All Forum Posts by: Anthony McDougle

I would imagine it's because, if the owner has equity, the amount of debt he has on the property is lower. The amount of debt is usually a hard limit on how low you can offer (unless the seller wants to sell for less than he owes and come out of the deal in the red) and anything you get it for over that limit is about negotiation and how motivated the seller is.

@Account Closed how complicated is it?

If you just need to do a simple search and you're even a little bit tech-savvy you can probably just set up phpmyadmin (http://phpmyadmin.net) on a web server, which is free and by default comes with an import feature and a search feature. You'd have to set the database up yourself, though.

@Oliver Trojahn that's definitely the ideal situation, in my opinion. When I get this investing thing rolling I'm hoping to automate as much of it away as possible.

Of course, like I said before, I imagine it depends heavily on your market. If you're marketing to middle-class or young professionals who use a computer and own a bank account, that's perfect. However, a lot of people on here seem to have tenants who are mostly lower-class and have neither a bank account nor a computer.

I even remember, when I sold insurance door-to-door, I met many seemingly successful people who didn't have bank accounts -- not because they didn't have the money, but because they just didn't want to have a bank account!

I've only just signed the paperwork for my first property, which will be my own residence with rooommates to cover the expenses until I move out and start renting it (possibly within a year). Since I'll be collecting rent from roommates, I'll probably not set up anything special -- just let them give the money to me however it's convenient.

However, as I start accumulating rental properties and renting to true tenants, I do plan on giving them the option to pay online. I plan on making a website to automate most of my real estate functions at that point anyways -- marketing, maintenance requests, payment. I figure, as a software developer, I should be able to hack up a rudimentary system pretty quickly.

If there's not a system out there already, I'm open to providing whatever I end up creating to other investors, too.

I'd imagine it'd be a good idea to allow options -- online payment or by snail-mail -- for people like @Account Closed mentions. Although it probably depends on your market (if you're trying to attract young professionals, for example, you might not even allow the mail option, since I imagine very few of them would even care)

First of all - I'm by no means an expert or even an amateur. I've done a bunch of research but am only now in the process of buying (or rather looking for) my first property... so understand that first of all.

But it sounds like you're asking how to make more money, right? You say that other properties in the same area are cashflowing better. Are they renting for more? If so, could you increase the rent? If not -- how exactly are they doing that? Did they put more money down so the costs are less each month? Are they smaller/cheaper properties?

I guess if you want this specific property to cashflow better, figure out ways to increase income or decrease expenses -- maybe find out how the other properties are doing it? Otherwise you might just need to wait until your next purchase haha!

Good luck!

@Bob Hines - yes, that's what I'm seeing - that pretty much any duplexes are either in really rough areas (but that's a completely different discussion), or, when I do happen to find one in a decent area (where I'd feel comfortable living), both units are already rented out. If I found a situation like the one you described, where the tenant of one unit was using both simply because one was vacant, I'd have no problem letting him know that I'd be using the other unit.

If I could find fully vacant properties, I could easily rent to people I know, but I don't mind at all if one is vacant and the other rented -- saves me the time and effort of finding renters (although I'd definitely have to screen the existing tenant as well).

I have yet to actually look into any of these properties, honestly. I'm still in the early stages of my search, so anything could happen -- this is just a discussion that came up as I talked to other people I knew, and I wanted to see what the consensus was.

I've gotten some good thoughts here so far, so thank you all! I'll definitely keep these things in mind as I go about my search.

@Dawn Anastasi -- Thanks! That sounds like an option, too

@Bill Briscoe and @Clay Manship --

Makes sense. I agree you definitely need to have a backbone and do what's best for the business. If the tenant was breaking rules or skirting the system or not paying rent, I would, of course, not hesitate to enforce any and all consequences -- for example, I would never waive a late fee or anything like that. I'd also make sure to raise rent rates appropriately to keep the business going strong, etc. etc. I definitely feel like strength and confidence and being resolute in your decisions is very important.

I was just thinking that coming in and displacing someone who's maybe settled in with their family for the long haul for my own convenience (and not because of anything the tenant has done wrong) is... I dunno, bad business, maybe? I mean, when companies treat their customers like that it usually doesn't work out very well.

But Bill's comment makes a lot of sense, too. Maybe I'm looking at the situation the wrong way. But that's what these discussions are for, right?

@Gautam Venkatesan --

I haven't actually looked at any leases and I'm not really referencing any specific properties. This is just a pattern I've seen as I've been looking.

I'm not in a huge rush to move, but the primary goal for purchasing a property now rather than later is to move closer to my job.

However, my concern is this -- I feel like terminating or rejecting a lease for no other reason than "I'm the new owner and I say so" is morally wrong -- like I'm upending someone's life for the sake of my own convenience.

To be more clear and to continue discussion with everyone --

I was partially wondering if anyone else has thought about this - do you feel like "it's mine so I make the rules" when it comes to your properties, and would you feel bad or neutral about not renewing a lease/terminating a lease with a good tenant, even if they'd been there a while and were settled in, if you wanted to use the property for something else? This is more of a personal, moral dilemma, and is by no means black-and-white I feel like, and I was just curious to see what opinions were. Maybe I should start a discussion in another forum about it?

My other concern was the legality of raising rates beyond market price. I mean, logically I should be able to, right? Fair market dictates that I can charge whatever I want for my product/service, and if the customer doesn't want to pay they don't have to. But who knows these days, with all of the government rules and regulations on everything... I feel like I read somewhere around here that there can be legal ramifications in some areas for not charging a reasonable price for rent. For the record, I'm in Charlotte, NC

@Joe Bertolino - Yes, that makes sense. But what about if they're currently paying market rate, and I increase the rent even more? This is what's been suggested to me -- the idea being that, if they move out, I have an open unit I can do with as I please (move in) and if not, hey, extra cash flow. Is there anything wrong with that?