All Forum Posts by: Megan Phillips

@Sarah A. Maybe my beginner landlord naive-ness (that's a word, right?) is showing, but I guess I don't understand why you can't simply say "Thank you for taking to the time to consider our rental, but we have decided to move in another direction." 

That direction is none of their business. They don't need to know that they were the only applicant, and I'm not sure that would make a difference anyway - using that logic would be like saying whomever fills out the application first gets the be the renter even when you have 10 qualified applicants - but of course that's not how it works - you still get to choose which tenant you want. If you don't want to rent to them, don't.

Hi All - 

The last meet up was great, and featured almost all new faces from the first! 

This time - let's go back to St. Albans and 14th Star Brewery - they have plenty of space for groups to chat in a relaxed atmosphere, and of course - beer (and now food from Grazer's).

Meeting up and having some introductions, maybe some updates for those whom have met before, and making some connections.

Who to bring:

- Yourself, and your family/friends that are interested in learning about real estate investing

- Your realtor, broker, lender

- Your contractors/handymen 

- Your ideas! projects your interested in, areas you're interested in, deals you've got

- What you need help with - funding? finding deals? best ways to move forward?

- Book referrals - what are you reading?

- If you don't bring people, but have great connections that you've enjoyed working with - let people know that too.

Let people know what you'd like help with, and what you can help them with!

All levels of real estate experience (or lack thereof) welcome... realtors, investors, contractors, lenders, handymen/women, painters, inspectors, etc!

Also bring ideas for the next meet up local - or we're just going to rotate back and forth from 14th Star to Barnyard!

Please invite anyone on BP and not on BP that I'm not connected with that has any RE interest or skills!

@Samantha Hiscock @Blair Knowles @Ben Granja @Eva Morel @Steven Gruner

@Amy Paradis @Matt Vezina @Shane Brown @Tom S.

Learning some repair/maintenance skills is definitely something you should try to do. YouTube is amazing for this - I am sure you can look up "how to service and maintain my gas fireplace" and find a bunch of videos - you can probably find one with your exact unit. Google "basic dishwasher maintenance" you'll find 1000 videos. It's incredible. 

I am not overly-handy (I never owned tools until I bought a duplex) - so far I've done basic electric (installing an outlet, adding a junction box, putting in receptacles, removing breakers, fixing a 3 way switch -- all things an electrician wouldn't touch -- or would charge a couple hundred bucks to do, cost me about 7 dollars - literally), replaced an exterior door, removed rotten siding and put up new siding along with replacing the plywood behind it, re-built the rotten framing of a garage wall, installed a ceiling fan, and just about a thousand other things along the way. My next project is removing a skylight and replacing with shingle roofing - this has just become a necessity for me because I contact a bunch of companies whenever I have a project, most never respond, those that do are either booked up or never show up to give an estimate, etc etc - requires me doing it myself! I don't do all of it - I've paid for new windows to be installed, and new gas space heaters, but SO much stuff you can find out how to do on YouTube and just gives you more knowledge overall to prevent contractors from dicking you around too!

About feeling all guilty for the tenants having to wait a whopping two days for a repairman... in VT you're allowed up to 30 days to initiate a repair for anything that isn't an emergency... take a breath!  

Watch YouTube, fix yourself, cancel handyman, keep your $250 bucks. Repeat.

I've seen people discussing Home Ready as well as Home Possible loans -- it looks like they both may serve as better alternatives to FHA financing, and I think they both don't require that you don't own other properties. Are there major differences between them? Which is better if you want to use the low down payment method potentially repeatedly? I couldn't tell for sure if they had a similar residency requirement to FHA where you are living in the property for a minimum of 1 year.

Has anyone used these programs - insight? like it? frustrations? etc

Thanks for any info!

looks way better than FHA at a glance.

@Melissa Ba that sounds like bad sub-contracting and poor communication, not necessarily a reflection of using the loan services/the HD payment plan. Sounds awful though. If they didn't quote me quite literally nearly double the cost of a roof replacement, it could've happened to me!

To others: there aren't qualifications that I know of, although I didn't know you could get a LOC on top of using it as a project payment plan if I read that right... they've always offered this to me when talking about individual project payments (say getting estimates about installing windows or a roof or whatever) I haven't yet used them for a major project.

On just the pro part - it's totally free and if you have a combined purchase of greater than 1500 dollars they will bid your purchase out for discounts. Can be all different products, doesn't have to be like 1500 of just paints, or just lumber or what not, can be anything. Plus you get weekly emails for coupons, some are actually decent. If it wasn't so ingrained in me to never have store credit cards, I'd probably get theirs! 

You can rent rooms in a single family home, has nothing to do with your mortgage. 

After you graduate you can refinance into a conventional loan, rent all four rooms, or sell it. If you refi out of FHA, it allows you to use the low down payment option again for another purchase.

If there is a college student market there, you can generally make more than normal leases by renting rooms individually. If you could regularly rent the house for 1200 a month to a family, you can rent the same house for 2k a month ($500/room) to 4 college students. 

In VT 60-day notice of non-renewal is required for landlords to end a month to month lease (or not renew a long term lease), I think my lease requests 60 days for tenant also (I think legally they only need 30 day notice), so it's whatever is state specific and what is in your lease. 

Most of my lease comes from Brandon Turner's Book On Managing Rental Properties (TONS of extras for documents, etc) and I just added what I wanted and also had an attorney make sure it wasn't over stepping VT regulations. 

I second Brandon Turner's book.

Get familiar with state tenant laws. 

Read these forums.

Month to month leases provide both parties with valuable options. Sure, they may vacate early, but even if you had a year lease, you aren't getting their money anyway.

If you end up not liking them for any reason - they are out in a month. If they lose their job for any reason, they get to leave in a month and not worry about a year lease. 

Flexibility.