All Forum Posts by: Justin Farman

It’s hit and miss, really need to deeply understand what they offer, if they will work for you or against you, whether they sign the lease or you (I prefer me, to reduce that lock jn). 

Bought this property about 18 months ago. Hired a recommended PM, and they installed a tenant. Started getting City warnings of junk on property, regularly, then $500 fines per event. Tenant kept telling PM they were being victimized by a old neighborhood click, wasn’t them. Anyway, finally PM went to court, as fines built up, there neighbors showed videos of tenants illegally scrapping and selling stuff. Subsequently confronted tenants, and tried evicting them, however they had no money to move. Now two months later, received an order to shut the property for 6 months! Have Any others had such experiences, and what would u recommend, as next steps? Regards

This is my 8th acquisition, and need to ask advice, ideas, as you will hear the issues, next!

Bought property, closed Dec 30 2020, no tenant. Using my property manager of 4 other investments, they set about preparing for market. The previous PM, deliberately, took two weeks / mid Jan to hand over keys. Discovered that water was locked due to non payment and naturals gas due to gas theft. Took a couple weeks / End Jan to have seller sort out gas. End Feb, the earliest we could get Water department to do “inspection”, and turn water on. On that day, last Thursday, all under home water pipes burst due to them having been frozen and gas being off. Now I have to pump out the basement, repair pipes and more. What a dilemma! Would like advice, should I be engaging my insurer? Should I be holding seller responsible, or other? Thanks for any advice.

@Andrey Y. I’ve had passive investments, in fact they were my first forays into owing real estate, fractional ownership. Although I understand the financial and logistical benefits, there is one major downside, someone else has the money, makes all or most of the decisions and needs to account to you. Unfortunately, and maybe I just hit a couple of bad apples, or timing, more, the investment was not returning, tenants were not staying, the majority owners had bigger Fish to Fry so weren’t monitoring and attending to small issues, which then turned into nightmares. These were brand new homes, so I expected less maintenance and issues, but I ended up having to personally monitor issues, and report them, then the majority did as they pleased, till the point we bailed at a loss. I now only buy wholly owned units, possibly once bitten twice shy, but I prefer to have absolute control. Good luck.

I've been getting about the same for investment properties, with a 725 points credit score, depends on location, if its multi-unit, and more. Seems it's difficult to get much better, for me anyway.

A further question, As said I use Quickbooks for other biz, it has limited app functionality, but enough to quickly check things / process etc. Does either of you use the mobile app version of Quickbooks or Quicken successfully for rental properties, or do u only do that via PC? Thanks 

@Bill Brandt Ok, you’ve convinced me, I’ll give it a try. Thanks

@Bill Brandt Thanks. I use quickbooks for my other businesses, so not as familiar with Quicken. Does it keep track of each property income and expenses?

I’ve used Quickbooks. I have property managers. So what is the easiest software to use to just book keep the one property bank account I use for the properties? I would like to keep a track of each properties overall performances, Cashflow, and make year end tax easy. Any experiences / advice welcome.

I’m focusing on diversification, and leveraging by using Roofstock, however the interest rate, when I finance so far, on $80k investment, 25% down, no point pay down, 740+ credit, is circa 5.375%. Is this in the ballpark, or not, any guidance or comments welcomed.