All Forum Posts by: Mike Adams

Very true. I also think once a PM gets a lot of clients the quality of service goes down. I've seen this with realtors we've worked with in the past. All for growing, but treat everyone the same. We we deal with tenants, we treat the section 8 tenant the same way as a regular tenant. Everyone deserves respect. 

We switched to Tenant Cloud recently and find it very helpful with management and accounting.

On renewal, you'd have to request to increase the lease. As long as the tenant and the housing authority accepts it, you should be okay.

I get you, but common decency should be hard to provide whether it's your building or a PM manages it for you. Again, I've tried three different property management companies in CT and in NY. I didn't say all, just five our out six we tried were very bad. One in upstate NY, we gave them a property to manage with 4 out of 5 units rented. When we took it bad six months later, the building was empty. Another property management company was managing a property for us near Yale. One would think they'd have mostly college students and professionals. Right? Nope, they brought in low income people who destroyed several units. Nothing wrong with low income, most of them are lovely, but these brought in crime and drugs. We installed cameras and there were a few that attempted to climb the camera poles and knock out the cameras. Another time, they tried to shoot the camera, not with a firearm, but like a pellet gun, it bounced off. It was so bad we had to sell the complex; but made around 65k on the sale. The new owners were local and also bought the buildings around ours and really made it nice. Just saying, PM companies are questionable at best.. Perhaps the are best when they are young and eager to build a clientele, but when they have a few hundred units under their belt, their service lacks it seems.

We have some new tenants in a new building we just finished renovating. One of the tenants reported a list of a few things the contractors missed, nothing that big, but annoying and troubling to her and her family. She submitted the support ticket at around 7am, and we had the 1st issue resolved at around 12:30pm after a tech went out and took care of the issue. She then wrote us a note thanking us for the amazingly fast service and turn-around time. Since we've transitioned from outsourced "property management" to in-house property management, we've been getting these messages more and more. Granted, we only manage around 50 units, so it's still pretty easy for us to manage. However, that makes me question; what are many renters experiencing from other property management companies?

Anyone ever think that the property managers, in general, give landlords a bad name, and not the other way around?

The best PM you can get is yourself. With everything online, you can collect payments via Cozy, setup a tenant support ticketing and telephone support system for 10 bucks a month and use Yelp, Thumbtack, Home Advisor to find pros to fix things that break. If you want added security and eyes on the building, you can setup Ring cams all around the property and have eyes in the sky for 100 bucks a year.

Seriously, the best way to learn the ropes is to go in with both feet. I've invested in places over 150 miles away. Initially, I had a PM, they've been horrible. Guess what, they will not care about your property as much as you do. Generally, we're now in CT/MA and Westchester, but we still have a couple of buildings in Philly and Troy. Trust when I say, I've gone through many of them, three in Connecticut, four in upstate NY.

I'd prob. recommend staying away from D class areas. Yea, the ROI is high, but the repairs are going to kill you financially. Plus, the tenants you bring in are going to be less than stellar. Stick with B-C areas, preferably a fixer-upper and go from there. That's where I started.

Why can't you do both? Also, where do you get 300.00 a door? That's a horrible return. Property management can be a pain at times, and for 300.00 a door would be a waste of time. One needs to be very selective on what they select for an investment. C - A investments, but it's best to look for undervalued investments and get in as soon as it lists. Example.

We purchased a 3 unit building a few months ago for 700k. Each were renting for around $1200 a month. We had the current owner give the current tenants the option to bring rents up to market rate or leave; they left. We rented each unit out for around 2k.

Breakdown:

Income 6,000 per month.

Expenses: 3,950.00

Net: 2,050.00 / 3 = 684.00 per unit per month.

We put down 25%, so roughly 175k.  If you invest that amount, and the average return would be around 8% annually over 30 years or so.  That return would equate to around 420,000 within 30 years (hopefully).  With one of our purchases, if we were to keep the building for 30 years, we would had earned around 738,000. This also doesn't assume any increases of rent or expenses, doesn't include the tax benefits, or the 1031 value either. You have to also factor in inflation, which would only raise the value of the real estate, as well as the rent the real estate brings in. With your 175k initial investment, you do not have that ability unless you reinvest the dividends. Now, there's also the ability to do a hybrid. Where as you take some of those funds from your investment properties and invest them into the market. Therefore, you get the best of both worlds.

Hope that comparison helps a bit.

You guys still use vehicles? Bahhh.. I take my lear jet each visit each property. It's the only way to use transportation. Due to the pandemic though, we no longer use 100 dollar bills for toilet paper. It's now just 50 dollar bills. Need to cut back..

- This is a joke BTW. I have a 2010 Ford Explorer. Works wonderful.

Yes, it's still up in the area. Brilliant for the gov't to make it harder to access.

Many people live in high priced areas so they have to invest further away in order for it to make financial sense for them to invest. Further away, then you have to use property managers. Most, as you probably know, are a dime a dozen. It's always recommended to invest within an hour of where a person lives and start small to learn how to manage it yourself. A lot of people see Grant Cardone and want to jump to big things before learning the basics. It seems easy when you have people who've been doing it for years portray it is. Usually, it's not that cut and dry, and that's the rub.