All Forum Posts by: Shawn York

I've found it better to use a general contractor for window installs rather than a "dedicated window/installer". My GC is pretty reasonably priced and  does great work. We found him on Home Advisor.

Kevin Your Handyman (BP won't let me post his contact info here)

Good luck.

Someone else posted just about a month ago looking for the just about the same thing. My initial thought was "good luck" While the type of home you're looking for probably exists in the Indianapolis area, you're going to be paying a premium for an A or B area (nice 3bd  home, good schools/low crime) If you're paying a premium on the property, then your cash-flow numbers are going to be tough to make. 
If you are looking for cash-flow properties, consider a duplex. Rent won't be as high, but you're getting 2 rents for the price of one house. You also likely won't be in an A or B neighborhood. However a duplex (2 doors instead of one) might be a lot for your first. I don't know if you'd rather cut your teeth on a SFR first. What you originally described is out there, but they're few and far between now that Indianapolis has been brought to the attention of many investors.
Good Luck!

@Angela Smith The inspection itself does not cost anything. I tried to be pro-active and have them check ahead of time, but they don't do that. They will only do an inspection after you have interest from a prospective S-8 tenant - and since it's free, I guess that makes sense. Here's how the process works as I understand it:
1) You list your property
2) Tenant expresses interest
     a) you do your background check - if approved:
3) Tenant gives you their S-8 RTA form
     a) You fill out your portion and return it to S-8
4) They determine if your rent is within their market guidelines
     a) If it is not, then they say "hey,  your rent is too high for our program, we'll only allow $635/mo, not $650" (as an example)
     b) It's up to you at that time to determine if you will accept the lower amount or not. You can back out at this point.
5) If everything is good up to this point, then they do the inspection.
6) If they find anything wrong, you fix it and everything is good
     a) If the cost of repair is too high, you say no-thank you and can also back out at this point and rent to someone else not in the S-8 program.

Again, I'm WAY new to this program so some of what I have above could be wrong, but that's how it works as far as I understand it. For your specific question, I'd call IHA and ask. They may not be able to tell you if your particular property would qualify, but I would think at the very least that they could tell you if there are other properties in the system that also have tanks in the basement. I'd be surprised if they didn't since many homes in the Indianapolis area were built before the 40's. 
If the tank is an issue, you could likely hire someone to come in and remove it. They'd probably have to make sure it's drained and then cut it up and remove it in pieces. Total guess on my part.

I have one more comment on S-8, but I won't post it. PM me if you'd like.

I was going to suggest calling IAH, but @Jennifer Cherpes gave a much better answer. We JUST went through this process for our first S-8 tenant in Indy. It's somewhat painful the first time around with the initial inspection and getting approved and everything. 3wk minimum process. The group that does inspections are running a couple weeks behind. It's my understanding that once you're set up, it's easier after that.
Good luck.

@Gil Ganz
Of course there is no downside to looking for a place where you feel you can maximize both the rent and the appreciation. If you can find such a place... more power to you. Like I said, we simply lucked into ours. And yes... very sweet :-)
In my mind, trying to find a place that's going to appreciate is a LOT harder and I would move from "investing" into "speculating"  There's nothing wrong with hedging your bet and doing your research and trying to make sure you're not going into an area that's *completely* going to tank, but I've found that when you start speculating on future prices, you start down the path of just what you described... one piece of information says this, another says that... and they're both at odds with each other. 

We bought just a little less than a year ago in this exact price point. Our property now is looking at around $115k. We went in expecting ZERO appreciation - strictly buy and hold and expecting to make our money with cash-flow from rental income. So from our point of view, a little depreciation wasn't a major concern. If you're looking at long term buy and hold, the majority of your return is in rent, not appreciation - we simply lucked out by getting into an area that's on the edge of gentrifying. If our property had gone down 2-3% in the last year, we'd really be in no less of a worse spot since we were banking 100% on cash-flow.
There definitely are places that fit what you're after - but the secret seems to be out and they're harder and harder to find. I've only seen prices going up. Good luck!

We've had good luck with C+ to B- duplexes in/around Irvington/Warren Park - but those places can be a little rough and block-to-block. I think if you're looking at SFH and solid B properties, you're probably looking in the right areas. The north end of town (from what I've seen and with the exception of a few pockets here and there) seems to be "where the money is" As @Joel Clausen said, plenty of food/business/hospitals/golf etc. up that way... some REALLY nice places we've visited when coming into town up there as a matter of fact. I'd say your probably even knocking on the door of "A" properties in may of those areas.
Good Luck

@Larry Fried These are around the 10th and Emerson area. I've heard that there can be some areas in Indy that are a bit sketchy.

@Joshua Zapin Yes, definitely!

Hi-

We're under contract on a couple of duplexes in the Indianapolis area. Any recommendations for a good PM? We've always self-managed, but seeing as how this is our first foray into our-of-state investing... that's not going to work. We've got good friends in Indy that can assist and manage at the outset, but they've got their own properties to look after and won't be able to help us full time so we're looking for a good PM. Also possibly looking up into Anderson for another property so any PM's that can cover both areas would be a plus.
Thanks in advance!