All Forum Posts by: Jim D.

Is it normal for tenants to pay a placement fee in your area?

If I did that, I would stay vacant even through the zombie apocalypse. 

Congrats on the purchase. What is your target for ARV on the refinance?

I think it's great you want to help college students in their endeavors for education. However, I would put some thought into how you owning the property they rent actually helps them. Are there properties available for the students to rent now? If so, by purchasing one you would just be changing hands of ownership from someone else to you. The students would just be sending rent checks to a different address, and it wouldn't really affect them. My recommendation would be to invest in whatever property the numbers make the best return for you, and focus on supporting students in a way that will have a bigger impact on them than being their landlord.

Sure sounds like a loan to me. The interest amount is 20%, calculated annually, and paid annually.

Adding an extra bedroom in dead space is a nice one if you're doing a buy and hold.

In my experience, tenants are very receptive to this if you note it as a separate line item. Rent is $700, and there's a fixed utilities charge of $30 or whatever it is.

I would set the number slightly lower than what you think they're actually using... if it's on the higher end, some tenants will feel like you're trying to take advantage of them. Recovering 80% of the cost would be great and would be far easier than putting in separate metering.

Sure, it's a numbers game, like any kind of cold contacting. The call takes 60 seconds, and even if only 1 in 50 is interested in selling, you would do well.

Even though it only takes 15 seconds to say "no thanks" and hang up, it is irritating to receive calls like this. Something about it just feels disingenuous.

Yes, I try to keep mine around 10% below the maximum I could get. When it's slightly below market, you'll get plenty of applicants and can pick the most stable and qualified tenants. When I had it at the max, I only got one mediocre applicant and was stuck with picking them or vacancy. They took terrible care of the house and I kicked them out for smoking in the house after 3 months. 

The small amount gained by maxing out the rent will usually be lost (and then some) by the quality of tenants and vacancy. 

One of my biggest struggles is resisting the temptation to raise the rent to the maximum possible I can get.

I keep my rents just slightly below market and it pays off because I can pick great tenants and have had 1% vacancy over the last 5 years. But it's always a temptation to shoot for the moon and roll the dice on who takes it. Didn't end well the one time I tried it.

@Aisha M.  I don't believe they offer any funding for rehab, but you could check with a lender to verify that.