All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

Realized you are also not from the area.  I recommend you always visit the area you are investing in before doing so.  I toured a dozen houses and many neighborhoods in Parma (and a few others).

One thing I noticed about Parma, is the adage "you've seen one, you've seen 'em all" seems to apply to Parma SFH rental properties :) There are thousands of 3/1 or 3/2 SFH's in Parma that all have the same floor plan more or less. Literally once you've seen one, you know what you are getting with just about any Parma 3/1 or 3/2. Things I look for (I don't actually look but I tell my agent to look:) are Roof, Basement, Windows, Flooring, HVAC in terms of age or condition, anything that seems uncharacteristically out of repair or requiring replacement.

My SFH's were all 5k-7.5k of get ready repairs, but I also bought them for low to mid 60's not 80k, a year ago.

Most of the houses have solid hardwood floors (if there's carpet, there is probably hardwood under the carpet).  I've had my guys sand the floors and refinish them.  It looks awesome.

I checked and my deeds that were recorded all had the property addresses on them (which isn't exactly the address I specified - my personal address - but also isn't the tax address that is on file with the county.)

Deed contains bolded sentences that say "whose tax address shall be <PROPERTY ADDRESS>" yet tax address is not that address on the county.  ARGH!

I'm also working on converting everything to be online / automated which will make it easier, but it seems like I am going to keep having this issue with taxes for whatever reason.

Does anyone who is experienced in NE Ohio (Parma, Lakewood, Cleveland) know if there is something up with how title companies or the county would record owner tax address?  (Where they mail your tax bill.)  In 80% of my deals, I discover some amount of months after closing, that my tax bills are missing and are being mailed to some incorrect address that is unknown to me and not my address (or even the property address) which would have been the only two possibilities in the closing paperwork.

What's up with that?!?

Appreciate all the feedback.  :)  I have to get out of my own head on this.

I hear you. Just a sporadic bout of the impatience I think...

I have 12 units across 5 buildings.  One is in year 2, all the rest are still in year 1.  On paper, all the buildings required some rehab because they were purchased below market.  So it's pretty much a given that year 1 is going to suck looking at the returns once you factor that money in :)  That's fine.  Long term, they should all be great investments.  The building that is in Year 2 should have been really positive, but I had a driveway replacement the city got on my case about so that ate up most if not all of my positive cash flow for year 2.  (I might still land in the black if I have 4 no drama months to end 2017.)

I still find myself occasionally being discouraged, wondering when I will have enough REI to actually impact my life in a positive way. Currently I've moved from writing checks all the time to the rentals rents received being enough to cover the rehabs and repairs, so that's a huge step in a positive direction, but since none of the money is coming back to me yet, it feels like I have this side business that has no impact on my life right now.

So I guess maybe to the experienced people out there, how do you stay motivated?  Things are obviously moving in the right direction, logically everything makes sense.  Emotionally and psychologically, I'm yearning for the time when my rentals will 'make it rain' every month :)  I'm just impatient.

I have all my rentals up in that area currently.  One of the reasons I was motivated to move back to Ohio from across the country (~3 years ago) was due to where I perceived the mid-west relative to other areas that were a few years further along in the housing recovery.  I'm really glad we moved back to Ohio and I'm glad I was able to get some deals before the prices went too high.

I highly recommend anyone looking to invest where it isn't in their local area, to take a trip to the subject area and see it for yourself.  I see people on this thread doing that and it's a really smart move.  The cost to do so is negligible over the long run even if you are flying, and if you can drive it's even less.  I know the thing that sold me was actually driving around and realizing that the areas I was looking at were much nicer than I expected.  You know, because, Cleveland:)

I would recommend having whoever your local guide is, both show you some property you have pre-screened online, and also have them show you some they have selected.  Make sure to tour a few areas.  Your target areas, and maybe a couple surrounding ones.  Get the lay of the land.

@Anthony Fiorini - My current stuff is on the east side.  My 4-plex units were part of a large portfolio that someone liquidated this spring and I grabbed them prior to them hitting the open market.  The Duplex was an inherited property, I honestly don't know if it was on the market or not, as 'my guy' on the ground called me and said 'you should buy this".

I believe all of my properties would have been on the MLS if I hadn't scooped them up early. MLS is how I look for my properties generally, unless I get a heads up on something before they hit the market.

One other thing, 50k in repairs is *a lot* of repairs.  I think you are unlikely to run across that unless its a total rehab.  My duplex cost about 5k in rehab for the vacant side which is being fixed up now.  Presumably when the tenants move out of the other side someday, there will be a rehab cost for that as well.  I paid 120k for the building.

There are properties like what you are looking for in Lakewood.  I recently purchased a duplex that was fixed up fairly nice on the vacant side (still needed some work but not tons) and was already rented on the other side.  I'm not going to live in the vacant side, I'm renting that out as well, but it sounds like what you are looking for.  I think you just need to keep an eye out and something will come up eventually that fits your needs.