All Forum Posts by: Laura Williams

@Tom Carmody

I would recommend getting in touch with owners in the particular hotel you’re wanting to buy in and ask them how they like it and how much they are really making & any issues with the hotel. They might can give you some valuable information.

@Carly M. I own several rental properties in Waldo & know the area well. Honestly your RE agent sounds like an idiot. No way it should only sell for 200k (unless it’s in really bad shape) when it’s gross monthly rents are $2200. At the very least even a 1% rule would put it at 220k ...which houses in Waldo are are selling below the 1% rule. Depending how nice it is & location I would price it between 250-275k. Small Waldo 2 bedroom houses completely renovated are selling for around 150k ....Fixer upper 2 bedrooms 100-120k.  Plus multi-families are quite popular at the moment with people wanting to house hack. It should sell quickly & top dollar. If you bought several years ago you’ve done well. Waldo has been on the upswing and the area is getting better and better

@Tim Kirkland I've used hard money and refinanced after many times. It's definitely an option. In my opinion the deal needs to be smoking hot cause of all the fees and high interest that comes with a HML plus risk of paying it all back in a short amount of time.

I don't know about conventional loan on a manufactured home. You would definitely want to call a few lenders and double check that you could refinance. You might have better luck with a smaller bank who holds their own loans or a commercial lender more than a big chain bank as they are usually more flexible with loans and loan types. If you were to show the seller a pre-approval letter from a local lender you might be able to talk the seller out of his cash offer mind set & get him to accept letting you buy with a loan. 

I have a couple of smaller 2/1 in Waldo that easily got 1150/month just recently. I would guess if yours is in decent clean shape at least 1250 (worst case) to around 1500-1600?  depending if it’s more in Brookside (better) or Waldo & how East it is, cuteness/charm & how nice the renovations are etc. 

A property mngt company would be able to get you more exact figures and run comps if you have one you work with. 

@Negar P. You should be getting a nice big tax write off since it's your primary residence that should help make up for most/all of the negative cashflow. You might also want to look at airbnb..... maybe rent out part of your house if it's big enough and right layout to do that.  Or if you ever moved out you could turn it into a full airbnb. Some properties that negative cashflow as a regular rental will do great as a short term rental....something to think about. 

I wouldn't stress too much. In 10 years I would bet your house will be worth a lot more than you paid and you're in a very desirable area. Just hold on for the long term and you'll be fine.

@Johann Jells Can you ask them to leave based on the fact you need to make "repairs" to their unit? That might be a way to soften kicking them out and also if they are complaining all the time you can throw it back at them that you need to get all those maintenance items fixed & list back all the crap they've thrown at you to fix. Just a thought.

@Jack Lauer I had bad luck with a POS tenant that my PM placed in one of my places. I found it helpful to do a background search and find the previous landlord he screwed over and talk to them. It helped put my mind at ease and gave me an idea of what his MO was & what outcome I could probably expect. 

Might be something you can try? And if it does go to court it would only help your case if you can prove he has a history of doing this to others. In the state of Missouri there's a website called Casenet where you can look up all the court cases against someone for free down to a parking ticket. Not sure if they have something similar in CA where you could look up lawsuits filed against him? I'm guessing your not the first person he's screwed over and he probably has wronged some other people too. 

@Michael Magnell I have a couple friends who have multi families in the Northeast area....north of St John Ave in the better area there. Both investors have done great with appreciation ...they bought a few years ago....but the cash flow has been challenging because of low class tenants and theft issues.  Their tenants seem to destroy carpets every tenant turn plus just nasty with pets letting them pee and poop on the carpets .... you walk up to the door you smell cat pee from 20 feet away kind of tenants and stealing everything that isn't nailed down in the building from A/Cs to washing machines, leaving garbage and food rotting in the fridge and in the apartment in general when they move out, etc. They've both been quoted 5-8K on some turnover cost multiple times and on a 2 bedroom apartment only renting for around $600/month that really hurts. 

I do think the area is getting better and improving. Everyone seems to be talking about how the Northeast is turning around. If it was myself investing up there I would want to see a high price to rent return on my money to make up for the added risk & potential aggravation. 

In case any Kansas City investors or residents are interested in joining the class action lawsuit against the city for the recent property tax increase. Here’s the link to the lawyer and also a couple news clips about it 

http://kcpropertytax.com/

https://www.kctv5.com/news/investigations/part-class-action-lawsuit-underway-to-fight-jackson-county-property/article_a3eb339e-96fe-11e9-ab37-1bfe5850e2f9.html

https://www.kctv5.com/news/investigations/part-whistleblower-says-jackson-county-did-not-use-full-mls/article_65dd762e-979a-11e9-a4ae-036c5fba76b5.html

@Matt K. thanks for the link. Where are your properties located at? Most of mine are in Hyde park area and I’m seeing doubling and in one property tripling in assessed value on mine. 

I just don’t know how they can do such a huge jump up on everyone’s property taxes so suddenly. And also if we only have until the June 24th to informally appeal but yet they’ve not sent anything to notify us of any value changes.