All Forum Posts by: Krishna Chava

I wouldnt make that decision based on $85 more. If I am not renting to a certain tenant, section 8 or not, I will not do it for 85 more. Also, remember it's more difficult to increase rents for section 8. That said, section 8 tenants are great diversification mix to have in any porfolio. I want 25% of my properties on section 8. They are usually good people when properly screened.

@Mia Trasolini sketchy is a subjective definion at best. There are lot of areas perceived sketchy because of certain demographics or even because yards are not looking clean. I have bought into these areas and realized the people living there are great tenants. My lesson from that experience is that I will looks for only objective factors ( income range of tenants, actual violent crime statistics, school ratings) to determine sketchiness in future.

I am developing ( early stage start-up) an Artificial Intelligence camera that watches these people, does face detection and alerts you when they loiter around for more than say, 15mins. You can confront them with the data you and also share that data with police if it's illegal activity. No video upload or broadband needed. Camera does the watching for you. This is in engineering develpement phase, PM me if anyone wants more details. Once they know you are watching, they will go away. For people worried about privacy and such, remember, you could be sued for not keeping your property secure too..

Its probably best to have security system in place before leasing out the unit. Tenant can choose to activate it or not, but won't be drilling holes. Also a reminder to myself to do it in my properties

laminate floors look very good and probably best in low end flips. As a buy and hold investor, I don't like them as they get wrapped up eventually due to moisture/water. I would go with luxury vinyl plank in these.

My advislce is unconventional, but given late cycle in real estate investmentments, would it be an option to pivot to property management and build a stable recession proof business? I don't know how easy to do this pivot, more experienced BP members can weigh in.

@Juan Vargas thanks for the tip about hiring someone from bigger apartment complex who could bring in their crew. I presume you don't get same hourly rate or response time as someone on-site, but better than completely outsourcing maiantance to a general contractor. What is the typical percentage you pay for a part-time property manager? Is it typical 8-10% range. How often do they visit the properties and visit the tenants?

How do you manage an apartment complex with less that 70 units? Do you have an onsite property manager and/or onsite maintenance tech?. Do you directly employ people or pay a property management company that employs onsite staff? (similar to large apartment complex model).

I own 75 units, 50 of them in same subdivision (own most of 2 streets). I let my maintenance guy stay for free in one of the units, pay him when there is work, let him find work when I can't employ him. I manage everything else myself. So far working good but not a perfect or scaleble solution. 

I am co-founder of a startup developing Artificial intelligence based monitoring tech to constantly watch out for any issues either with tenants or maintenance issues.  We are in engineering phase and seeking feedback from bigger pockets community about the pain points in managing small multifamily properties.

@Dick Rosen I know good property managers that do the right thing like you do. Increasing the rent once the rent is at 90% of market rent needs lots of hard work. A small percentage of that rent increase isn't incentive enough in itself. I feel incentive system is broken in property management model at least for SFH and small multifamily homes.

@Account Closed Agree with you that incentive for property managers should be to give stable long term returns to the owner. If property manager get paid a percentage of profit owner makes as opposed to percentage of gross rents, it would be fair compensation. As for your analogy of 200 unit complex, most of these are maintained by large national property management companies that charge 4% of gross rent + payroll expenses. They don't get 10% of increased rent.