All Forum Posts by: Tim Grillot

I’m in Kentucky, but we have had huge success with commercial loans through smaller local banks.  We do 15% down on 20 year loans for our stuff.

 Ahh...that makes sense, I didn't realize the geography difference!  12k seems high for that, here in Kentucky it would be around 5k for what you listed.  

My wife and I just did almost exactly the same re-hab.  Ours was slightly smaller (780sqft), we decided to do it ourselves as we wanted the experience for when we start dealing with contractors.  It had not been touched for 13 years and everything was pretty worn.  She did all the wall repair, and I did the floors/fixtures/window coverings/plumbing/etc.  It took us 3 weekends and 6 nights after work to complete it, but we were kind of in play mode....we had a blast doing it.  In the end it cost us $1600 in materials and looks as good or better than what a contractor would have done!!  this was a property were just bought and this unit was vacant when we purchased it.  It previously rented for $450/mo, and after the re-hab we rented it for $650, and it only took 3 days to get someone moved in from the day we listed it. 

LVP in the whole house for us!!  We have done that on our recent rehabs, and tenants LOVE it!!!  I’ll be happy when I never have to deal with carpet ever again!!

My wife and I have purchased two rental properties (a tri plex and a duplex) in the last several months. For these first two we used savings for the down payments. Our long term goal is to have a portfolio of cash flowing rentals to help us get to early retirement 5-10 years. Our first two deals are going great and we love doing this. We have been maxing out our 401k contributions for the last number of years. We are considering lowering our contributions down to 6% to still get my company match, but then use those extra funds that used to go toward our 401k towards real estate. We know we would be giving up the pre-tax benefit, but we both like and trust the real estate end way more than the 401k. So to utilize that money we would do one or several of three things; take the extra money every paycheck and save it until we have enough for a down payment on another property, or use our HELOC for down payment on deals we find and then use the extra money from every paycheck to pay down the HELOC, or negotiate seller financed down payment and use the extra money from our 401k allocation to pay down the sellers note.

Thoughts/opinions?

 Typically $35, its a little case by case with our listings, but no less than $25 and no more than $50.  We always charge the same for everyone per listing, but sometimes tweak the amount per listing depending on circumstances. 

 My wife and I both work full time jobs.  We pick days that are convenient for us and let people know we will be available those days (after work hours).  I then just start taking appointments in 30 minute blocks and keep track of it in a simple spreadsheet.  The responses are usually overwhelming and I usually shut the ad down within 2-3 days of listing it.  I've never had to set more than 2-3 nights up with 2-3 showings each before getting qualified tenants.  The one I listed yesterday, I showed three times last night and am getting 2 applications back today that seem promising.  I have four more appointments on Saturday I will cancel if I rent it to one of these first two.  We charge an application fee and that itself seems to weed out a lot of lookie loos.  Being able to do a light screening by checking out their FB page is a major plus and very quick too.  

Facebook marketplace for us all the way!!  We also post the FB ad in local “for sale” pages.  Has always been very effective for us.  We just listed one yesterday morning and showed it three times already last night.

 Yes we work on everything together.  We have alternating skill sets so it works out well, we each tackle what we are good at and meet in the middle and discuss before making something "live" or a process.  We are just starting out so we are still figuring it all out, but we are having a blast and work really well together!  Since we are just getting started we discuss everything and stratogize together what we want for the long term so we can build a scale-able business.  

Love this discussion.  My wife and I actually made the decision to invest in smaller towns.  It was actually her suggestion and it is working out well for us.  We currently only have two properties; a tri-plex and a duplex.  We have seen all the same benefits listed in this thread.  We plan to continue with this strategy.  We have successfully raised the rents from $450 to $600 on most of them and will continue to push them up.  We have found there are a lot of "old school" landlords in the area we are investing and the tenants LOVE the way we are managing them.  They have all told us we are the best landlords they have ever had when it comes to service.  The tenant base is also very good and we get lots of very good applicants every time we fill a unit.