All Forum Posts by: William Sing

With the FHA loan, you can get a duplex up to a quadplex. The limiting factor would likely be the down payment. I do recommend finding something that is something you can dip your toes in. Doing a cosmetic fixer would be good, but unless you have the knowledge and money to do a gut job don't do that. Depending on your stage in life you can also buy a SFH and then rent out the rooms. You can make a value add by adding a room or two in the garage. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions!

Not sure where you are at, but if you are in Oregon then you can only increase rent so much. 

Remember that increasing rents (even a small amount each year) will increase the value of your property. I would recommend sending the rent increase 60-90 days out for the lease expiration. You can justify it however you want but it is really up to you. I tend to not increase the rent as much for good tenants but I still increase them. If you want to do an annual percentage that is up to you. 

Hope this helps but if you want to talk more just DM me (I get on about once a week btw) or reach out through my profile contact info. 

Here is the letter template I usually use with the proper form in our state for rent increases. 

[Tenant’s Names] et al (and all others)

[Street Address]

[City, State, Zip]

Dear [Tenant’s Names],

I want to express my appreciation for your residency and care you have shown the property. I hope that our relationship will continue for the long term.

Due to increased costs however, I must now inform you effective [effective date], your rent will be $[New Rent Amount]. Your current rent is $[Current Rent], it is now being increased by $[Increase Amount Rent] for a new rent of $[New Rent Amount]. My analysis of comparable properties indicates the rent range is considerably more.

Should you also pay any utility surcharges or garage rents those remain the same, this letter is an increase in the actual rent amount only.

If you have any questions please feel free to call us.

Sincerely,

Hey Morgan! Congrats! The actual steps vary from state to state to get the license. I "recently" became an agent so I know a little bit about what it takes but feel free to DM or see my contact info on my profile. I'm only on this about once a week 😊

I think it will really depend on the market. There will be some markets where we will see larger "crashes" and some where there is more of a correction. We saw massive appreciation (15-20%) in just a couple of years in PDX. That is not normal and would expect there to be more of a correction in that market. I think other markets where investors are might get hit a bit harder. But that is my two cents!

I think this would somewhat depend on your business. There are certain tax/business structures that work best for different types of real estate businesses. In general, most people start out being a personal guarantor for their business and then add their business name onto a credit card. It is similar to getting your own credit score up and getting your business profitable. It depends on what you are wanting to do and would consult a lawyer/CPA on what you are aiming to do. 

Hi Jeff, I would talk to a CPA and Lawyer of course but it sounds like an LLC would probably work best. Just make sure to talk to a lawyer about making an operating agreement and make sure everything is laid out in terms of what if X happens X people are responsible.

As for the mortgage, are you looking to have it in your name or a specific group member's name? You can have the loan under the business name but you may need to be a personal guarantor. Talk with a couple of lenders about the products they have and what the requirements would be. You may be able to get some better financing if it is in someone's name and then you transfer it into the LLC as well.

Hope this helps!

The 1% monthly balance is normal from many banks I have seen. I am not exactly sure why this is but after calling 8-9 banks this was the case for most of them. 

I haven't personally done something like this, but I have seen others do something similar. I usually see them put the property into an LLC and then have an operating agreement setup between the members. This operating agreement determines what happens if you decide to sell or pull out equity and who is responsible for what. I would make sure it is in some sort of joint entity before doing any work on it. Otherwise your only recourse would to put a lien on it which doesn't really help you out unless they sell.

Upgrading the lighting and putting on hardware for kitchen cabinets would also be a low cost benefit!

Rentredi is good and you can also use apartments.com as well since it is free. Use to be cozy.co. 

Hope this helps!

There haven't been a lot of properties that have made sense lately. Looking a little bit outside of Portland has been helpful for some of my clients! Besides off market deals with seller financing it has been harder to make things work.