All Forum Posts by: Peter Tverdov

Just hire a PM company 

We do property management in Hudson among some other counties in NJ but it honestly depends on your properties. If you have a brownstone it's going to be tough unless you have a bunch that you can hire one landscape company to do. Most of these companies want $75-$100 just to show up to one property. You give them scale and that number can drop quite a bit. That's what we do in certain areas in NJ. 

It depends. If the tenant has been there 1-2 years we will show with a tenant living there. If they have been there a few years the place likely needs cleaning, painting, possibly updating. Just not worth it. Most of the time the owners don't help themselves by telling us, the property management company, what rent should be charged. Then weeks later asking why no tenant yet lol.

If you have had a tenant 5 years it won't kill you to fix the place up for 2 weeks and take 2-3 weeks to rent it out. That's not even 2% vacancy rate. 

I fully expect the FED to raise rates at least 2 more times. The indicator will be if its 50 or 75 bps. 50 would indicate to me that they don't feel the need to be as aggressive. It takes 6 months usually for FED rates to affect the economy so we're still going to see a lot of bumps in Q1 and Q2 2023 before things start to shake out. When they get to the point where they stop raising and just hold, you might see mortgage rates peel back a bit but I don't see 4% interest rates again for several years. 

I give OP credit because a lot of people gave him crap about trying to do this but also 3 pages ITT and no shovels yet. Can't imagine how that feels.

I am also doing my first new construction project on a 2 family that I will keep. I am the builder and the bank so it's a little easier. But I have a development coming in 2023 if I get my approvals God willing. Helpful feedback from the OP. Good luck dude.

DOM is a tough one because like others have said, the owner can affect that. We are the experts and give our opinion but the owner needs to agree. We have had some owners want to ask for pie in the sky rents, then after 6 weeks they start to listen to us. Is that our fault at that point? Same with renovating. I had one unit vacant ALL SUMMER. Owner started out with unrealistic rent on an apartment with no upgrades done. Finally after cutting it over 15% I told the owner let us at least upgrade the kitchen. We're about to finish that and even in winter time I bet we rent the place in 2 weeks.

OP has some weird angle on this one, I am waiting for his sales pitch. 

 We manage property in your area and we use Appfolio. Certain PM softwares you need a minimum door count though. If you're going to continue to self manage I would just do Venmo and track with spreadsheets. 

I would raise the rent if you can but do not cash it out. Raising the rent $500 and then cashing out you are likely in the same position you're at now. Raise the rent and keep it or consider selling it because you're one large expense away from wiping away a few years of cashflow from the sound of it. 

 We do one annual payment a year to avoid that. Lease is not executed until we receive that. Tenant damage is part of the risk you take with something like this. 

Yes and it's a headache in NJ. Almost impossible to keep up with. At the end of the day it's a form of taxation. Some towns it's a total joke, they just want a registration every year and a fee to go along with it. Nothing behind it.