All Forum Posts by: Kyle Curtin

Quote from @Scott Mac:

Director of Student Housing.

 Thank you so much Scott! I am looking them up as we speak! 

Quote from @Jaron Walling:

@Kyle Curtin That sounds great and I'm all for it but I honestly the units need to justify the costs. Circling back to my first response... almost every property I rented during college was clearly a student rental. Only the last property we rented (myself and two other good friends) was nice. It was farther from campus but we all rode bikes and got to class in <10 mins so it wasn't an inconvenience. We had a full basement, hard wood floors, 2 car garage, driveway, and no crazy neighbors. I bought a motorcycle. We actually took care of the place. We had garage parties, worked on cars, and did "adult" things. We were juniors and seniors by that time. Maybe you can screen for that (covertly) and be selective without breaking your state laws. 

Funny thing is the landlord was by far the worst we every had. We saw her two times during our 12 month lease. The gutters literally fell off the house and she made no attempt to fix them. I repaired plumbing leaks and various other things because I'm handy and our texts/calls would go unanswered. 

There's a ton of student rental discussions in the BP forums. Some of it quite entertaining. I'd search them out and learn from more experienced investors. 

That is super good to know! Thank you so much! :) 

Quote from @Jaron Walling:

Relationships for what purpose? Professional? Personal? 

What ever you do treat it as a business. Obviously it's a college town with college vibes. Unless these units are high end, remodeled nicely, and away from party areas don't see that type of person living there. That's just my opinion. College students tear things up. I know because I lived OFF campus every year in college rentals. Lived on almost every side of my college. Walls were was painted white in every property. The kitchens were terrible. Flooring was old carpet, tile, or durable LVP products. We partied like it was 95' on most weekends, spilled drinks, broke bathroom mirrors, and busted a window. 

The more selective you are with tenants the longer it's going to take to rent (aka loosing cash-flow). Screening is important and don't skip on requirements that but what I see in the forums time and time again is co-signing. Kids break something, Mommy and Daddy foot the bill.  

Edit: 9 mins away from campus is decently far and most students don't live that far. I never lived more than 5 mins from campus. You could focus on higher end tenants but the units would need to justify the rent. Just my 2 cents. 

Hey Jaron,

Thank you very much for the response. My intent is to find a coach or guidance counselor etc. to create a professional relationship with within the school to be able to present the opportunity of living not too far off campus in a clean & desirable space for a bit lower than the college tuition. I most certainly will require that their parents co-sign on the lease, and am trying to figure out how to target mostly towards graduate students that are more focused on pursuing their higher education than partying. I am aware the more specific I am with my criteria, the longer it will take to rent and it will remain vacant for a little bit longer but hopefully with the result of a better tenant paired with the co-signers. 

Hi everyone!

I have a 3 family property that I owner occupy 9 minutes away from a big college in Massachusetts. I recently dug deeper into the student rental strategy and am going to give it a shot for one of my vacant units.

Coincidentally I am reading the book “Who Not How” (Gamechanging read!) and am looking for a “who” within the college to create a relationship with to be able find me groups of students searching for housing nearby and give them an opportunity for a clean & suitable experience that is not too pricey compared to the room and board rates.

The “who’s” that came to mind were coaches (heard this from a bp podcast), guidance counselors, & maybe directors of different departments, and I was going to use the website’s staff directory as well as leveraging relationships with past students to try to make introductions.

Has anyone done this? Who do you feel could be a good fit to create this relationship with?

Thank you so much!!

Hi Isaac!,

     Congrats on your project! Our team hosts free monthly "Pints and Properties" meetups in multiple different locations spanning from Gardner to Waltham, to Manchester NH! Our event in particular that typically covers the Boston area is in Waltham at the Craft Food Hall Project at Citypoint, I usually attend and it is a great time! We always have a different local guest speaker come to each event and give a presentation of their real estate story to date, food, drinks, and lots of time for networking. The power of your network is absolutely everything, especially starting out. The thing that I have realized over the past few years of going to networking events is that 99.999% of real estate investors and folks in our industry are extremely willing to genuinely give each other real value and help each other succeed. It does not matter if you are searching for your first property or a general partner in a 250+ unit syndication deal, real estate investing is such a team sport that we all need to support each other to build towards our ultimate visions! Typically our events are a nice blend of investors of all skill levels, contractors, agents, and many other professions with real estate ties.

I personally have had my entire life changed for the better from networking and hearing other's stories and exchanging value with each other and it is something that you will do for the rest of your life.

If you were interested in checking out our events, we have a Facebook page called "Pints and Properties - New England", as well as an email notification list that I could put you on if you would like!

Hi Reggie!,

     I highly recommend reaching out to @Anwar Arenas with Masswholesalehomes! Anwar is an amazing Wholesaler with a very inspiring story who is incredibly down to Earth and based out of Leominster!

Thank you,

Kyle

@Irving Vizcaino Hi Irving! Welcome to BP! This is a phenomenal place to be to jump into real estate investing. The community/forums on Biggerpockets alone is worth its weight in gold and the support is like no other. I highly second @Jonathan Bombaci with attending REI meetups around the area to jumpstart your journey. One thing that will catapult you further along your real estate investing journey is growing your network and hearing as many folk's stories as you can. Put yourself out there, go out and tell people who you are, what you are looking to do (like you did above! :) ) and meet as many folks as you can. Your network is your net worth!

I have found great success in going up to the search tab on Biggerpockets, Linkedin, Facebook, Instagram, etc. and searching for real estate investors in the areas you are interested to invest in and shooting them a direct message telling them a little about you and asking to hear their real estate story and if they would be interested in connecting via a phone call, go out for coffee, etc. Most real estate investors are more than happy to jump on a call and see if there is any way that they can help you and vice versa. It truly is a team sport and this is the beginning, welcome!

Hi Claire! Thank you so much for the response! That sounds like a very good idea to able to use those rental comps and show tenants what the market is expecting to justify an increase. That is a huge tip!!!

Hi Ahmad!,

    First, congratulations on breaking ground and beginning the journey! It will be a long and enjoyable journey that hopefully leads to many different forms of abundance in your life!

There are a few different options that I can recommend to you!

1.) Propstream.com -I have used Propstream to create mailing lists, but have not used their automated postcard/letter mailing arm. Propstream is essentially an all in one software that is $99 a month (as of 4/17/22!) that allows you to create very targeted mailing lists, skip trace them, as well as automatically sending direct mail templates (or uploading yours if you have one of your own!) you can choose from to your list. They do charge a certain amount of cents per contact (per address on your list) for the skip tracing and sending mailers portions.) I love the software for creating lists! I have used Hubspot.com as a free CRM to pair with propstream to be able to write down notes from talking to sellers and creating notifications to follow up, etc. 

2.) Open Letter Marketing LLC -I have not personally used Open Letter Marketing yet, but I am in a small group that is going to use this company to try to wholesale in some of our local markets. It has been widely recommended over BP!

I hope this helps,

Kyle

I totally agree Jeremy! :)