All Forum Posts by: Jeff Zimmerman

@Anthony Ingua, good luck!  always happy to help

good luck @Anthony Ingua, I'd be tempted to use a more professional screening process at first, only because you are a first time landlord.  Once you get a little experience and have learned a few things from using tenant cloud, etc... it may be easier to screen without paying extra fees, but that's just me, I like infrastructure when I'm new at something.  

Above all, in my opinion, rental history is the best indicator for finding a good tenant so don't forget to ask for previous landlords numbers and get references from them.  Good luck! 

hi @Neetu Patil, that's unfortunately more common in CA these days, many companies have stopped quoting new business and/or are dropping certain types of homes.  I'll message you some referrals that have been able to get tougher deals done for me recently, good luck! 

hey @Ryan Louz, There are options in the central valley sub $120k.  Some condo's, but mostly mobile homes.  Mobile homes can cash flow pretty well as long as the park fees aren't too high.

In the Central Valley nice mobile homes sell for $60k and up, and section 8 can fund it, in Fresno a section 8 voucher for a 2 bed unit will pay up to $1604/month.  

They don't get high appreciation, largely due to the fact that the loans for them have a high interest rate and require a larger down payment as well.  But if the home is taken care of it will appreciate, just not as much as a single family or condo.  With the appreciation you get plus the cash flow it could set you up for a larger purchase in cash a few years down the road.  Just an idea.

hi @Hyeonji Oh, getting started is the hardest part, congrats on moving forward!  We were all new once. Books, podcasts, blogs are all great ways to get started learning.  The best first step you can do is get pre-qualified with a good lender, then start looking at and analyzing potential properties.  You learn a lot by going through the motions.  Eventually you will find a property you are ready to buy and then you start the land lording process which is your next adventure.  Just keep moving forward and you will do great! 

you are welcome Dennis, I'm glad that was helpful. Long term rentals are going to be really good in Fresno because of how much we are growing and because of our lack of housing.  But because of that appreciation is great and cash flow is minimal, that's the downside to it.  

You can do well in any part of Fresno as I have clients and friends that are successful everywhere. If you are looking for areas that you are more likely get high quality long term tenants you'd probably want to look within the Clovis Unified School District as well as homes that are in Fresno but fall within the Sanger Unified School District.  Those are the most desired for families and are all in pretty good areas. Sunnyside is one of the areas that has a lot of homes within Sanger unified. 

Hey Alex, you aren't wrong.  Deals have been much harder to find recently, especially after interest rates started to climb.  It sounds like a too simplistic of an answer but the reality is that you will find one, it's just going to be harder to find and may take some creativity in how you use it.  I.e. finding someone who doesn't mind selling you half of their multi family and you can work on it and improve the rents, then buy the seller out of it fully.  

Good luck! 

Sheila Kamps at Kamps insurance.  She just did a quote for me and it was expensive but she was able to get it done. Good luck! 

hey Dennis, the sunnyside area in Fresno is a great area and is off the radar of a lot of ma and pop SFH investors as well as first time new home buyers which makes for a lot less competition in the buying process, but rentals are popular. Sunnyside is a probably the lowest income area of the nice areas of Fresno (does that make sense?). $90,000 seems about right for the average household income of Fresno, it's not a high income city. At that ratio a family would be spending about 33% of their income on rent and that sounds about right as well. I usually allow someone to go up to 40% of their household income in my rentals.

As far as vacancy goes, you can plan on an SFH going vacant every 3-4 years on average. I've seen some renters stay 15-20 years and depending on what kind of tenants you have (i.e. college students) they may only stay a year but often the families renting a 4 bed don't want to move their kids and many times dont' buy a home for years if ever.

The primary occupation in Fresno is healthcare, with the largest healthcare employer being community regional medical centers followed by Saint Agnes hospital.  The region is AG based with Olam being the largest employer in that space.  The other big employers are the Fresno Unified school district - the 3rd largest school district in CA, Amazon, the IRS and city and county governments. 

rents are high mostly because we have a big housing shortage and there are no signs of housing meeting demand for a while as Fresno has a few policies that make it hard to annex land from the county so building is low. Clovis and Madera are able to keep building but not enough to keep up. 

I hope that helps, good luck!

hey Michael, awesome that you are getting started.  Fresno is a great place to look as we continue to grow in population and will continue to have a housing shortage for years to come.  Cash flow takes good vision and great "hunting" for the deal, but it's certainly possible.  Our appreciation has been through the roof and is much easier to come by especially with some value add instead of just having passive appreciation.  Last year when interest rates caused everything to slow, our average price/sqft only went down by 0.004%.  That should correct and go back up another 3% this year conservatively.  Overall we are optimistic on the Fresno market for long term holds.  It's a great market to look at and see if it fits your criteria.  Good luck!