All Forum Posts by: Ika Sargeant

@Yong Jin Lee Welcome and would love to see your model for analysis. Fun Fact: a month ago my buyer made an offer on a home that I knew right of the back was overpriced when I showed it. this was before I ran back to do a CMA. The CMA sort of reinforced my thought slightly. But my hunch really was on the downward shifting market. The house is owned by one of the big I-Buyers High Tech companies and had imagined their data would have given them a hint on the fundamentals of our local market. Anyway last week the home was listed almost 45K below even what we offered. And what we offered was 60K of the asking price. Data is a funny thing-tells different stories to different people.

@Michael H. Cook This is great information. Does Front Royal market outperform Luray? 

@Tyler Solomon doing my part to turn this into a super thread (almost said spreader!) Anyway I am an agent here in Northern Virginia and Maryland. Work with investors buying/selling and holding rentals. A lot of people in our area tend to be seasoned investors.  Many have built models they use to analyze properties. We provide local market stats, advice on offers and negotiations and advice on how their models may work or not work given our local market conditions.   

@Sebastian Villacis M. So if you pay it up front, does that mean you have opted to pay all of it and bet that the prices would not rise well enough to bump your equity? Because PMI should go away once you reach 20% equity. The other reason I am thinking you, aren't you trying to hold on to your cash. Consider what is beneficial to you, the money you pay now or later. I would suggest you talk to mortgage people so they can show you what type of results would paying up front yield vs paying over time. Congrats on your venture.

@Conner Hitchcock, yes greater Washington DC is like what you are describing. Reston you will be adding condo fees and then pool fees. But like you say, appreciation will be bigger. I was just seeing construction  around Wiehle metro station. JW marriot hotel been added and then of course if you look at at Herndon development plans, I thought to myself the home prices will grow in Reston and hopefully hold when there is a down turn. So you and I will probably kick ourselves a few years down the road when we look at the prices of homes. But if you go farther out, make sure you are close to transportation and amenities. I have a property I rent in Stafford and does well because its next to the large park and ride lots with buses heading into DC. Cash flow is better especially where tax rates are lower.

Thank you all for the feedback. Although I have been on high rise buildings, I never paid attention to the fact that windows do not open at a certain height.  The building unit  in Richmond was commercial building that is now converted into condos. You can see the windows used to open but they sealed them shut. I just thought if you see a toilet in a home, you have an expectation that it would flush. The landlord should not turn around and say you should have checked to see if it flushes. Sure you will get a walkthrough and check if things work. Anyway lesson learned.

Someone I know rented a condo in a 5-6 level high rise in Richmond VA in the downtown area. On the moving in day, they discovered none of the windows opened and management confirmed that they would be no attempt to have the windows open. This was never disclosed when the person viewed the condo. So they would be renting a condo that have window that will never open. Is this legal? Can the person break the lease and on what grounds?

Quote from @Michael Baum:

Hey @Kevin Luttrell, because I hate it. I hate it when I try and book a place only to have the rate change on me from $145 to $425 a night. Hate it, Hate it, Hate it.

I won't do it to others. I am not so greedy as to put the screws to the average family just to make a couple extra bucks.

I know that it is unpopular and people DM me regularly when I post things like this. Tell me I am stupid and a fool for not doing it. That I am posting an opinion that might not maximize profits is wrong in some peoples heads and that I shouldn't do it. It gets on my last nerve.

I have figured this out before and I would most likely make about $800 more a year give or take. I suppose if I was in the Pigeon Forge region where everyone does this and it is expected then I might do it. Where I am at, I try and keep things level so when a family that works all year wants a nice getaway for a week, they don't have to wonder if the price listed is going to change once they input their dates or wait a week to decide only to have it go up 20%.

I don't begrudge people maximizing their profit. You do you. I just won't do it on the backs of my guests. 

 I think of what you are doing as almost a differentiation in your market. You might have lots of people book solely with you for that very reason.

Quote from @David Fernandez:

You won’t find in DC / Norther Virginia the types of properties and coc returns on day 1 that are discussed on the BP podcast.

However, I own properties in cash flowing markets as well as in NOVA and when comparing 5-year returns, NOVA/DC wins by a landslide. Not only the properties appreciate faster, but also rent appreciation is higher, lower tenant turnover/vacancy, and plenty of great tenants to chose from. My time managing properties here is 10 times less than in other markets. 

The biggest mistake people make when analyzing properties here is to only look at Day 1. If you project how the property performs in 3-5 years, you’ll see that this area is great for investing, especially for house-hacking. 

This is so true David about our market. The cash flow comes later and we have a market that will hold value if you have a downturn. The trouble is getting in is expensive and also people have all these formulas they learned. More experience investors probably understand that each local market has its behaviors, and variations from time to time. Take this COVID19 market, when it started I thought like many people TOTAL MADNESS!!! But now we realize the people who jumped in caught the best real estate market we might see for a while.

Oh yes you can begin to feel the big ship of real estate turning. For Washington DC and Metro area the upper brackets (I would classify roughly 800K plus) are feeling the change. Overall you can see the increase in inventory  and then from a homes been on the market from 1-3 days earlier  and now staying 5-10days. I believe also the number of offers have dropped. You are likely to be competing with 2-3 vs the earlier madness of 10 or more. But the sellers are still getting their full price!!