All Forum Posts by: Phillip Syrios

Both can work and which one you should do depends on what your strategy and goals are.

Everything has a value, sometimes that value is less than $0, but if you buy right and manage the asset correctly you can make real estate work anywhere.

HOA's and limited control of both the rules and your overall expenses are the biggest drawback of condo's

(almost) Always raise rents to keep up with the market, otherwise your property will be have a property $200 below market rents in a few years with no way of raising them on the current resident. I great way to make this not a big deal is to let people moving in know that rents will probably go up a little bit to keep up with the market as well as costs such as taxes and insurance going up. Usually what makes people mad about rents going up is being surprised by it.

Another good thing to do is give them options. Give them a year option at a $20 increase a 6 month option at $40 increase and a MTM lease at a $75 increase.

I often send a letter telling people their options and if they don't want any of them I tell them to give me a call. I usually ask for a little more than I am willing to accept so that if they say the rent price is going up to much I have an amount I am happy to lower it down to. For example if I want a $15 increase I may ask for $25 and then negotiate down to $15 if they think $25 is too much but if they are happy with $25 then they will just sign the lease at the higher amount. This tactic needs to be treated with care as you can get yourself in trouble if you do it wrong.

@Lauren Rothlisberger

Feel free to private message me and we can discuss things more.

We love Grandview, Belton, Lee's Summit, Raytown and the Waldo area of Kansas City. Its gotten a lot harder to find good deals as the prices have risen substantially in all these areas. There area a lot of area's people pitch as good investments because the properties are so cheap but be careful as a lot of them are cheap for a reason. There are a few lower end area's that we think work really well but you need to know which ones to get involved in and which ones to stay out of.

What type of investing are you trying to do? We do exclusively buy and hold investing so if your doing fix and flip or something different that might change what area you want to look at.

My brother and I invest all over the KC Metro, almost all the houses we own were purchased for under 100K and we have may in solid area's.

 Agreed, many people are mad about pet rent or pet fee's and I always tell them the same thing.

"There are two kinds of pet owners. Good Pet owners and bad pet owners, you are probably one of the good pet owners and your pet wont cause any damage, but because bad pet owners exist and do so much damage to properties we have to charge everyone. Basically the good pet owners have to pay for the bad pet owners. It sucks and its unfair to responsible people but that's the only way we can allow pets in general otherwise we wouldn't be able to allow any."

Its a way of letting them know they are not the problem and you understand its frustrating while helping them understand the increased liability you are taking on even if they don't see themselves as an increased liability to you.

If its non refundable I stick to that as my rule. Non-refundable means it doesn't get refunded no matter what, as soon as it hits my bank account it is income, not a deposit. If you don't want that then make it a pet deposit not a non-refundable fee.

Where in Kansas City are these? I am a buy and hold investor in the KC metro.

Hey Maria! Welcome to Real Estate Investing in Kansas City! What area of town are you looking to invest in or do you have that figured out yet? Kansas City is so large in area that its nice to narrow it down a little bit.