All Forum Posts by: Mike Mahan

I am about to make an offer in the Vancouver, WA area on a SFH. I want to run this by the community. Is this a good idea? I have the pdf report of the BP calc. The realtor is pressuring me, but I want more rental data and he hasn't helped me with that. Rent-O-Meter doesn't have a ton of data and Zillow has a few listings that are shockingly low. Like 1600/mo vs. the 2200 I need.

Thanks,

Mike

I took a webinar today. It was excellent. But I just did a rent and hold calc and it's still negative. On the webinar he said rent should be 1% of the purchase price, but this doesn't seem realistic fora SFH. Rent is more like 0.5% of the home values. I have a rent and hold calc I can share when I figure out how and where on here.

Thank you both for your replies. I did a little reading and now I know what the BRRRR method is I can ignore it. This is not what I will be doing. I don't have the cash to buy a $400k home outright and am not going to be doing any more than minimal rehab. I also have no interest in distressed properties or turning this into a mass-market approach. If I win the lottery someday, then this might be a good way to grow it (I'm not a lottery guy).

So, I need a traditional calculator in my case. BFRRL (Buy, Finance, Rehab, Rent, Live). No wonder the BRRRR calculator baffled me.

Hello, my name is Mike and I am from Mission Viejo, CA.  I have been a landlord for 8 years and have just one rental property right now, in St. George, UT for 1.5 years.  I previously rented out a condo here in SoCal for 6+ years.

I am looking to acquire a rental property in Washington or Oregon that my wife and I will eventually retire to.  That was my thinking for St. George as well, but my wife isn't enthusiastic about the rocks vs. trees kind of area.

Well, things aren't better for me as a buyer now vs. 1.5 years ago that's for sure.  I've found Washington to be more expensive and rent to be low there.  On top of that, Interest rates are higher now and my bank didn't give me a good rate despite my excellent credit.  This makes it hard to buy now to rent.   We would rent the home for say, 10 years before we move in.

So I hope to get smarter about all this as it's not as easy as it once was.  For my condo, I rented it after I moved out until I sold it to diversify out of state.

My initial questions are how to find out if it's feasible in Washington State or Oregon to buy to rent.  I was going to make an offer on a Vancouver, WA house (5 beds on that one) until my own calcs suggested I was going to feed it over $600/mo.  That was not an acceptable cash flow situation.

I'm looking to buy a 3-4 bedroom house with enough land for a garden when we eventually move there.  And if we don't decide to move there ultimately I don't want to be stuck with an albatross house.  It already seems clear to me that maintenance in the NW will be much greater than St. George where it's been close to 0, but that house was built in 2014.  I need to decide what to do with St. George too.  I don't know if I can handle 2 rental properties.  But I only feed it about $100/mo. right now with the property tax increase.  The first 1.5 years I was positive about $50/mo.

Thank you for any initial direction anyone can provide.

Best,

Mike

Vancouver, WA?  Nice!  I was just up there 2 weeks ago looking at properties (homes).  However, I found the homes too expensive and the rents too low to make it work (at 20% down), but maybe I'm just not doing it right.  My main goal is to rent for now and retire in the house down the road.  That was my plan with the St. George, Utah house, but my new wife isn't keen on rocks.  I stumbled on this site today and have much to learn.  I've been a landlord for 8 years.  I will post my own thread after I look around.  I just saw Vancouver, WA so I had to put in my comments.  So, I'm sorry to but in, as it were.  Mike