All Forum Posts by: Marc Ramsay

Update: 3 of the 4 vacant units will have new tenants by the end of the month, with the 4th sometime in February for 100% occupancy. I am having comps pulled for all the properties and will have them by Monday.

@Account Closed - please sed me an email to [email protected] and I will answer whatever questions you may have, and if I can't I will get them.

Have a great weekend!

Marc

A mother and son come out to look at a unit I have for rent. The mother wants to apply for her son, but we tell her we have to run a background check on the person actually living there (Duh!). The application fee is $40, non-refundable, and we check for past evictions and criminal history. They pay it, we run the check, he's got 2 evictions, a list of priors, and jail time. Did they think we weren't going to find that stuff? The mother begs to give her son a chance. Not in my building.

@James Wise Did you clarify what the cat was for? You should have asked if the cat was food, because the ad clearly states that there's no pets.

Thank you @Zoran M. .

I have a client with 21 rehabbed rental houses in Garfield Heights and Maple Heights (Cleveland Ohio suburb) for sale for $1,386,000 ($66,000 per house). There used to be 23 houses but he sold 2 to the tenants for $89,900 and $97,000.

These are all 3 & 4 bedroom houses except for one 2 bdr. Occupancy is 17/21 (81%) and seller is willing to find tenants for vacant houses prior to sale. Average rents are $850 (actual total $17,690/mth at 100% occupancy), tenant pays all utilities. Taxes are $46K annually on the portfolio.

I know this investor quite well and he is very particular about his houses and his rehabs. These are nice, well maintained homes in good rental areas. I purchased a portfolio from him in October in Akron and am very happy with the deal.

Let me know if you are interested and I will put together whatever additional information you need to make a decision.

Regards,

Marc

It's always worth checking it out.

Check out the local comps, look at the back taxes owed online, try and find the current owner, if you can get access grab your contractor and get an approximate rehab cost, check with the City to see if there's any outstanding violations. Try starting with a preliminary title search which may answer a bunch of your questions.

You may find it's one you want to run away from, or you may have found a great opportunity that no one else has.

There a few experience BP members in your area you may try and talk to and get their take on the property and the neighborhood.

Good luck!

Thanks for the lead @John Ellis , I'll check them out.

Yes, James, E.C. is pretty ghetto, but that doesn't mean there aren't good tenants to be found. You just need the right PM to find them. You said yourself that some people make money in the ghetto, so there are obviously people with the right experience I can tap into to help out.

It's unfortunate that there are so many bad people in the area that make life miserable for the good people, and make it very difficult for anyone to help pull the area out of it's cycle of depression, but that doesn't mean we give up on the good people.

@Justin B. , you are correct, there are bad tenants in all areas. I have 2 apartment buildings in areas far better than E.C., but we still have our issues and sometimes a bad tenant gets in despite our due diligence, but we're getting better and weeding them out, and getting rid of them quicker.

Thanks everyone!

@James Wise that's just stereotyping the whole area. I know a few property owners in the area and they have managed to find good, long term tenants for their buildings. Yes, the turnover there is higher than other areas, but despite all the problems East Cleveland has, there are still some good people there who are in a bad situation, or that is just where they chose to live.

I won't buy there anymore because of issues I have with the E.C. Building Dept, not the people.

I have a client with a 24 unit MF building in East Cleveland who has spent a lot of money fixing up the building, and it is a very nice place, however, they are having a tough time finding a PM who can find some good tenants to lease up the available units. I want to help them find a PM who has worked that part of town for a long time, is known in the community (for the right reasons), and knows how to find good tenants in that market. Anywhere else in Cleveland I could find a good PM for them fairly quickly, but East Cleveland is a unique area.

Thanks in advance.

Marc