All Forum Posts by: Andrey Y.

Any physician RE investors out there? Would love to hear perspectives, motivations, niches (buy and hold only feasible or anything else?), time spent on REI, your specialty, etc.

Keep in mind guys, since I hear a few of you mentioning vacancy, that the vacancy on Oahu, Hawaii is 0%. Myself and Bob B. on here can attest to. Typically, cash flow % is dismal here compared to the mainland, but I usually have a line of 15-20 people to rent my studio the day I put a craigslist ad out.

@Paul C.  Thanks.. I think I would lean towards that in this particular example. Have never tackled a remodel, so should be interesting.

@James Wise Why would you choose that approach?

@Elizabeth

Yes I am sure. Because a realtor investor I know did exactly that ;) Put $20k in upgrades into a unit in that same condo complex (same sq ftage even) and rents it for $2000. Have a copy of the nice crgslist ad and everything.

Was just pondering this idea, which I think may be a real thing for myself and probably has been for you guys as well.

When you buy a rentable place for B&H, that has the basic necessities but is overall older. Do you:

a) Rent it out right away for a lower rent, or

b) Upgrade it, then rent it as a standout unit for a higher rent

I will also provide a hypothetical example. You purchase a place for $120-160k. You can immediately rent it for $1500, or you can put an additional $20,000-25,000 in upgrades and can rent it for $1900-2000. Lets say you have a day job and are not doing REI full time.

@Bobby

Wow.. that is the polar opposite viewpoint/strategy from Elizabeth. My agent was going to have a talk with the listing agent tomorrow, but she said she wasn't going to talk about price much.

I guess everyone tackles this differently. The only thing though, I think if a seller gets three offers all at asking and they are somehow all equal strength, I would think the sellers would choose the first offer, thats the most logical and sensible way to proceed.

@Mark Freeman 

Hmm.. well lets say that you saw a pretty good deal, but they won't be presenting offers to the seller until after an open house. Would you offer a few k$ below asking or asking? Have you heard of people offering say $5-10k over without getting information as to if any other offers have been made? I would think that''s pretty uncommon.

Does anyone have any problem offering full price straight off for a place, if you think/know its a good deal and know it financially makes sense? Or do you hesitate because you give up any negotiation potential and all leverage as a buyer.

So I am in a bit of a pickle. I am on the verge of submitting a strong offer on a place that I like, and I get this documentation saying that, the association will be meeting, and will decided how the balconies should be enclosed by code. The thing is, many units in this complex already enclosed their balconies, which were approved by the association but this was before any laws about the enclosure code were in place. Now they are saying, there is a possibility that a condo that has already done an enclosure MAY have to redo it if not up to the code.

Now, I don't want to pass up on the place, but I don't really want to deal with a potential headache down the road. Do you guys think its even possible that the association can tell dozens of people to redo their enclosures when they were the ones that approved it in the first place? Should this be a bargaining chip that I should be knocking like an additional 10k off my offer? They admitted that they had a buyer and they dropped out because they got work of this same notice I described.

Thank you for everyone's feedback. I am of the belief that being frugal early in life, although critical for capital for investments, seems counterproducive to why we are using REI as a source of income in the first place.

Also, do you guys feel that experiences you have at 30 are equal importance as at 60? I would argue no, beacause at 30 you have more of your life to look back on the experience or enjoyment you had, that and better health arguably, and more chances to do something that you always wanted to do.