All Forum Posts by: Karan Rekhi

How do you rank the suburbs in terms of appreciation and rent growth in next 10 yr - 1) Alpharetta GA 2) Tampa FL 3) Denver CO 4) Henderson NV 5) Nashville TN?

I want to buy a typical 3 to4 bedroom intoplus bathroom single family home in a good school neighborhood .

@Bruce Lynn I am looking for investment property to rent out long term buy and hold. The thing I am struggling with is that the property taxes so high that I am finding it hard to find properties that are neutral cashflow even with 25% down and 30 yr mortgage. I like McKinny. For example for this house Zilow and Redfin (links below) show wildly different costs for Property Tax and Insurance (not sure why?) but in both cases the the PropTaxes and Insurance add up to almost $800/mo for a $400K home taking the mortgage payment to $2500!!!! Will this rent for $2500?

5005 Alpine Meadows Dr, McKinney, TX 75071 | MLS# 20015201 | Redfin
5005 Alpine Meadows Dr, Mckinney, TX 75071 | MLS #20015201 | Zillow

@Bruce Lynnundefined

Niyi, Thanks for your response. What is your take on Marietta for long term buy and hold SFH rental investments?

My strategy (would love your feedback):

I think the tech companies are centered around Atlantic station with both Google and Microsoft office. I want to target suburbs with decent to good schools that are not to far from Atlantic station. I want to at least be neutral cashflow on 30 year mortgage with 25% down. I had my eyes on Symrna. But unfortunately It feels like Symra prices don't seem to pencil out anymore (I will find a house for $550 but the rents dont seem high enough to get neutral cashflow esp with interest rates rising up). So now I am moving west wards into Marietta... there are some good schools in Marietta... Is that a good strategy? Are there other cities you would recommend?

My target price is around $550,000. Looking for strong long-term appreciation and at least neutral cash flow on a 30 year mortgage including property management fees.

Looking for a standard three bedroom two bathroom single-family home. A fourth bedroom and or and Office den would be a bonus but not a necessity.  good schools strongly preferred, at least elementary. The house has to be move-in ready. The newer the better as it’s going to be remote property and I want to avoid or at least delay repairs for as long as possible.  but based on my research I also know that I might have to go back to at least 20 years old houses, and that’s OK. 20 years is not too old for a house in opinion. You talking about a furnace and a few appliance changes in the worst case.

Dallas: I’m treating Frisco as the main employment hub that I want to target and be around. Frisco itself seems expensive. This two cities that I found to be good potential opportunities were McKinney and Flowermound. Both seemed within 30 minutes of Frisco and both had good schools especially flower mound. Do you agree with my overall assessment and preference cities for Dallas?

Atlanta: Atlanta area seemed a little bit slower and less bustling compared to Dallas. But it’s a beautiful City.  for Atlanta I’m creating Atlantic Station as the main employment hub. Targeting less than 30 minutes commute to Atlantic station and good schools, I felt Symrna and Marietta were good options. I really liked Alpharetta too but felt that it’s already pretty expensive and actually the commute to Atlantic station is pretty bad in peak traffic hours. Do you agree with my overall assessment and preference cities for Atlanta?

If you have to choose one, which metro area would you go with Dallas or Atlanta?

Which is better in terms of Rental supply demand, rent to price ratio, FutureTech and population growth ?

Dallas has super high property taxes, and for some reason I don’t understand it seems to have very high insurance costs based on redfin estimates. But it doesn’t have state income tax. Atlanta on the other hand has lower property tax and seemingly lower insurance costs. What does state income tax. Has anybody done the math to figure out how do use things pencil out and which of these two metro areas end up being better purely based on current numbers? 



Despite no credit bureau reporting, a future lender's underwriter can easily figure out i was in forbearance looking at my bank and mortgage statements.

@Ryan Deasy. Thanks a lot. I do have a few questions for you.

I want to test this strategy on 3 bed room SFH and have a maximum of 3 occupants one in each room. I am in WA. +1 on vetting the tenants carefully to avoid drama. I also think if the existing occupants find their own room mates then the odds of dramas are lesser. Hence the incentive scheme.

What I am worried about is, if there is conflict between occupants and say one occupants goes rouge, stops paying his/her share of rent or utility bill, does damages and blames others etc. how will eviction work out in such a case? One strategy to mitigate risk could be to do month to month leases. Not a huge fan because it will increase odds of turn over and vacancy for me.

Do you have a separate lease per occupant?

How do you nominate a specific room to a specific occupant (a room doesn’t have address)?

Do you put some special clause in the lease to protect yourself in case “drama” arises?

Can you please share the lease you use for sharing setup? I will create my own lease but just want to learn from yours.

Thanks a lot!

What are the do's/don't of renting individual rooms of a SFH as opposed to the whole house to a single family?

What do I need to do to avoid any liability/head aches in case of tenant vs tenant conflicts?

How should I structure lease for such a house sharing set-up? Are there some standard leases for room rentals?
 
I see two options:

1. I take the sole responsibility of finding individual tenants for each room, and hope that the tenants will coexist peacefully and each tenant takes responsibility of paying his/her share of rent on time and fixing damages he/she causes.  
2. I create a structure where the tenants are incentivized to find good apartment mates (obviously approved by me) and behave. The incentive I plan to put in place is that the rent will be $2200 per tenant if the house has only one tenant, $1200/tenant is house has 2 tenants, $900/tenant if the house has 3 tenants. It will be a win-win for all. 
 
Any thoughts on two? Has anybody tried something like this?