All Forum Posts by: Pat Lulewicz

Where in NC?

3/2 1300 sq ft in the middle of Wilmington paying $135 per clean; charge $150 per clean in anticipation of the the future bump that I'm sure the housekeeper will ask for. We have laundry machines on site and the guests start the linens before they leave. Nobody has complained about price or the ask to start a load, but some haven't done it.

Off-market properties are still great sources to find stuff 75-90 cents on the dollar. The MSA is expansive and you can find rentals 20+ minutes outside of the beltline in any direction; people need a place to live. Older assets (as anywhere) are still priced relatively reasonably and as long as they look comparable to newer assets, renters just want a nice place to live so they pay comparable rates. The price and rent rates are competitive anywhere from a $700 studio to a $2,500 home around RTP, showing the demand of local and inbound residents.

Definitely recommend continuing down the road of investing in SFH if that's what you're familiar with until you have a track record of doing more or going bigger. Get with a private or hard money lender, connect with wholesalers and others to bring you off-market deals, and don't stop buying. Rent rates are poised to continue to rise in most parts of the country. Though interest rates will be high for your refinances these days, make sure they cash flow now and make sure eeto look at the long-run prospects of the properties when rates come down and you go from a 5-6% ROI to a 15-20% ROI.

If you're looking in the burbs, I wouldn't ignore Durham, Garner, Clayton and Knightdale if you're trying to be in the Triangle in general,  though your 30 yr max might limit available inventory for you in some of these areas.

Host open houses for listing agents, use your MLS access to walk any properties that seem like fixer-uppers to get better at scopes of work, work with investor-friendly realtors and go show their buyer's homes when they don't have the capacity, take video walkthroughs for out of town buyer clients.

Depending on what you want to do as your "day-job", you could work for a wholesaling company/wholesaler. You could also seek out investors, find investor-friendly agents, and connect the 2 to earn referral fees; just remember to find rockstars or else your referral will fall flat and hurts your rep.

It may be challenging to make an arbitrage model work these days because many owners are familiar with Airbnb and they're worried about bad guests and parties, which can ruin their properties. Also, if a landlord isn't doing STR's, it may be a challenge to convince them to allow you to sublet. My leases require subletter approval, and a fee for it, so there may not be any margin or they may not approve the Airbnb guest.

With all of that being said if you find the golden goose that allows you to Airbnb the property , you can definitely benefit from cleaning it yourself and not charging a cleaning fee which will make you much more competitive and attractive to guests. It does create an additional job for you, but one that can have a decent return. Also have to think about where you're living while the guests are there.

Fantastic if you know what the customer wants and provide it at the right price for the value. 

To @Andrew Garcia 's point, using a HELOC from your current lender, or a secondary bank that you do/don't currently bank with are great ideas. I recently did this with my home and was able to get a HELOC up to 90% LTV with a competitive interest rate; you'd have to see what the effects of interest rates are on HELOCs but still going to be less than an investor loan. Remember with a HELOC, the money isn't costing you anything in the form of interest until you draw on it and use it, so the idea is that you're putting the HELOC to use in a way that's profitable. Therefore when you rent your current home out, its not like the home is not cash-flowing, its just the HELOC interest is being applied against ANOTHER profitable venture, whether it be RE property or another business.

If its simply an investment, state income taxes are more than likely not relevant in your situation (so removes a con). If you're simply getting rental income and taking depreciation against that, assuming you're leveraged, you shouldn't show any income for state tax purposes. *I am not a CPA (anymore), nor do I play one on TV*

Unfortunately, I've only been in the great state of Texas once, so not much help in comparing the 2 for you. I'm pretty confident that both will do great for you on a long-run basis.