All Forum Posts by: Michelle Fenn

Due to covid many tenant occupied investment properties will not allow showings without a purchase offer with an inspection contingency.   Once the  offer is accepted, you are required to perform your inspection in 5-10 days.  The listing agent should get you or your repesentatives in the house for inspections.  Your realtor.com agent should have also recommended a good inspector, cost would be around 350-450.00  Seller upon request should be able to provide a ledger accounting and lease.  If you do not recieve these documents assume that you will be doing an eviction.   Do not feel to bad about loosing the investment opportunity.  I just turned down representation of a property on that street. 

Our property management system Buildium automatically sends our listing to a number of free listing sites.    I get a decent amount of leads from Zumper and Apartments.com.    I manually post all our listing on Facebook Market Place.    By far I get the most response from Facebook.

Zillow was my go to platform but with the 9.99 weekly cost I am actually doing cost / benefit analysis. I find that I do just as well with Facebook Marketplace on lower cost rentals. Now I only consider Zillow for high end rentals, but then I can get the same effect by listing them on the MLS. I never use Craigslist, I have had too many listing highjacked by scammers.

Everyone looking at Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, should also look at Akron, Summit County. Much better run government, public housing, a landlord neutral court.    Less than an hour from Cleveland without a lot to the big city Cleveland problems.   My pick is northern summit county, low taxes, good schools, drive by POS and easy access to Akron and Cleveland.    44067  44056 44086      Parma Equivilent -  Cuyahoga Falls   44221 and 44223     Also check Stow   44224

In Akron you want to be North Fairlawn neighborhood  44313 44333  but Ellet down south is a nice point of entry   44312

If I were representing the buyer/investor I would pick up the phone and call the listing agent.  I would tell them that I have a cash offer for $xxx.  Ask if it would be considered.  After more then 3 months on the market you might even get some indication on what would fly.  Seems like agents want to text and dotloop, but picking up the phone?? 

If I were representing the buyer/investor I would pick up the phone and call the listing agent.  I would tell them that I have a cash offer for $xxx.  Ask if it would be considered.  After more then 4 months on the market you might even get some indication on what would fly.  Seems like agents want to text and dotloop, but picking up the phone is taboo.

My comment on Euclid.    They have one of the highest property rates taxes in the state, they also rate just barely over F on the State of Ohio school report card. The city also has a strict Point of Sale and annual rental inspections. Annual fee for rental registration and annual inspection  is 200.00 per unit.   The investment property I own in Euclid is located North of Lake Shore Blvd and one block from Lake Erie.   These homes come with access to Lake Erie and very reasonably priced private beach clubs.  One of the the best kept secrets in NEO.  I  only overlook the minus' due to the beach perk.

One other thing to consider.    I owned a dozen rentals but elected to live in a condo my Dad owned.   He rented it to me, but did not want to sell it.   When I went to the bank for a loan I was turned down because I did not own my primary residence.   Helocs and loans against investment properties are a much more difficult and expensive proposition. 

I am an investor and agent from Cleveland and Akron.    Personally I own investments on West Side of Cleveland, and in eastern suburbs of Garfield Hts and Euclid.  Under the current circumstances of long term eviction moratoriums and Covid I would also recommend that you look at Akron and the northern summit county suburbs.  The eviction courts in Summit County are at least landlord neutral, unlike Cleveland Courts.   Like Jim Wise I agree that you should look to spend 75,000 or more on a multi-family purchase.    Below that amount will generally put you in a c- neighborhood.   You may want to try Dollar Bank, they often hold thier commerical/investor loans as portfolio loans.    During 2009/2010 they were one of the only bank making loans to investors. 

I bought my first home in the  79.   The housing market was hit with 2 curveballs,   1 high interest rates around 10% and woman's earning now had to be considered by banks when applying for a mortgage.   Result was was a sellers market and increased home prices in spite of high interest rates.    

2.75% interest is amost free money.   Rents are high, and a large percentage of the workforce can work at home and thus has income.    If history is any guide,  sellers markets can exist in strange circumstances.   Until interest rates go above 4-5% and inventory increases substantially this will continue to be a sellers market.