All Forum Posts by: Val Csontos

@Jay Hinrichs Great Story! Creativity  =  Financial Success = $$$$$

@Brian Adams You have a very inspiring RE Investing story! I don't know if you ever come to D.C. or Maryland, but I had founded a Real Estate Club here at the University of Maryland Business School,  and I would love to have you do a presentation to our club members of your investment journey!  

Kind regards

Val

@Chris Martin How did it work out for you with the Section 8 properties? 

@Steven M. Hughes 

Nay, you don't need to hear what you can't do, from strangers, when you first start out you will find Nay Sayers probably amongst your current friends or family LOL.  

What I recommend you do: 

First read all you can here on BP listen to some podcast its free!

also read some books from the Library or just buy:

 The Weekend Millionaire,

 The Millionaire Real Estate Investors 

These are my two all time favorites (they have cheese titles but very good readings) 

And most importantly you should go to your local  Real Estate Investor Club  a few times and observe who are the "do-ers" and not the "talkers". Find a few of those people and ask intelligent questions that you have wrote yourself down while reading books and BP articles. 

This will lead you to what you are looking for. 

Good Luck to you!

@Kyle Hipp From the landlords point of view, I don't like the sound of this arrangement at all. Let me explain why: 

    First in many parts of the country  (be sure to check your states land lord laws to see it is the case there) it is illegal to collect more than 3 moths of rent. Including the Security Deposit.

   Second, I would not want to disrupt my tenants monthly budgeting habits, by taking advance payment now and evict next year, because they got out oft the habit of budgeting for rent each moth. It basically a rental eviction time bomb. I like stability in my units. 

    Finally if you decide to take the  rent money for the year make sure you time the expiration of the year in  such way that it "runs out" in  March or April this way if or when you have to evict you can get new people in there fast.

Let us know how it worked out, and 

Good luck to you!

Val

@Josh Caldwell I have a bit off an topic question. Based on what i read from your above postings, I would guess that you do "Sandwich Leases" with some health professionals. I was wondering, how do you set up your Lease Options to make sure you are legally covered in this Post D.F. Bill world? I am a long time b & h investor but i am considering to go out of my comfort zone a little bit....

@Mike Webb 

    We invest in AA county mostly in B+ rentals, if have an odd floor plan property here and there we do Sec8 tenants for those so we have some experiance with them for about 15 years. Did you know that  SEC8 tenant tend to stay at a minimum of 6 -7 years?

    So yes you do put up with some bs from housing as they fail you every other year for a few little thing BUT that never cost more than $100-$200 each time and in return you don't have a vacancy for many years. Our biggest expenses can be normally the vacancy. So Yes we do pay $6-700 for inspections in six years but we also save $3-4000 on vacancy. Something to keep in mind. 

Another little known fact, if you Rent your property to Sec8 for longer than 120 months you will get a brake on capital gain taxes from the IRS if you decide to sell the place. It Is uncle Sam's way of saying thank you for put up with this. :) in our case we will save over  $50,000 of Capital gain taxes.

@Antonio Marte I had several mentors early on in my investing carrier who told me one the biggest mistake I could do as a newbie is invest too far from where i live. They said before i should consider properties out of state of even out of the county, I should build a small portfolio of properties not more than 30 minutes from my house so i can learn the basics. I still find this advise sound 15 years later. 

     How ever If you must invest out of state, i would say:

1, Do some basic homework in advance before you go. Check us census data for stable population growth for each zip code you are considering, i like to see at least 1% population gain both historic and forecast  AND very important to check for crime infestation in the area, so you can to to here for that:    https://www.crimereports.com/

2, don't trust your realtor's input on investing, rather maybe ask a round thee RE Investor clubs in DFW area to locate a reputable investor and pay them a reasonable consulting fee to give you a second opinion about area or even a particular property. (make sure they are not involved in the transaction in any way.)

Good Luck to You both and I hope it does work out!

@Haim Mamane Palman 

    It is generally bad idea to remove a pool! Here is what to do to instead to get rid of it: figure out the how many  q. yard of sand you need to fill the pool up, than, shop around to get get sand delivered close to the pool.  And have the trucks deliver the sand near but NOT TOO CLOSE, say at-least 15 feet a way from the pool. Than hire a group of guys to put the sand in to the pool. Plant flower grow grass etc...  This should cost you no more than $2000, Demoing a well built pool could cost you $4-6000. 

Also years down the road, when your investor might want to cash out, his buyer might wish they had a pool. If that is the case he could tell them " his secret" and they will be ecstatic, how ever if they hate pools than it is a non issue.   

Save your money AND save the environment (no need for machines to hammer the concrete for hours/days)

win win situation...... Good Luck! 

@Skyler Smith this is how we used to do the RE commission thing:

We needed  to get  creative because we ran out of our cash fast, (it was not much in the first place), so  I had asked about 20 realtors in my area if i could borrow their commission (buyer agent's) and just pay them 60 monthly payments out the the rent cash flow, and 19 said no or just laughed at me, but one guy said yes. So with that agent i was able to buy over a dozen or more properties and use his commission  borrowed at zero interest to pay the closing cost (3%) so i could buy houses with almost no money down. In the end he was getting close to $1000 per month every moth even when the other agents were starving during bad weather. Now those properties we purchased with no money down had little cash flow($50/mo)  tripled in value since the 1998-2000 and the rent almost doubled so we have close to $1000/mo cash flow on many of the properties. "All we had to do" :) is to keep the properties rented. It was a long a not very exiting process with a few Sunday night phone calls but we are getting where we would like to be

Good Luck to you!