All Forum Posts by: Jack M.

I'm looking at buying my first rental property that was specifically intended for rent (as opposed to my current rental which happened on accident after the crash).

I just want to bounce my thoughts off of BP as a sounding board to make sure I'm looking at this properly.

I have about 50k to spend on a property in a different state. I have a property management company that also has a turnkey service to buy new properties. I understand this will eat into my margins, but I can't see myself flying down to oversee maintenance for a few weeks. 

There are a few houses in this particular area that are selling for about $25k, will take about $15k in repairs to get it in rental shape, and should rent for about 1k per month. The turnkey fee for overseeing construction is 20% of the construction costs (how badly am I getting ripped off there?) so my total cash needed, after closing costs and everything, are about $46k. The ARV should be about 55k.

My property management company has several properties in the neighborhood, and they assure me that they're renting them out for 1k to 1100 per month. 

I estimate the monthly expenses to be about $620, so my monthly cash flow should be $380 a month, or ~$4500 a year, so around a 10% cash on cash ROI. I know that's a little on the low side,

I came up with the expenses like this:

15% vacancy

20% Repairs and CapEx

10% Property Management

$50 insurance

$170 taxes

I know there has been a lot of talk about these $30k houses. The latest podcast had an in-depth discussion about the pros and cons about those houses (@Ben Leybovich was particularly harsh on them), but those they were talking about were renting for more like $500 a month, not $1000.

I was also considering using my money as a down payment and getting a "better" property, but I will be unable to get a conventional mortgage since I've only been self-employed for 8 months (and I need 2 years), and I'm not sure I'm comfortable getting too creative with my financing at this point starting out, especially when I'm looking at a 10% ROI on a turnkey property.

Any thoughts on this? What have I missed, if anything? Am I making a horrible mistake as a newbie, or is this sensible?

You know, you don't need to wait for another company to give you a show. This is 2015. You can just make the show. Create it as a web series and promote it here. If it's good enough and gets the viewership, somebody will approach you from there.

A lot of shows have gone this route, starting as a web series. None in the real estate business, I don't think, but I've seen a lot of comedy series start that way. 

Ah! I feel stupid now, I'm still getting used to the layout of the site. Didn't notice the slight color difference and indent. 

@Mark Ferguson are you speaking in the third person, or is there another Mark Ferguson I should be on the lookout for? :-p

I'm kind of a typography nerd, as stupid as that sounds, and I've never seen this font before. I tried entering it into a font identifying website, and it came up with no results.

It's really distinctive in that the j is dotless. That's very rare! I kind of like it.

Anybody know the name of this font?

I'm new to BP, and I've recently started listening to the podcast.

Are there any particularly critical "must-listen" episodes for starting out? What are some of your favorites? 

Most podcasts have a few episodes that fans agree are just critical to listen to. I'd like to know which ones that's true for BP.

I was looking at listings on Zillow to get a feel for an area, and I saw this one come up:

http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/7801-Saint-Fabia...

Depending on how much work it needs, it may be a great deal (Rents go for 1100-1400 in that area), but I notice this in the description:

"ONLY OWNER OCCUPANTS SINCE THIS IS AN APPROVED NSO SHORT SALE."

If I walk in there with cash, who are they to tell me what I do with the property afterwards? Surely the bank doesn't care what happens to it afterwards. I don't see how they'd have any legal standing to enforce this.

Any thoughts? What am I missing here?

I'm mainly looking at Baltimore County, @Russell Brazil. I lived in the Baltimore area for the first 29 years of my life (and I'm 33 now), so I am pretty familiar with the area. My current property is in Dundalk, and I lived in eastern Baltimore County most of my life. 

EDIT: Apparently I suck at using the @ tags. Oh well, I'll figure it out. 

Hello all.

I'm new here, but I'm not an entirely new investor.

I did the "house hack" of owning a property with an FHA loan and rented out the basement to help pay the mortgage on a property in Maryland. This was back in 2006. After the housing crash, my long time tenants moved out and I was moving off to grad school, and I could not sell my house (I was way underwater on the mortgage), so I ended up renting it out.

I only recently got above water on that house, and it is not the best investment property, but I'm keeping it for now since it is finally generating a positive cash flow.

I've recently come into a lot more money (self-employed), and am now in a position to buy even more properties, but I want to do it right this time. So, here I am

I moved to Boston for grad school and I love it up here, but I feel the market in Baltimore is a lot better for what I want to accomplish (buy and hold, mainly), and I know the market better (in addition to already having a management company in place). 

Anyway, hi. Nice to meet you all.