All Forum Posts by: Kristina Anderson

@Remington Lyman — ouch. 🤗

Hi Everyone,

I know any attorney reading this will say "absolutely yes!" We are wondering whether it's worthwhile to engage an attorney to review a commercial contract on a smaller-sized residential building (but large enough it qualifies as commercial)? We're New York City-based, where you can't purchase any piece of real estate without an attorney. We learned that in Columbus, residential (up to 4 units) is pretty straightforward, and we haven't engaged attorneys for the contract phase until now. The commercial contract also seems pretty standard. Thoughts?

Tina

You definitely need to get your down payment together. I can't tell which market you are in, the cost of entry can be more or less cost prohibitive depending on that. Are you willing to move or do you want to do it where you are, now? If you can stand roommates, a small 2BR SFH (or Condo) where you could rent out the 2nd bedroom to offset the mortgage payments in order to allow you to save, save, save (!) would be a good first step.

Managing local bureaucracy is never fun. I also admit that we do not have any section 8 rentals - circumstance less any other reason. However, avoiding section 8 for the "type" of tenant is indeed 100% racist. As many pointed out, you can't lump the entire group of tenants together. Being section 8 doesn't make them more messy, or less reliable. Just like you wouldn't say, "that market rate person who didn't give notice and moved out means I'll never accept market rate tenants again!". To the OP, we are also concerned about not perpetuating a system of inequity and our strategy is two-fold: We try not to take housing stock that would otherwise go to owner-residents (SFHs and Duplexes make us a little uncomfortable) AND when we buy, we make the numbers work with current tenants (versus buying with expectation we'll have to evict, turn, and lease to get market rates). It's something small, we do our best.

We've been happy with @Steven J. Umaña in Columbus. He's at Kegler. He sets up our properties as business entities (so I don't have experience working with him on finance transactions).

Hi everyone!

Our PM sold their business to Evernest this past week, and my husband and I are looking for any owners/out of state investors who have experience working with them. 

Thank you in advance!!

Tina 

Jonathan had a great suggestion; be ready though for your seller to ignore a "low ball" (in their mind) offer or counter in an absurd way. About 10 years ago, we put an offer in on a 3 family townhome in Brooklyn, NY. Asking was 1.4M but all the comps came back at 1.2M. So, we offered 1.2M and our agent shared all the relevant backup for our offer. The seller countered at .... 1.395M. Yes, $5,000 below his ask. So, we walked. He found a buyer but it took a few more weeks. There is always someone out there who thinks the asking price seems reasonable, if not cheap, regardless of comps and based on their investment strategy. 

@Remington Lyman Yes, my husband and I found that in Columbus it's pretty difficult to find an A/B property that flows when you factor financing into your costs. The market is surging in Columbus (as you know) right now. We are fortunate to have gotten in just before the wave.   

@Remington Lyman We have a somewhat different strategy in that we are buy-and-hold investors who had a bit of cash on the onset, which allowed us to force flow. The latest deal was a duplex in worthington schools that we financed at 50% LTV. We're now taking a break to strategize our next steps.

@Remington Lyman - We are all over the place, based on the deals we find. We are in Upper Arlington, Worthington, Bexley, and even Hilltop.