All Forum Posts by: Ryan Evans

Don’t forget the old fashioned way to do real estate investing still stands strong. Buy a house that’s empty and hand it off to a property manager. You’ll save the turnkey markup and will have a couple more hours worth of work, but it’s effectively the same thing. 

It can be, but it's not for the faint of heart! It's pretty easy to go broke if you buy on the wrong street. 

I only answered the question, but you don't have to like the answer. You're saying most realtors suck and also implying you know what you're doing and know how to talk to everyone. Yet, you started this thread because you're not getting the traction you want. I wouldn't be so quick to call people cocky. 

I'm not saying you are like most people, but you may come off that way. The way you're perceived means more than the reality in this instance. 

It's probably you. I get calls from people all the time talking like you and I encourage you to look at your conversations from the other side. 

When I get a call and hear that someone is looking in a ton of different markets and talking to a ton of different realtors, PM"s, etc., what it tells me is that they've already wasted dozens of people's time and they're about to waste mine as well. I'll rather quickly get off the phone. 

9/10 times they don't buy anything at all, let alone in your market. If they do, it's usually lowballing a couple of properties after trying to send you all around town for several weeks to look at anything they think is a good deal. I'm not going to waste weeks of my time for a slight chance of making a thousand bucks off a 60k BRRRR property.

The people who get the attention of the on the ground team are the ones who know exactly what they want and are ready at a moment's notice to get it. 

You're right in that being an agent is not difficult. I don't even think they should exist for the most part, but the good ones know where to spend their time as well. 

You live right next to some of the hottest rental markets in the country where you can buy properties off the MLS all day long that will cash flow. If you want to find something that's an easy drive then maybe akron or canton would be your best bet.

I've looked into this for some some of my duplexes in Cleveland. I came across one or two providers that can submeter the water bill but it would require manually checking the meter every month or two and back billing the tenants which is just Not reasonable. 

The easiest solutions are low flow shower heads and toilets, as well as making sure the sinks have aerators. 

You can buy an in line meter of some kind that will alert you of there is a slow leak like a running toilet or dripping sink. That's the stuff the tenants won't tell you about but it will add up. I haven't researched it but know it's out there. 

I've also started to bill tenants a per person per month charge on top of the rent to offset the water bill. It doesn't correlate directly to the cost of the water, but it lets you add in another 10-20/person/month to the rent in the form of a water bill. 

What!? If you can't even hold a mortgage than it's nothing more than a lease option at that point. 

 It's absolutely going to be more difficult for you. We would all prefer to be able to invest in our backyards, but that's not often possible so you just have to work around it. You have no choice but to trust people in this business, but you mitigate your risks by verifying and holding people accountable. For example, not paying contractors until the work is completed and verified by a third party. 

You don't have to move full-time, but it will definitely help if you can visit whatever market you're going to invest in, if just for a weekend. 

On paper it works and looks like a nice place. I was over that way yesterday looking at another double and was about to check that one out as well, but I looked on street view and it's awkwardly on the edge of a bunch of commercial properties which turned me off of it. 

If you're afraid of offending people you might be in the wrong business. A property is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it, so it never hurts to throw out the number that works for you. I've lowballed like crazy and have gotten back signed contracts with little to no negotiations before.

A buyer agent isn't required to do anything and you can always just find another agent. Though, if I had clients who were constantly lowballing to the point of where I knew it would never happen then I wouldn't want to waste my time with the paperwork. 

If you go straight to the seller agent they will probably just take both sides of the commission so you're not going to have a vastly more competitive offer.

If you're in a hot market and think you can get 50k off asking when people are still paying full price then you might be wasting the agents since the COVID scare hasn't had that big of an impact on real estate thus far.