All Forum Posts by: Matt McCurdy

Hey @Logan M. I own a 10 lot mobile home community and a 190 lot mobile home community in Iowa (yes, the place where we got 2 12" snow storms in the same week).  Certainly not the norm here!  The 190 lot I have with a snow removal company.  I'm actually having more difficulties with the 190 lot community vs. the 10 lot one.  I'll probably make the switch on a different provider, but he also does the lawn care for me as well.  The 10 lot I found a local guy that does snow removal for some commercial and residential, so he just adds my community to his list.  It is expensive for what it is, but I can assure you the snow blades destroy trucks, so they certainly have to pay back their wear and tear much quicker than on a normal truck.  What I've found is if you tell them they have the entire season for snow removal (not guaranteeing any $ amounts for the season), they will give you a fair price and it will take the headache out of last minute finding someone when an unexpected storm hits.  Hope this helps!

@Jonah Hartsburg
Without a doubt! I was just including tasks to give the person answering a baseline. What company(s) do you use?

Has anyone had any luck with finding a great virtual assistant?  In 2024, I'm trying to automate and delegate as much as possible.

The big tasks I would like a VA to perform are:

1) Web research

2) Website creation & maintenance

3) Social media content creation

4) CRM work

5) Newsletter research

6) Market research

What syndicator is doing well right now?  Most were using short-term debt and got a BIG surprise (not the good kind) when interest rates spiked up.  I've heard of rate cap locks going from $40k to over $1M in some instances.  In Lehman's terms, the forecast/financial projections most syndicators wrote up in 2020, 2021, and even 2022 are not worth the paper they are written on.

The good syndicators will be looking for these distressed syndicators and help leverage their capital to increase the ROI for the investors. The challenge is to figure out: do you have a distressed syndicator or a good syndicator?

I’ve been investing and helping other investors find good cash flowing property in Cedar Rapids, Iowa metro for over 10 years. The 1% rule is achievable. It’s never going to appreciate like the coasts do, but it won’t see the big drops they see either. Iowa is similar to all markets though in the fact inventory is low, but over priced property is starting to sit more than we’ve seen in the past few years.

A cheaper version I use is called Tenant Cloud.  I'm not sure that it's better than Appfolio or Buildium, but it gets the job done for me.  It's not super user friendly, but I trade that off for it's cost effectiveness.  Happy New Year!

I'd echo the same thoughts.  Don't sell, if you think you can manage it.  As soon as you sell, you have tapped out any future appreciation.  It sounds like you are young, so that appreciation could really be sizable in 5-10 years.  I have property in Des Moines and I live in Cedar Rapids.  I have some family that helps me out in the Des Moines area to managed those couple rentals.  There's not a ton to do when you find a good tenant.  Not to mention, if you want to make it back to Iowa City for an event, you have a built in write-off :)

Hey Mike! 👋 

Local investor here. I'll DM you some options on financing. I'm currently getting mid to high 7's with 20% down as long as your DSCR is above 1.25.

Hey Mark,  I'm an investor in the Cedar Rapids market, but have decided to take a 2 year "sabbatical" from buying (I'm too damn tired...LOL).  I've helped several clients create profitable rental portfolios over the past few years.  I'll message you some property managers!

 Hey Khassangali,

I'm a real estate broker in Cedar Rapids (I also invest in Des Moines as well) who works with real estate investors, because I am one myself.  Feel free to reach out to me and we can have a quick 30 minute introductory call to get to know one another and answer some of your burning questions.