All Forum Posts by: Shannon Sadik

@Mark Updegraff I agree that some markets in the city are very hot.  Just in the last year I've seen prices really jump in those areas but I recently did a flip in the suburbs and it still took longer to sell than everyone expected even when I heard there was a shortage of properties. I believe I checked all the boxes for a successful flip but didn't count on the fact that the criteria for a higher end buyer is much more stringent. From my experience and from what I hear of others, RE is hot only in certain specific areas for investors and then hot in the suburbs around a certain price point ($100-180k?) for owner occupied. 

I have felt frustrated myself but smart buy and hold investors (and hopefully their realtors) still need to hold out as the rents haven't necessarily correlated with the buying prices and the numbers just aren't always there. AND if we all hold out, then maybe prices will go back to normal. (One can hope right? Lol) I can't help but wonder who out there buys up these properties at prices I wouldn't even consider? Maybe if we tell people Rochester isn't a great place to buy anymore, everyone will go away and leave the profits to us! (Is that your strategy with this post Mark? ;)

@Joshua Dorkin I posted above, but I am not seeing a way to subscribe to the subforums. The boxes are missing from my view. How can we subscribe? 

I second that! @Brandon Turner I am not seeing the "subscribe" boxes next to the sub-categories as shown in your video. Do you have to be  Pro to see those? 

@Kevin Reik

Welcome to BP! This is a great resource and you will learn a ton! Don't be afraid to ask questions and definitely set up some key word search alerts to help you. 

@Chuck VanDyne  I'd be interested in any good 19th Ward properties, or others around the desirable parts of the city, that you find!

@Matt Harris welcome to the site! I'm also an investor and manage my own properties here in Rochester. So to be sure I understand you, you are a new real estate agent? Do you plan to focus on residential or commercial apartments as well? 

@Katie Douglas

 I can relate to your post. I do feel that a lot of the written articles are full of fluff and just too short and vague to be practical. I find information from the podcast to be more applicable to me, or at least give better take aways. I completely understand where you are coming from in your post so I will tell you my real life story of how I got to where I am. It's not that glamorous and i haven't reached "success" --YET, but I am excited about the direction I'm going, and I hope you can relate to my story. 

Since I was old enough to babysit at 13, I paid for everything on my own outside of the roof over my head and food at the table. At 23, I graduated from graduate school with a lot  of debt and no job. The only job I could get was in Philadelphia so I moved there all on my own, not knowing a soul, and the old Mercury Marquis I'd had since I was 18 and bought for $2500 was not gonna parallel park in the tiny places available where I lived. I didn't have any money saved at all so bought a new cheap Saturn with no money down and had a $200/mo payment for a longer period of time than normal because that's what I could afford and they worked with me to sell me a car. I made $28000/year, and had a VERY high rent because it's Philadelphia after all. I lived VERY frugally, NEVER ate out, and still just couldn't manage to save anything because of my basic bills and it slowly got worse because I had some small moving costs to get to Philadelphia put on a card and i never could seem to pay them off because all I could afford was $50/mo to pay off the minimum. (Sound familiar so far?) 

So this lifestyle wasn't working for me, and i finally decided to move to Phoenix where the cost of living was cheaper. I stayed with my sister for 2 weeks and was able to get an apartment and a new job for slightly more money and tried to save yet again. Finally, a roommate and I decided we really wanted to have more disposable income so looked for months for a cheaper place to live, but that was still nice. We finally found this really adorable 2 bedroom that was owned by a woman who didn't really care to make money off of it, she just wanted good tenants, and we fit the bill. We paid $900/mo total for the 2 bedroom and that included all utilities, so very cheap! By now, I was 29 and slowly progressed to better paying jobs until I was making $48,000/year. My boss gave me a big bonus one year for christmas and I took that and paid all my credit card debt with it and didn't use a credit card again for years. I also had a job with flexible hours and was inspired to reupholster furniture and re-sell it for more. i didn't know how to do this, but felt I had good taste so I called every reupholstery shop in the phone book until I found one shop willing to let me work for free for them so I could learn. FREE. I worked there for a year and then one day, I got laid off from my job. By then, I had about $3000 in savings and took a huge risk. I looked for a job and took that money and started reupholstering furniture I found on Craigslist and then re-selling it. It wasn't working that well, BUT it inspired a new business, where I acquired a bunch of vintage furniture and then started renting it to brides getting married or photographers. During this time, I got another full time job, got married and paid for the wedding all cash, totally DIY, and worked like a dog doing my business weeknights and weekends for 2 years. 

By then, I was 33, and started getting an itch to "work smarter, not harder", and realized rentals would be much better passive income. The Phoenix market was too volatile and risky for me to feel comfortable around this time and there were no real duplexes there, so I convinced my husband to move to Rochester, NY where multi-families are everywhere and we could live super cheap. I sold my business for $16k and this totalled my savings from my business (which we never touched) to $40k. We sold our house, which we had just bought 2 years earlier, and made $50k on that. It was a little luck, but also I think I have a gut feeling for markets and intentionally bought in a growing area. 

We moved to Rochester with a promise from our jobs to let us work remotely for 2 months until we found other ones, and looked immediately for jobs and a MF to live in. It was a risk, but it paid off. We got here and hit the ground running. I'd already found a realtor off of BP, been watching the MLS for 8 months and had a good idea of where we wanted to live, how things would cash flow, and what would be a good price since I ran every house I saw over the months through my pro forma. We found a cute duplex, and in my name only (my husband has a foreclosure on his credit) making $50k for a job that was about to end (but I didn't tell them that!), I got an FHA loan for only 3.5% down ($5250) and now we pay only $300/mo as the rent covers everything else. We still had our savings that I mentioned from above, and we also save everything else to go towards buying more.

We have been here less than a year and have bought another duplex and a single family since. We renovated the duplex and make $500/month on that and then got smarter and found the SF that doesn't require any renos and makes $800/mo! We put all of that directly back into savings and are still aggressively looking for more. I am particular about what we buy since we will eventually run out of cash for down payments and want to make the most cash flow possible to help save for more. Both my husband I make quite a bit less than we did in Phoenix, so it was a sacrifice, but we also live much cheaper and the potential is much greater so it worked out IMO. 

Sorry for such a long post, but I hope that helps you see practically how you can go from where you are to somewhere else! I do feel that I am a bit behind other investors that I know who are younger than me and own more properties already, but it is helpful to remember that everyone's journey and circumstances are different and I'm just going to make up for lost time! :) Best of luck to you! 

@Ashly B.  I love that pic and think the shelves over the windows look cute! I also know of a great old, high-end and trendy bar here in town that did the same thing and I liked it there as well. They used reclaimed wood (that I'm sure they just made out of 2x4's and stained, with cool looking brackets). However, with 2 people, I'm not sure it's necessary to have that much storage? You already have a pantry to hold their food so basically need a couple of drawers and cabinets for a few pots, pans, plates, and glasses. Also, you are talking about a lot of things, but we don't have an understanding of your budget and type of tenant? Is this a nicer apt or lower end rental? That makes all the difference with our suggestions. 

The real determiners are 1) how much room would be between the stove and the sink if they were together on one wall and 2) if you put the stove to the left or right of the window, will there be any room at all, even a few inches of countertop space next to it, before it goes into the corner? If you can get a few inches even, then you could stand there and actually utilize the corner and that would be your best and most aesthetically pleasing option. Then for any empty gaps on the other side of the window, you could take some of your countertop material, skip the base cabs, and use some L brackets and just make a little bar area under the window and now it's an Eat-in!  

If that won't work, and putting the stove to the right or left of the window will just leave awkward counters in the corners that aren't even reachable/functional then I'd skip it because I personally find that so cheap looking. If you have room and the gas line will stretch, your next best option would be to put the stove on the same wall as the sink since you aren't doing a dishwasher. Then you can just buy a cheap butcher block style island from Ikea or somewhere and put it in the middle of the room. It gives more prep space, and can also be used as a table.

@Marshall Downs In these particular units, they are in popular areas for young professionals. The two tenants that ended up renting the units both had high paying professional jobs and are paying what I would consider a premium rent for the area, but both units were also in very good condition and had modern finishes everywhere. 

After recently spending several thousand dollars renovating a rental unit to what I thought was really nice, the new tenant asked if I would be willing to replace perfectly good sliding closet doors to newer, more modern ones. The request irked me, but I wanted to find a way to keep this tenant happy. She had great references and was paying premium rent. Sooo, I googled and realized sliding closet doors are expensive!  But I came up with an idea and thought i'd share it here in case others can use it too.

It's called Washi tape. You can google tons of images for design ideas, but the beauty of this tape is that it is easily removable without any residue left behind and comes in a multitude of colors/patterns.  And the best part-- it's only $3 a roll!! 

Here is a pic of the original doors. 

Here is a pic of the new doors with gold Washi tape. 

I do have to warn you that the tape doesn't work great on dirty or uneven surfaces. In the second bedroom, even after a coat of paint, the tape kept coming off, so I opted for electrical tape instead. The tenant absolutely loved it and I was very glad to have found this compromise. 

On the next rental unit I was renovating, I was aiming for a very modern look, but didn't want to spend money replacing perfectly good white appliances with stainless steel ones, so I used the washi tape again. 

It took me about 10 minutes to put on this tape and I think it achieved the look I was going for. And if the next tenant doesn't like it, no problem! It just comes right off!