All Forum Posts by: Kyle Soudalan

@Nathan Gesner ^Similar question for you. Would you say the vast majority of your evictions were quick and easy to do? And have you found a system over the years or you file them all manually as you go?

@Jim K. For most of the evictions that you handled yourself, what percentage of them would you say were simple to file and ultimately evict the tenant without any issues? And did you have a system set up to quickly do the filing, or would you start from scratch each time (manually go through your ledger, gather supporting evidence for failure to pay, showing copies of notices you sent to pay, etc.)?

@Michael Smythe How would I effectively look at the invoice from the attorney's office to determine if the attorney is charging high fees just because, versus how much it would cost me if I handled it myself? Does every county/city have some "fee structure" that breaks down the cost of all the filings and processes necessary to get an eviction done?

@Alex Hileman After 7 years working as a property manager and filing evictions, did you find most of them to be fairly routine and something you could've automated to make the process much easier (and faster) for you?
Regarding other types of lease violations, what was it exactly that made you feel it necessary to hire an attorney? Expertise they had that you didn't? Or you didn't want to deal with the headache of a combative tenant trying to drag the process out?

I see this question pop up a lot on BP: "how do I evict a tenant in [city, state]?" I've had to evict a few tenants from properties I've owned in different states, but I always rely on property managers to contact the law firms and work with an attorney to handle the eviction. 

Of course, this is usually unnecessarily expensive. The attorney charge hundreds of dollars, if not well over a thousand dollars, to essentially follow a step-by-step guide for how to do an eviction. Send a notice, fill out specific paperwork, don't collect rent in the meantime, don't shut off utilities to retaliated against the tenant, etc.

I want to better understand:

1. How hard is it for a landlord to read and learn how to perform an eviction in their specific city/county/state?
2. How much does eviction law vary by city/county/state?
3. I assume most landlords' biggest fear when evicting a tenant is either losing the ruling (because they didn't follow the process correctly) or being sued themselves (because of adverse actions they took while trying to evict the tenant). But is it that hard to learn it yourself?

Is there anyone here who feels comfortable evicting tenants themselves without ever going through an attorney?

+1 to what the others said. Hire an attorney now, and later a PM. I've dealt with evicting tenants as an OOS investor and it's a pain even with a PM, who you sometimes have to handhold through the process. And the attorney fees will be insane for essentially what looks like just filling out minimal paperwork.

The best solution going forward is to screen your tenants heavily and hold a security deposit to minimize the costs of an eviction. Everything else is the cost of doing business, especially as an OOS investor.

Thanks for the detailed response @Steven S.! Is that what brokerage and larger investment firms do too? Assuming you write software to scrape these websites to set the filters and then pull the comps, wouldn't you run into issues with their anti-scraping software blocking your IP address after too many repeated crawling of their website?

Whenever someone analyzes a deal, I hear them say "I pulled comps on this area". I understand that to mean they took a look at comparable properties in the location of the potential deal. But how does everyone do this? Type in the address into Zillow, Redfin, etc. and look at the nearby, similar homes listed?

I could understand this for individual investors, but what do bigger investors do? What do brokerages do? Is any entity bigger than an individual investor using special software to scalably pull comparable properties in a particular area that then aggregates the unstructured data, make it structured, and then run it through some template to better analyze whether it's a good deal?

And what is their primary source for such tools? Zillow has pretty stringest anti-scraping system, so are they paying big software firms to do this scraping? Or are they partnered with dozens of RE agents who give easy access to the MLS with a custom API to quickly "pull comps"?

I would love if someone here who understands the ins-and-outs of how bigger RE players run comps walk us through this entire process and how it's done.

If you're hunting for foreclosed properties and plan to put in money to fix up further, cash is the way to go.

Unfortunately it might be hard to rely on $500k to fund your retirement, but since you make a high income, is it possible for you to cut back on the hours a bit and perhaps work on something on the side (a potential business idea) that might give you the financial freedom to retire when you want to? What industry are you in that brings in $250k? I would look at the $500k as a financial war chest to protect your efforts to generate even more income in a way your 9-5 doesn't allow.

As much as I enjoy seeing everyone collaborate on these forums to help others determine the best strategy for a new purchase, I'm wondering if those seeking guidance have a higher appetite than realized. Meaning, do most folks here seeking help feel satisfied with the responses? 

Do you feel past posts discussing the same considerations whether to flip, BRRRR, etc. don't apply well to your situation? Or do you wish you had a more scalable way (i.e. a software tool) you could use to easily run numbers and projections to better guide your decision on what strategy to use?

I'm curious what the more seasoned investors do. Is it all intuition after 10+ successful flips/BRRRRs, do you have a spreadsheet of numbers you run, or how do you figure out your exit strategy for every new deal you decide to pursue?