All Forum Posts by: Jason V.

@Carrie Westover Another thing to keep in mind: it's not quite the worst time of the year to have vacancy, but it's getting pretty close. If you wind up having to do any work on the unit to get it rent-ready, you're looking at being into the Thanksgiving Holiday, which turns into Christmas, which turns into New Year's, which turns into you not having a tenant until February/March. So you may not just be losing half a month, or one month's rent, because of when they decided to bolt on you. 

If you can immediately get it filled (I don't know your market) consider a lease that ends at an optimal time for finding new tenants, even if that means making it a 15 month lease, or something strange like that. 

@Thomas S. has good advice as well - the only party a long-term lease truly constrains is the landlord. It's a whole lot harder for us to enforce one than it is for them to break one. That said, I still use 1 year+ leases, and have good luck with them. 

Good luck! 

Good Morning All

I've been digging around the internet looking for Down Payment Assistance Programs to help out one of my tenants, but haven't found anything too helpful yet. Just lots and lots of ad-sites with questionable intent.

Anyone in the Rochester or Western New York area have a good resource for these programs? Preferably a real, live person with a phone number I could give to my tenants?

Thanks!

For the first time since becoming a BP member, I have a tenant moving out (very amicably.) In the past, I've always tried to collect some info, but it's been haphazard and probably incomplete.

Does anyone have a specific closeout/termination document they have the tenant sign? Checklist for information/documentation to have?

Thanks all!

@Matthew Drouin You'd have to check into this, but I also think you might have trouble with the legal aspect. I think (not sure) that New York State says you can only do rental terms of less than 1 month if they are located in a property in which you reside.

AirBnB and New York

I don't think they've actually reached a decision on this law yet, but I would expect it to be signed and go into effect, which I see as making what you propose potentially illegal.

I looked into doing this in a tourist-y area a while back, and saw that there was a very good chance that this law was going to happen, so walked away from the idea.

As an avid music streamer, I've been hearing lots of ads from Home Depot for "Pergo Outlast+" flooring. 

Pergo Outlast+

Anyone have any experience with it? Is it even new, or are they just pushing it?

My experience is generally that the best products are ones that aren't advertised very much (the quality is its own advertisement for the pros) but I've got a couple of projects coming up and was thinking about giving this a try. 

Thanks all!

The phrase "Indianapolis TurnKey Condo" would send me screaming in the opposite direction, as quickly as possible. 

Lots of other good points here, but most importantly: The MidWest/NorhEast is not Southern California, and the mentality on condos couldn't be more different. 

Just one man's opinion, but I don't like "TurnKey" and I don't like "Condos" - I'd keep looking for a value add opportunity if I were you, especially in the current market. 

Good luck!

As much as I hate to bump my own thread - any feedback here? Thanks!

8 Units that need some work in a good area for $325k sounds like a deal - not so much at $525k.

And I'm with you Will - I think we're near the top somewhere, and all the extra 'value' that was driven by nothing more than rent increases could take a tumble as soon as you close (and will also probably come back, given some time.) If your only value-add opportunity is more rent increases, I'm not sure I'd be pulling the trigger right now. But I don't know your market - I might feel differently if it were in my backyard (where I would absolutely not be underwriting significant rent increases for the next 3-5 years.)

I guess my question is: why is everyone re-selling this thing so quickly? Why is it so under-rented? Your instincts might be trying to tell you there's a warning sign you haven't quantified here yet. Keep digging and try to find out if your gut is telling you not to buy, or not to eat at that sushi place again. Have the buyers all been out of area folks? There's something that just doesn't jive for me with this property, based on your descriptions - and I'd definitely want to know what it is.

Good luck!

I'm looking at a small multifamily property, and the intent would be to have at least 50% of the units as Section 8/Voucher units. (Not looking to start another debate about Section 8 rentals - I understand the pros & cons)

Here's my question: I'm under the impression that one of the criteria for receiving a voucher was having dependents. Am I wrong about that? For you Section 8 veterans out there: how hard is it to keep a 1 bedroom occupied? 

With the unit breakdown on this property it's probably not worth buying if I can't get voucher recipients in the 1 beds - any issues with that besides the usual/obvious?

Thanks all!

@Tanya Braun - Very interesting, and I'd much rather have someone local's take on it than the news (who tend to do their 'chicken little' impression at every opportunity.) $900/sf is pretty absurd money, but I know there are some other more 'international' markets that are just as wild. Must be a good time to be an agent in Canada though :-)

@Sam Van Horebeek - Maybe I'm over-estimating the affect international money is having on US markets. I've been trying to wrap my head around the prices on MF property the last couple of years, and I chalked a lot of it up to big REITs backed by foreign money (and other foreign investors buying up the biggest stuff at extremely low Cap rates just to park their money someplace stable.)