All Forum Posts by: JD Martin

I have been thinking about this for a while, and I was listening to a podcast tonight while I was in the shower and it just kind of brought it around to this thread. 

Today, it seems to me, at least in the US, there is a greater proportion of "huckster-ism" in our economy and in the ambitions of the population than in any time that I can remember (I'm half a decade from 60) in my life. I see and hear signs of this everywhere I look, and I like to think it's not just because I'm looking for it.

I'm no pollyanna. I know in any economic system, especially a capitalistic one, there will always be some proportion of people & businesses that don't deal or create anything of any real value. But today I see more of this than I can ever remember in the past, and I see it everywhere. Multitudes of people on BP looking to become rich on real estate by "wholesaling" or "rental arbitrage", essentially folks with no money or assets looking to punch their golden ticket. Dubious, or no value, real estate training courses, books, seminars, etc by people who often have less experience than the people they're "teaching". Syndications that hawk unreasonable returns and unbelievable risks while raking in chunks of fees for the syndicators, sometimes people who have almost no experience or knowledge in the products they're selling. 

And that's just what I see on BP. I see it everywhere. I have a grandson who aspires to make his fortune as an "influencer". Making money by getting people to follow his channel, where the only real monetization is due to the fact that legitimate businesses are willing to pay advertising money to place ads where eyeballs will see them. A lot of his friends think that getting a "real job" or creating a "real business" is for chumps. Why would you want to work a real job and save your money when you can do stupid stuff on Youtube, hawk junk products and try to get free AirBnb stays? 

Today it seems to me that everyone wants to make their money by being some kind of middleman, syphoning money off the interface. When I tell people about the hard work and long hours it took to rehab all the houses in our portfolio, they look at me like I have 3 heads. We created value by rehabilitating dilapidated housing and renting it out to people in need of quality homes to rent at reasonable prices. It wasn't rocket science. When I was a kid people created businesses by purchasing property and building homes, or renting out space and creating a nice restaurant, things like that. Hucksterism was Amway and Tupperware parties, but everyone knew it. Bringing this back to the podcast, the entire thing consisted of a guest telling people to figure out ways to sell repackaged information to people and generate advertising dollars, which the podcast itself was generating by appealing to people's get rich quick bias. 

I'm no Luudite, and I know there's still plenty of things of value being created out there (even if I dislike some of it like AI), but I just find it disturbing to think that a lot of economic activity is just selling nonsense to each other rather than creating products or services of real value. 

I'm going to link some people here because I know they'll have smart things to say. And generate some responses here as well. Hey, maybe I can get paid per click from this thread! 😂

@Russell Brazil @Jay Hinrichs @James Wise @Chris Seveney @Don Konipol @James Hamling @Bruce Woodruff @Scott Trench @Jonathan Greene @Shiloh Lundahl @Steve Vaughan  and if I left you off this list it might be because I just couldn't get you tagged properly :)

 It's not easy to remove posted content that way. When an individual is banned here and his/her account closed, their contact information will be masked with "account closed", including in replies, but someone would have to go through their profile to cull every piece of content from the forums. When you post here, your content doesn't become "yours" anymore in the sense of belonging to your profile; it instead becomes a link through your profile for future reference. And inasmuch as the forums also act as a historical record, even if anyone here (staff and/or moderators) was inclined to do so, it would create odd and incoherent gaps in the conversations within threads especially for more prolific posters. In the almost 10 years I've been a mod here we (BP) have had to ban a few posters that had a pretty heavy post count. 

 I think you confused my post - I didn't mention the restrictions (in fact I worked in Woodfin for many years). I don't think restrictions really play into it at all out in BC MV Cherokee Franklin etc those are pretty red counties out there and there's really no zoning or restrictions to speak of. My point was those properties are worth less because they're less desirable; they're in the middle of nowhere relatively speaking. People who think they can compare Bryson City to Gatlinburg, Sevierville or even places like Cosby make me laugh. Most people have no idea just how small Bryson City, Dillsboro etc is, how actual far it is driving time from these places unless they've lived here. You're 100% right that people who tend to vacation in those areas are looking for the "cabin in the woods" type of experience because that's what you're going to get unless you like driving 45 minutes to get to things. Actually most people who have vacation homes out there come from Atlanta or Charlotte and are just looking for mountain getaway alternatives to Blue Ridge or the more expensive places in ski country like Beech Blowing Rock Linville Sugar Mtn etc.

Wow. As already noted you seriously need to fire your PM unless you have some kind of odd do-it-yourself PM setup (in which case, why do you even need a PM?). I would take a good look at your contract with your PM because if it's any kind of professional contract there's a reasonably good chance they are grossly negligent by allowing the tenants to become 5 months delinquent without taking action, in which case I would take action against the PM as well to recover some of those funds. 

If I were building a SFH specifically as a rental it would be a 3/2 square box with no garage or at most a side carport, with an integrated front porch or rear porch. Preferably on a slab, which is the cheapest foundation you can build, and with roof trusses. I would try to limit the SF to about 1100-1300 depending on the floor plan. Even with the run up in prices if you GC it you can get into something like that for $150k not including the lot, so in the right areas it could make a lot of sense.

48 hours to sign & make payment directly to our business banking, or through a platform for out of towners. Beyond that we open the process up to the next applicant. Deposit & first month & any pet deposits due on signing. Renters are notorious for putting a property in their pocket while they look for something "better", usually meaning cheaper. If they find something else before they pay you, they just move on regardless of whether they've signed a lease. 

Well, most "handymen" in my experience are barely handy at all. Anything beyond changing out light switch covers and things like that end up as hack jobs. Not all of course but it doesn't take a lot of effort or skill or licensing to advertise yourself as a handyman. 

A GC on the other hand will have to be licensed in pretty much every state, with insurance. They're going to be more expensive because they'll manage the job.

I prefer a third option - directly hire the subs and be your own GC, if allowed where you are. If I am having a full rehab done I can save 20-40% of the total job by hiring the subs directly. This doesn't work very well if you don't know what things should cost, don't know any subs, live in an area where there's a big shortage of subs, or don't know how to manage a project. In any of those cases you should use a GC. 

For my local properties I do most of my own "handyman" stuff. I'm better than 95% of them in my area (maybe higher), can do/build/fix virtually anything, and can get it done faster than arranging for a guy to come out. There's exceptions - things I don't like doing any more, and things that I want to keep a relationship with a trade. So I will throw some plumbing jobs to my plumber that I can do myself. Same with electrician. Same with HVAC. Not everything, not ridiculously easy or fast jobs, and not easy but emergency jobs. But by keeping the relationships I go right to the top of the list when I have an emergency, serious job that needs to be done. So the plumber does a few faucets and toilet replacements that I could easily handle so that when something busts loose on a weekend I can get him out there. ETC. 

We used to provide everything through Charter but consistently polled our guests and found that no one was using it at all. We cancelled it and went to an all-streaming Roku setup for the last year and had one complaint, but since they were just general complainers (a bug was inside the pool screen, for example) I don't think it would make a difference. This year was an exception but being near Disney we usually get a decent number of foreigners and they mostly watch soccer and cricket and things like that so they have their own streaming subscriptions. 

It just depends on your market. If you're somewhere that you expect a lot of people to stay home, you might want to provide some entertainment. In my market people often leave early and come back late so they generally don't care.