All Forum Posts by: David Krulac

We changed a 4 br house into a 5 br house by putting a door on the dining room.  The kitchen was large and could accommodate a large dining table.  WE also changed the house from 2.5 baths to 3 full baths.  The tenants were most appreciative and stayed 25 years.  They were at the top of the list of best tenants we ever had.  We've had very few tenants stay longer than 25 years.  Think about it 25 years with zero days of vacancy!

Buy and Hold is one of the strategies that I have used.  The first property I owned (which I related on Bigger Pockets Podcast #82) I first house hacked, then rented whole property and owned for 24 years before selling.  The second property a multi-unit I owned for 37 years, also owned by the previous owner for 37 years, so only two owners in 74 years.  The third property, I rented part of it then build 17 new houses in my backyard, and owned for 23 years.  The next two properties I owned for 17 years each. The sixth property I bought was another multi that I owned for 31 years. The seventh property I owned for 24 years, and the eighth property I owned for 36 years.  Then I started rehabbing and flipping property also.   

I did a study of where I sourced real estate purchases, and I've bought and sold over 1,000 properties. 58% came from verbal auctions, 31% were from government auctions like tax sale and sheriff sales, FSBO were 19%, Estate/Probate 15%, Sealed bid auctions 15%, Word of mouth 13%, MLS 25%. There is more than 100%, because some purchases were in more than one category. But the overall point is only 25% came from listed properties, which I look at every day.

@John B. check out local banks or credit unions.  One of the ones we deal with in PA. has a line of credit with no collateral, that they call a "Signature Loan",  I've found better success with the locals than the national banks.

@John Kirtley If all you wanted was cash flow, you could be a hard money lender getting 12% to 15% and maybe points on your $1M, which would be about $150,000 a year. And if you did it in your Roth IRA or Roth 401K and it would be a tax free $150,000 per year.

HUD publishes the Fair Market Rent for all localities across the country. Their Fair Market Rent FMR is the MEDIAN rent for the area. Median is the middle rent where 50% are higher and 50% are lower. It is used to establish Section 8 rent among other things.

I would check there to see what other rents are in the area, plus Craigslist, Facebook, Zillow, rentometer and other online sources, to see where you rent compares to others.  Ideally you don't want to charge too much nor charge too little.  

would want drilled well, would want to know the depth, age, and yield (gallons per minute).  But we have several properties with well, have had to replace the pump, which I've found last 20 years or more, but we never had a well go dry.  We have drilled new wells on vacant lots, and once had to drill a new well at a house.  To conserve water consumption would use flow restrictors, low flow showers, and low capacity toilets. 

If its too good to be true.....

Schlage locks are higher cost and higher quality than say Kwik Set.  For most rentals we use the Kwik Set with removable cylinders that allow us to change the lock with out changing out the whole lock set.  Change change the cylinder is about a minute.

Did the tenant file a police report or an insurance claim?  If neither then that would question the validity of the claim.