All Forum Posts by: Neil Goradia

@Gustavo Munoz Castro, glad you were able to get a house under contract! 

@Samantha Soto and @Spencer Gray, can I ask what makes the area desirable in your opinion as fellow hoosiers? I have a property on State st in that area and never considered it an up and coming or highly desirable area. Although - the La Parada mexican restaurant there is excellent! haha.

I understand north of Michigan st is highly desirable but didn't know it extended that far south.

Indianapolis cap rates vary block by block, even if you're on the same street. What area are you looking at? As you know cap rates can be pretty subjective, which is why I try to focus on what my personal ROI needs to be for it to be worth buying.

I know the area well. Most likely your duplex is on the older side, and unless properly renovated/upgraded it will unfortunately continue to have a fair share of issues (as any older building would). Sorry to hear about your bad experience with the property manager. Unfortunately I don't have a referral for you but keep in mind most property managers are not great at finding quality tenants quickly. I agree however that 5 months is unacceptable.

One alternative you could try is to have your property manager open it up to other real estate agents. This way, the placement fee acts as an incentive to those agents. The PM won't make that money anymore, but they save all the hassle, which is probably worth it to them in the end and keeps you happy. Good luck.

@Account Closed Thanks for letting me know! That's a steal. I heard there is a fairly in depth screening processes and you are required to have a physical office. I don't have an office (work from home, unless they consider my managing broker's office also mine). Regardless, I'll contact them and see if I can get set up. Thanks again!

@Derek W., I know it's been a while. Which service were you referring to for the $1/search pricing and are they still working out well for you? 

Also following this thread as I'd like to know the answer as well.

For what it's worth, the midwest is a great place to invest for cashflow and higher cap rates. Also, there are "affordability" heat maps on Trulia that offer a great insight into any city. Here in Indy you can shoot for homes in the $50-70k range that can rent for $800-950, which is as good or better than most anywhere.

Definitely the freedom! I took a 50% paycut when I quit the corporate world, but now I have 100% more time, which is priceless. I almost can't stand discussions anymore that veer into how much people are making. I feel like yelling out...who cares! Let's go do something fun! Oh, you're too busy? ok... :)

@Jason Benda-Joubert, the growth areas are Fountain square, Bates-hendricks, Mapleton fall creek, and Windsor park to name a few. In those areas if you're willing to pick up an average property and put more into a nice renovation, you will make some good money. If you're only looking for buy and hold you can do that in those areas too without a renovation but your rent will cap out under $900/mo depending on a number of variables. For my rental portfolio, I personally like B/C areas where you can buy 50k properties that rent for 800+/month.

Yes, it's a legit company, and I used to use them a lot for tenant screening. I believe they have a franchise model where anyone can buy into the business and start a new office location.

I am also familiar with those postcards - I often got them whenever I evicted as well. It is partly to advertise that they could have saved you an eviction because they had a record in their database that would have been a red flag and you perhaps could have avoided renting to them to begin with.

After a while, I noticed I could get most of the info from public records and have since stopped paying for their screening services.

What do you guys think?