All Forum Posts by: Gerald K.

@Sam Albert

Welcome to BP. Where are you moving from? Spring time in WA is fantastic. One of my favorite times of year. I think you'll find quite a few of us from the area. I'm up in Kirkland. Tacoma has a whole lot of different areas but in general, the Northend is nicer/more expensive and the Southend and hill top areas are cheaper/not so nice. If you're looking for craft beer, check out the Tacoma Ale House - just one of many. There's also a lot of neighboring cities to check out. As for BP, if you haven't done so, check out the "Learn" tab up top. Lots of great info and knowledgable people here. Wishing you much success and hope to see you around the forums.

Hi @Account Closed ,

Nice to see you're reaching out to local BP members throughout Washington - Seattle Bellevue Everett Tacoma Olympia areas and that you plan to attend and a REAPS meeting. Hopefully those areas trigger some keyword alerts. Since I work through the weekend, I won't be able to attend.

REAPS sometimes brings in guest speakers from outside of the area. Keep in mind these type of presentations can be sales pitches for more costly training. That being said, it's one way of connecting with local like-minded people and there are definitely some people in REAPS with experience, knowledge and doing deals. We were at the year end REAPS meeting where several investors presented their deals done last year.

Hopefully some local BPers that haven't been to REAPS will be able to attend. If they have never attended a meeting before, they can go to the REAPS website and sign up for a free guest visit. If you can get there early, you might be able to meet some people before the event starts. We got there a bit late last time and a lot of groups and discussions had already started so it made it difficult for us.

Good luck and enjoy!

Hello @Sam B. , and the rest.

Trevor, thanks for starting this post. It has been interesting to follow and discussing this topic is important.

Sam, I'm up in Kirkland. Nice to see another local investor on BP. You bring up a good point that it is possible to do this by building your own team. Not sure in the end how much you would save doing it on your own or if you would end up with a better result - it would seem to take more up front time and travel costs. Turnkey companies have relationships with teams they work with so they may be able to leverage them for better deals, and I would imagine some may even do a more thorough job prepping the property to be rent ready. That being said, that doesn't mean they would be passing on a better deal to you because they need to get paid for providing this service. In the end, whether you build your own team or go with turnkey type set up, you would still need to do your due diligence to make sure those teams in place have your best interests at heart. Maybe @Chris Clothier could comment on this, but I wonder how involved the turnkey company is after the sale? Once done, are you basically out of the picture and the buyer then works with the property manager in place, or are you still in the background to help out if the buyer runs into some problems? Does the buyer deal directly with the property manager that was put in place? Do they sometimes remove the property manager in favor of another? If so, would that mean at that point they are on their own? Just wondering what the process is and whether or not there is a standard way turnkey companies operate of if they all have their own philosophy on this.

Welcome to BP @Reid Westbrook

Check out the "Learn" tab up top and dig in. Lots of great info and knowledgable people here. I'm down in Kirkland, WA. Nice to see another Washingtonian join BP. Turn Key investing brings both good and bad comments from people around here depending on the situation. A lot of them apparently take advantage of new investors, so you really need to do extra due diligence when working with them. When you are not in the area, don't know the market, have to rely on other people, it can open up a whole can of worms, so just be aware of that and read as much as you can on the subject here before taking the plunge. I think there are good Turnkey companies out there, but you have to be careful. Good luck and much success. Hope to see you around the forums.

Welcome to BP @Neil Robinson

We're in Kirkland. Nice to see another local join BP. Check out the "Learn" tab up top. You can also set up keyword alerts like "Bellevue" "Seattle" "Tacoma" or for areas of interst like "Turn Key". Tons of great info and lots of knowledgable people here. I think you'll find there are several of us in the Pacific Northwest on BP. Turn Key investing brings both good and bad responses from people here on BP depending on the situation. I would be interested in finding out more about your experience with them and which company(s) you have used. As for the greater Seattle area, unless you invest in areas further away from city centers, such as rural areas, or less desirable neighborhoods, it seems that good buy and hold properties are becoming harder and harder to find these days. We picked up some during the great recession but with prices and interest rates on their way up, it's becoming tougher. Wishing you much success and hope to see you around the forums.

There's a thread here on BP concerning this topic:

http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/92/topics/16114-have-any-experience-with-jason-hartman-platinum-properties

Nice story. Tells me I need to get out and talk to more people.

Those are some really great points!

How they pay should be spelled out in the lease - when (usually the 1st of the month) type of payment, where to send it, etc. Make it absolutely the tenant's responsibility to pay/deliver rent as stated. Also, you should not be responsible for any cash payments not actually delivered to you in person. You shouldn't have to go pick up the payment. You don't want to become the paperboy. It's also a good idea to set up periodic inspections of the property, which is a separate issue, and should also be written into the lease upfront with a process for the tenant's to correct problems you find in conflict with the lease.

As for rent payments, we use Chase Quickpay since we have a Chase account - they don't have to have a Chase bank account for it to work. They can use their own checking account and set it up. We get an email to accept their payments and they go into our account automatically. Works great and it's free.

BP also wrote an article about a pay service for tenant's with cash:

http://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/2013/11/30/paynearme/

Hope this helps.

You know you're a real estate investor when...

You can write a 3-day notice to pay rent or vacate from memory including all your state's landlord tenant law chapter and title reference numbers.

The back of your car is crammed full of miscellaneous tools, spare toilet parts, painting, and cleaning materials and every time you drive by Home Depot or Lowes you pull in just to make sure you didn't forget something.

You find out someone lives in an area you heard cashflows well and you immediately start asking about house prices and opinions on where the good and bad neighborhoods are.

You drive by a man having some repairs done on a house and you immediately wonder if he's a landlord.