All Forum Posts by: Kevin Polite

Quote from @Michele Velazquez:

Quote from @Kevin Polite:

Quote from @Shane Kelly:

You can find close to the 2 percent rule on market here in Cleveland. If you look off market, you can find it even easier. I think you're looking in the wrong areas/cities. Because class of area matters too. Where I find 2 percent on market it's usually a B- to C- area. If you're looking at A, you're not gonna find anything. Even here.

 Cleveland is perfect example. No disrespect, but it has lost population for the last 70 years so home prices would tend to be cheaper with higher cash flow. I think those are the trade offs you have to make. I doubt you get 1% here in Atlanta in class C 

Kevin, in your opinion would Cleveland be good for me if my goals are cash flow and decent appreciation? Also, where can I find more information about class a, b, c?  I am new and haven't seen that in my books but do see it coming up here?  There is so much to learn but I really want to buy something and put my money to work!

All of my properties are no more than 15 minutes away from where I live as I self manage. For me, it would be extremely difficult to invest in an area I know nothing about or couldn’t check out on a regular basis, but that’s the control freak in me. I know others that are quite comfortable doing that. I don’t know enough about Cleveland to advise one way or another. 
Class A are the most expensive and have the highest rents. Class B & C  in my definition, are the bread & butter. I like finding properties in C areas that I believe will become B in 3-5 years. It’s all relative as what I call C someone else would call D. D cash flows the best, but usually aren’t safe and have renters with subpar credit. 

Quote from @Shane Kelly:

You can find close to the 2 percent rule on market here in Cleveland. If you look off market, you can find it even easier. I think you're looking in the wrong areas/cities. Because class of area matters too. Where I find 2 percent on market it's usually a B- to C- area. If you're looking at A, you're not gonna find anything. Even here.

 Cleveland is perfect example. No disrespect, but it has lost population for the last 70 years so home prices would tend to be cheaper with higher cash flow. I think those are the trade offs you have to make. I doubt you get 1% here in Atlanta in class C 

It seems the 1% rule of thumb, in today’s market, only applies in cities where there is slow to no growth in terms of population and job growth. Fast growing large cities like Austin & Atlanta or smaller like Boise, where homes are appreciating due to the increase in jobs and population, 1% is just not possible. 10 years ago during the depth of the recession, yes, but not today. You can still make money and find deals that cash flow but it’s difficult. These types of cities will continue to grow and real estate assets in those cities will appreciate much more than slow/no grow cities. 

Inventory increased by a whopping 54% according to FMLS (Atlanta) in June! However, taking a closer look at it that means Atlanta is at a 1.7% months supply of inventory. Pause to caution, but not yet alarmed because their numbers also show that there was no change with 15 days on market and the average sales price increased 16.4% to $558,614. Closed sales decreased 23%. After 11 years I still consider myself somewhat of a newbie, but reading through these post it doesn't seem like there should be any cause for alarm. 

My guess is you're not going to find an experienced investor willing to invest with you unless you show them what you can bring to the table and, more importantly, how it'll benefit them. There are 3 main REI groups in Atlanta and I would attend all of them and as many as you can especially the onsite meetings. My favorite is GaREIA. Partnering with someone involves trust and that's earned. There are always deals out there, but, you're right, it's way more difficult to find them these days unless you're willing to go farther outside of Atlanta. Good luck

@Joe Villeneuve you bring up a good point and one I'm debating with myself. I could pay most of my loans off on my rentals and don't need the proceeds and this would increase my rental income which I'll be partially living off of in 3-5 years. I have enough rentals and don't want anymore. 

Is there any point when you say you're getting to being a man of a certain age that you "retire" your debt (pun intended) or do you just stay leveraged? 

I reset my password and not sure if that was it, but it's working now. 

Quote from @Markus Shobe:

@Kevin Polite My clients Amex connections are working. I would try to disconnect and reconnect first. I have had to do this with some of my clients bank connections in the past. 

If I disconnect and then reconnect will it disrupt the data that I have already saved?

Anyone else suddenly lose their Quickbooks Online connection to American Express? QBO can't seem to figure out why I keep getting error codes 102 and 103. Both have to do with connecting to American Express using your Amex sign on. I've been connecting for many years, but it just stopped working, though this happened about 4 years ago and I changed my password and that worked. I've contacted both QB and Amex and neither seem to can find the answer. 

@Gisell Garcia I've used apartments.com, which is currently free and ERentpayment.com, which charges $3/house or $10 flat fee. Both have Maintenance Request, which is great for tracking past issues with each home. I prefer ERentpayment, even though they had issues many years ago that have been taken care of now, which is why I'm back with them. Each will do a credit/background check for you and allow you or the tenant to pay. 

Apartments.com purchased Cozy.co, which I really liked, last year and was geared toward single-family owners like myself. I've had issues with their system not notifying me when a tenant has a maintenance issue and there are times the site is requires me to clear my cookies before I can see anything in there. I'm not sure how much longer it will be free. Check out both.