All Forum Posts by: John Hagen

We put the videos on YouTube and payment throughout the website with rentec

@Gurpreet Bhinder the bank we used is lending us all we want, but we have shopped elsewhere and other banks have flat turned us down or offered bad rates. We found a young aggressive loan officer who saw our vision and sees he can make a boat load of commission off of us. As Michaels OP says we are only 10 months down the path, we caught some breaks and are still learning ourselves.

@Gurpreet Bhinder we didn't have much of a problem at all for two main reasons, we formed an LLP and used a local bank. The LLP listed all 3 partners so the banked looked at us as a whole. We used a local bank who knew us and the situations and made a personal judgment that we were a safe bet.

@Monica Morff we have our own website through Rentec Direct. The website allows us to take application online as well as post our YouTube walk through videos right on each unit listing. all of our marketing is online and rentec put our listings out on most of the major rental sites. in all of our facebook ads we link our website.

@Jay HinrichsI think the key was Michael being willing to take on partners. Way back in 2006 I started looking at real-estate investing as a good investment but I'm in the financial sector, son of a banker, I knew that land lording took some carpentry skills I just did not have. When Michel started talking serious about real estate and he had some  experiences and skills I lacked, I asked about partnering and he was willing to give up some ownership.


I know for sure if he didn't take me on as a partner I would not be in this business. I'm willing to bet there are more people like me out there than you think, who have the money but not the needed skills to start, who would be willing to partner.


It has worked out well for us, we both lend our abilities to the venture and fee up the other to do what they do best. I do the books and back end, Michael does the deals and works with the contractors. Plus we neither one get burned out doing stuff we don't like.

@Levi T. That is what we were thinking about by raising the rent $50-$60 a month and putting the extra into repair account. Do you have experience doing this? How does it work out?

That is a great idea we will talk about that and have your maintenance guy do the checks. We do rent to a few 20 year olds but they all work in the toyoda plant 45 minutes away so no much partying after a long day and drive time. Most of our people are mid 20's to 30 but just no savings what so ever, but good jobs.

Seth, that is one of our concerns. However, I don't think we've given a deposit back yet so its not helping much

@Michael Beeman Tagging my partner