All Forum Posts by: Jimmy Murray

I've heard of 2 great groups.

One is hosted by @Gualter Amarelo in Fall River, MA

And there is another group called Black Diamond REI which is in Worcester MA. Is that right @Anthony Thompson?

@Rafael Larios Congrats on your first deal!

Using a property manager could help but I would say to try it on your own. There are lots of free tools to help you out.

I would recommend www.Rentometer.com to help you determine the right rent amount.

From there, check out Zillow My Rental Manager to post your listing and syndicate it across multiple websites.

Lastly, once you have a great tenant. Run a background/credit check over at MySmartMove.com

@Chad Duval In all honesty, based on the area in MA you may be able to charge $50 per month additional for a pet.

Typically what we do is make the tenant verify the animal is up to date with a letter from their vet, verify that the tenant has renters insurance with the pet named as an insured and also have them register the animal with the town/city the property is in. If someone is willing to go through all of that, it is a good sign that they will typically take great care of their pet and great care of the unit.

@Francois Francis It all depends on where you think you'll have the most fun, honestly.

I started out with a multi-family, started wholesaling, tried to flip 2 houses, then bought another multi and launched a property management company.

I learned a ton along the way. One thing I realized is that I was most interested in multi-families and I found out I was really good at talking to tired landlords. Thats when I realized what my focus should be.

@Luis Monroy Welcome to Bigger Pockets! Would love to connect for coffee.

Hope to see you at the next RI Real Estate Investors Group.

My advice would be to read everything Real Estate related you can get your hands on!

From there make a list of different strategies of how you could make money in Real Estate.

And step 3 choose a path of investment.

@Steve Rhine This is an age old debate! And a great debate at that.

I have done both. I would weigh the pro and cons of each side. I don't believe one is necessarily faster. 

My deciding factor would be based on your book of vendors. If you currently have an established book of vendors that you have worked with previously, AND you have the time, I would say to GC the project yourself.

If you do not have the time or book of vendors I would suggest to utilize a GC to manage the project.

@Chad Duval as long as the other tenant is inherited you should be in the clear. You can simply state that the previous owner did allow pets however your rental policy is that you DO NOT allow pets. 

Also, my question to the tenant would be 'What changed since you moved in?' They could have inquired about the pet policy during the application process.

At the end of the day I am a pro-pet Landlord and Manager. I think you will keep your tenants longer term, have a higher quality of tenant and make more money!

Kyle Cabral I'd be interested in catching up.

I'm going to second Dan Smith and Rich Ng It's imperative you follow the laws to the T in Massachusetts or else you could find yourself in some pretty hot water. Make sure it is in a separate interest bearing account with the tenants name on it. Also, one often over looked law in Massachusetts is that it must be deposited in an account within 15 days or receipt.