All Forum Posts by: Patrick Allen

Welcome Nick, and hello all!

I'm a fellow newbie based in Tucson. I'm a buy a hold guy with 1 property and looking to pick up another in a year or so; maybe a wholesale deal or two in that time. Really just networking and learning in 2016.

If you haven't already, attend a few consecutive AZREIA meetings and take advantage of the Haves/Wants time; fellow investors will find you if you do!

Very interesting idea @Tabor Tollefson! No, that hadn't dawned on me. Tucson is a heavy travel destination in the winter time (although we're getting our butts kicked by El Nino) and I, as it happened, recently had my parents visit for the first time so I'm (relatively) flush with clean towels, bed linens and a new grill. 

Has anybody had success with running a nightly rental through AirBnB as a shared room?

Hey everybody! Got a question out of the American Southwest concerning tenant screening.

Skipping over the entire sad story about my roommate saying he wanted the place and backing out at the last minute (two roommates, actually. Don't do business with friends: I got it), I have an empty room in my house I need to fill. It's a nice house, big room, private bathroom and cool roommates. A great find for someone who fits our mold.

I've asked a local investor (the president of my REIA) for his advice, but I'm also taking it to the forums. I know some general principles about tenant screening from Bigger Pockets blog posts and books, but I wanted to ask some additional best practices from the BP universe.

Price-wise I am asking roughly the equivalent of a 1/1 apartment ($500/month; rental comps are $400-500) in rent due to the big bedroom and private bath, but ran my original numbers on $100 less than that (and I get the better bedroom); I feel it is more marketable than a smaller room and a shared bath.

I'm mostly concerned with the screen itself. It's important that we find someone we can all get along with because we are splitting a 3/2 with shared kitchen, yard, etc. So the devil is in the interview, along with the background check and reference check.

What would you do in my shoes? First mortgage payment is due Feb 1. I'm financially okay with carrying the empty room for a while, but doing that turns my asset into a liability (although a cheap one). So I want to marry the best screening job with an as soon as I find the right person timeline.

For anybody who knows Tucson: do you have a referral for me?

Thanks in advance, everybody!

Hey everybody,

My question concerns what to do with paid off credit cards. I am within 24 hours, most likely, of consolidating some very high interest credit card debt I acquired several years ago for, of all things, guru investor training. I am gathering quotes for loans against my paid-off car to pay off the two cards once and for all, and will use the combined income of my job and rent payments to pay off the new loan within 12 months.

So, now that I have the two cards paid off, what do I do with them?

Do I:

- Cut them up, cancel the accounts and be happy I'm done with them?

- Negotiate some prize for staying with the respective organizations (lower interest rate, cash back options...?)

- Leave them in a secure location in case something catastrophic happens?

I like keeping a credit card in the saddle bag of my bicycle (I'm a competitive cyclist and once a year or so a situation comes up where you get stranded outside of cell service), but have no immediate use of a credit limit for a while. 

However, I like the idea of a recommendation for a credit card with attractive cash back or airline miles or something along those lines; being that I'll have a budget for repairs and cap ex, etc, it makes some sense to keep a credit card lying around. Not to mention a revolving credit line in case I get hit with a huge bill in the first year or so of owning my house.

What say the masses?

Thanks all for your insights, particularly @Dick Rosen, @Wells Lange and @Lynn McGeein I plan to charge something in the neighborhood of 400-450 per person in rent and will likely call the security deposit $500 a head.

Hey all,

Soon to be landlord (to roommates not tenants, but I'm applying the same principles) trying to get all my ducks in a row for two December move-ins to the house I have under contract.

I am to the process where I need to intelligently quote rent and security deposits to my roommates. Rent is coming together nicely as I get a 10,000 foot view of all my monthly expenses, but how much to charge for the security deposit isn't so apparent. Living in apartments over the years, I have moved in with no security deposits, deposits equal to first month's rent, deposits of greater than first month's rent and deposits that seem to be quoted out of nowhere. I don't want to penalize my tenants, particularly because we will be living together open air and I will know precisely who damages what and in what way, so I'm taking it to the forums.

Should the security deposit be:

- 1 month's rent?

- a certain amount (e.g. 1 month) of mortgage payments?

- a certain amount of expenses not including mortgage?

- a nice round figure that seemingly would cover routine damage (e.g. $500)?

I would love a reason-based approach to it.

Thanks to everyone so far for their insights. I really appreciate everyone's wisdom, and some comments have been quite helpful.

I am a new investor (been an investor in an official capacity for, what, 72 hours?) and am nervous about identifying major macro trends like job flow and the current political climate when I don't even yet understand how much a 3 bedroom house goes for and what the rental rates are in different neighborhoods. 

I can appreciate that 10,000 different things very definitely affect the housing market in any area, and I want to learn it all. I am simply hoping nobody is suggesting I "wait until all the lights in the city are green" before investing again. Certainly there is a pecking order regarding what needs to be learned first, what information is most applicable to the intermediate investor and what should only be grappled with once an investor is "seasoned" and with sufficient capital.

Tell me what to learn so I can begin the process of learning!

Let me know how long you expect to be there. I do the "Tucson Shootout" bike ride, which leaves the University at 6:15am and takes roughly 3 hours.

I'd be in for some networking (and, also, food) thereafter!

Hey all,

This question has been asked in many forms and answered a hundred times. Feel free to link me if another discussion is similar enough to my question.

Newbie investor; I have my first property under contract and am in the middle of due diligence (I'll post the finals when it's all through). I'm super fired up about it and am undertaking the task of "understanding my market;" which is Tucson, AZ, by the way.

To me, understanding my market means knowing what a 3/2 rents for compared to a 2/1, what a house in West University rents for compared to a house on the south side, what a 4 plex costs per door compared to a duplex, and the like. 

My attempt to answer this question is to self-analyze 400 properties over the next 6-12 months: 200 SFHs, 100 MFHs and 100 MHs. I hope getting data for what is "normal," "high," etc for where I intend to invest, so I can compare any deal to those numbers.

My question is what should I be looking for? What defines a market? What metrics should I start keeping track of?

A few I've come up with:

Price per square ft

Price per bedroom (SFH) or per door (MFH)

Cap Rate (particularly for small MFHs, which I hope to make my next "major" purchase)

Cash on Cash return

Debt Coverage Ratio

You get the idea...

Are the most important metrics universal? Does it depend on the market? Or is it something else: like segmenting each neighborhood and comparing numbers only to one another? 

If the latter-most, how best to organize it?

Then again: as an investor I don't care so much about property location, size or age, so long as

1) I can put a good tenant in there that will stay for a long time, and

2) it provides a strong CoC ROI with all the numbers considered.

Thanks in advance everyone! I promise I'll start posting more now that I've finally made the leap ;-)

All,

Apologies in advance if this is not the proper place for this. I have only posted a time or two and am not overly familiar with the etiquette of such a matter.

I have a client through my normal non-REI job in a suburb of Philadelphia whom is in a bit of a bind. He moved into a new house within the last few weeks and had his old house under contract. Something happened and the buyer backed out in the week of closing. Now the guy is carrying two mortgages and doesn't have a strong lead for another buyer.

Here's the link to the listing.

I don't really have a skin in this game: I'm not a wholesaler and I have never so much as visited Elkins Park. Just a guy helping somebody out. If you do close on it, though, make sure he knows who sent you! :-)