All Forum Posts by: Jordan Thibodeau

Dear ___

(Salutation)

I wrote this letter is to explain how we operate our duplexes and what we'll be looking for from you.

1. Property Manager: BLANK is your property manager.

1. Maintenance/Repair Problems: You have a right to expect repairs to be made promptly. To help us accomplish this, please use this online Maintenance/Repair Request form to report to the manager any problems in your home or the building or grounds, such as a leaky faucet, etc. To use this form, make a copy of it, fill it out, and email the completed version to BLANK

Except in an emergency, all requests for repairs should be made on this form during normal business hours. In case of emergency, or when it’s not convenient to use this form, call BLANK.

1. Safety and Maintenance Update: It’s your goal to keep your unit and the common areas in excellent condition. To help us do this, we’ll ask you to fill out this form every six months, to report any potential safety hazard or maintenance problems that otherwise might be overlooked. To use this form, make a copy of it, fill it out, and email the completed version to BLANK,

1. Semi Annual Safety Inspection: Once every BLANK months, we will inspect the condition and furnishing of your rental unit and updated the Rental Property checklist.

1. Insurance: We highly recommend that you purchase renters insurance to protect your belongings, because tenants face many of the same risks that homeowners do:

1. You could lose valuable property through theft or fire.

1. You could be sued if someone is injured on the premises you rent.

1. If you damage the building itself (say you start a fire in the kitchen and it spreads), you could be responsible for a large repair bills.

Contact your insurance agent for more information on renter’s insurance.

1. Rental Agreement: Your signed copy is attached. Please let us know if you have any questions. A few things we’d like to highlight here:

1. There is no grace period for the payment of rent. Also, we don’t accept postdated checks.

1. You occupy the premises under a fixed-term lease. you are responsible for all rent payments through the lease term, even if you move out before the lease expires. During the lease term, your rent cannot be increased, nor can other terms of your tenancy by changes.

1. Your security deposit is only to be applied, by the owner, to costs of cleaning, damages, or unpaid rent after you move out. You may not apply any part of the deposit, during your tenancy, toward any part of your rent in the last month of your tenancy.

1. You have indicated you will be mailing your January rent payment check to BLANK.

1. Landlord/Tenant Checklist: By now, we have taken you on a walk-through of your home to check the condition of all walls, blinds, floors, appliances, and etc. These are all listed on the Rental Property checklist, which you should have carefully gone over and signed (I’ve attached the sign version to this email). When you move out, we will ask you to check each item against its original condition as indicated on the checklist.

1. Moving Out: While we would like you to stay here for a long time, but in the event you do move be aware we have a list of items should be cleaned before we conduct a move out inspection. If you decide to move out, please ask the manager for a copy of our Move-Out letter, explaining what is required.

1. Telephone Number Changes: Please notify us if your home or work phone number changes, so we can reach out to you promptly in case of an emergency.

Please let us know if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

BLANK

@Rami Aweti The problem with Sacramento is that we are anchoring our job growth experiences with the Bay Area, which is an anomaly in job growth. If you compare Sacramento to any other city in the USA, you will see it's on par with growth rates and population.

One of the reasons why I invest in Sacramento is the city is not correlated to how technology business perform in Silicon Valley. Sacramento main economic driver is it's proximity to the state capital, education, and a few other services jobs. The growth rate is slow, and steady, and not accelerated, which evens out the highs and lows and creates a sustainable economic situation. 

Also, you find more investors in Sacramento. You don't have to complete with emotional families, with excess capital, who are willing to bid housing prices to astronomical levels.

The future is at best uncertain.

I would say, at least make sure your investment breaks even on current standards. If you're going to make a play on a property that is losing money and you hope the water crisis will eventually force rents/appreciation up, that's speculation. So long as you know the risks associated with your decision, then feel free to go for it.

Keep in mind, cities are adaptable when it pertains to ecological or economic disasters. If water ever reached a point that caused mass exodus, I would definitely shoot holes in that premise being that it would mean water would reach a price where it's more economically viable to flee your area than pay the high price for water. If that's the case, it would make desalinization, water efficiency measures, and water rationing more economically viable which would force the prices down.

Think of oil a decade ago, we were all crying peak oil, now we are awash in fracking due to the increase in price, and now price per barrel is going back to a more economical viable rate.

As far as the market already pricing in a possible drought, I doubt that thesis. The market is efficient in the short term, but as for unforseen issues by the main stream, it's extremely inefficient. If the market was efficient, their wouldn't be a point of a market because everyone would know the future, there would be no risk, and no reason to invest because everyone already knows the future.

Tax Returns And PLs

Copy of current lease agreements.

Accounting for tenant deposits.

Invoices for repairs or any major structural improvements.

And for other things to ask for check here.

Confirmation the property wasn't built on top of a burial ground. If so, when is the last time a seance has been conducted? Is the seance practitioner a member of state board of license contractors?

@Minka Sha

@Eric Bowlin , @Richard C. ,@Elizabeth Colegrove ,@Michael G. , @Tim Holmes , @Joe Villeneuve Excellent points, thanks everyone.

@Minka Sha

@Minka Sha LOL. I made an offer on the house you're talking about. List price is ****ing crazy. I highly suggest you cancel that offer at $180k offer. I made my offer at $147k (So I can at least snag $150 a door and maybe $200 down the road, but that's speculative) because at $175k (list price) there's no profit, I would say it's a loss if you add the time involved in organizing the deal, and $180k, you're cheating yourself.

Your monthly maintenance is too low, I would at least say $100 bucks a month, if you include cap ex make that $170 a month.

There's no profit in the deal, the square footage of the house sucks, you have no backyard, no garage, you're going to need to build a car port, you're within kissing distance of another duplex so you have no privacy, and it doesn't matter how close it is to the med center, your rents will stay low due to the fact that the property is missing the aforementioned features. 

My duplex with two 1 bedroom units, each have garages and huge backyards, not including the garage, the square footage for one unit is 828 square feet. When I saw that one of the units was a 2 bedroom for 620 square feet, i cringed.

I highly recommend you pass on this offer, I don't want your first deal to be a lemon. Keep looking my friend, you will find something.

Also, I'll be up in Sacramento on Saturday to look at my property. If you want to grab coffee let me know.

@Cameron Ellis Take the most basic aspect of your job and make a basic checklist for it. By creating a basic checklist you can measure how effective your business decisions were, which ones lead to problems, and what you can do more often to lead to desirable results.

For me, Tenant screening, it would look like this.

Phone Screen (Yes Or NO)

Application Received (Yes Or NO)

Called References (Yes Or NO)

Physical Walk Through w/ tenant (Yes Or NO)

Back Ground Check (Yes Or NO)

Final Decision (Yes Or NO)

Review the lease with the tenant in person, explain to them the situation, and then after the conversation send a follow up email to reiterate your position.

You have to ask yourself, if I was to rent out my unit right now, would I rent it to this person? If not, then you need to consider letting the lease expire and look for a new tenant.

@Joshua Dorkin 

 Merry Christmas.

And Happy Festivus Everyone!

@Brandon Proctor I would definitely save up until you can start with a conventional loan. What I like most about putting 20-25% down is that you mortgage payment is lower so if the economy slows down you have a margin of safety to lower rents without taking an operating loss.

@Account Closed With oil trading around $50 a barrel, have any of you seen a slow down in North Dakota RE?