m glad I stayed in my own market.