All Forum Posts by: Brendan O'Brien

...my whole life until I moved to NH summer '06. It sure seemed to me like property values were nowhere near positive cash flow, even after the huge drop.

Where are you looking?

To my mind the worst possible situation (notwithstanding the quality of the individual rental market) is to buy a few hours away and try to manage yourself. I've been there. In my past life managing my own properties, I had so many emergency calls that involved a half hour fix and an hour drive (each way). Very disruptive to the rest of your life.

Better now that I have others manage - but when the NH market strengthens, I'll sell those properties and buy out of state.

That's why I advocate a visit to the properties you are considering buying. It is so easy to get taken by an unscrupulous broker or property manager. It's even easier to just have things get out of hand because you're never there. But I won't question others' methods if they work for them.

The dream run-itself business would be a laundromat. Keep the machines running and the space clean, and empty all the change every night. You'd have almost no issues with theft or other malfeasance.

...and it makes sense if you live in an area that is not projecting strong real estate growth.

The keys are:

1) See all properties for yourself.
2) Have a great property manager in place when you seal the deal.
3) Be super clear with the property manager about what you need.

There's more, but that's all I have space for right now.

BTW, coming out to Minn this summer to see friends and go to the State Fair - we're excited!

...you live in England. Is Romania an EU country? Then it might work. I would advise US investors to be cautious, however. US investors will be too far physically from the deal - it'll be very hard to know they're not getting taken.

...a property that is making money now may not make as much next year - or 10 years down the road.

1) Is the area growing (jobs and population)? That's GOOD.
2) Do the town and state treat landlords decently? GOOD.
3) Not that much land for new construction? Generally GOOD.

I was thinking of this recently when looking at the Buffalo real estate market. You can get properties really cheap there - but they never rise in value. The reason? People are moving out as fast as they can.

who is thinking along these lines: if you are looking at properties 4 hours away you might as well expand your horizons to the entire continental US. Seriously. You can get to anywhere in the South or the Midwest for about the same time. Now it's true that the travel cost will be higher but there are ways around that.

The reason I say this is, I know there are other parts of the US with much stronger economic growth than the mid-Atlantic, and those will be better places for investment.

You didn't say what you plan to do with your properties but that would be really helpful to know. Are you flipping, rehabbing, buying to hold?

Running my property management software company. I also create email newsletters for clients.

There are a lot of places to go wrong, but for a buy and hold investor, most of the biggies involve tenants. You need:

1) A thorough background check
2) A bulletproof lease
3) Specific and comprehensive tenant rules
4) A well-planned eviction process

A bad tenant can cost you a fortune. A bad tenant in a multi can cost you several fortunes by driving good tenants away. We can't always predict which tenants will go bad, so the key is to be able to ditch bad tenants fast.