All Forum Posts by: Thomas Tsitouridis

Hey all!

Given the weird spot the market is in, what do you see as being the best strategies for investing right now and the near future?

We just sold our live in flip a couple months ago and have been working on our new personal house, but now that the projects are nearing a close with that, we want to make the rest of our money keep working for us.

I’m thinking of doing some smaller flips to build up some cash for a bigger purchase. Start BRRRRing? My greatest issue is living 1 hour north of NYC, so nothing is cheap really.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

I own a property management company in Baton Rouge, LA. We are in the process of transitioning over to AppFolio, and in the process we have decided to no longer accept partial rent payments and are instead requiring a single payment. This means roommates will now have to figure out on their own how to combine funds and make a single payment.

The reason we made the decision is we are running into issues where one tenant prepays and throws off accounting and makes it difficult to automatically track who has/has not paid in a particular house.  Plus, for Buildium at least, there does not appear to be a way to allow individual roommate partial payments but not partial payments by late tenants, which muddy the water when it comes to late fees, eviction, etc.

This isn’t a big problem if you only have a few units and can mentally keep track, but it is not sustainable for a growing mgmt business.

I wanted to see what other managers are doing in the instance of roommates only wanting to pay their individual share as opposed to aggregating into a single payment for the unit. 

If you do allow this, how do you keep accounting straight and automate your system for ensuring the other roommates pay on time in the event someone prepays?

I have a friend I’m trying to help. He owns his own business and makes good money, $200-$300K per year, but he also has many tax write-offs so he shows a much smaller yearly income on his tax returns. His dilemma is he is trying to buy a primary residence in Idaho for about $600K but can’t qualify for that large of a bank loan unless he shows about $180K of income in 2022. He made more money than that, but it would be a large tax hit for him because he would have to pay all the extra tax on that income instead of using his write-offs. I’m trying to help him find a creative loan solution to keep him from having to show all that income and pay all those taxes, yet still get a loan. He is desiring to buy a house in the next 30-60 days. Any thoughts?

Any tips or things to remember when wholesaling such a deal? I imagine cash buyers will want to view the units and mechanicals of the building so I was going to make sure I get keys and access if I get it under contract. 

Do these larger investors that buyer $1m+ deals and multi family’s typically want full access to review every single unit? Or are photos and access to a few of the vacant units typically enough to get the idea across for the buyer?

I’ll be pricing the deal so the buyer gets instant equity anyways. The extra money could be put towards renovations of all units assuming $20,000 is allocated to each unit, that would bring the total acquisition and costs for that buyer closer to the current market value here if not bring it up more  because the comps are based on non renovated units

If they left it in current condition it’s in a rentable turnkey state, cash flowing nicely with great unit mix. I think in the case of this deal it would be good to leave it and update units as they become necessary. Though if they were updated quickly, the end buyer would be able to justify larger rents easily. 

Either way I cut it up, it would be a great deal for an investor looking to place their cash somewhere instead of a bank. 

Any tips or things to consider if I get this under contract. I’d really appreciate hearing from other wholesalers who have done similar larger size deals with better assignments for us

My tenants, a nice young couple, want to get a dog. They've been a year in the apartment and everything is fine so far. They say that they both were raised with the dogs and are experienced. I have no experience with dogs, and prefer no dogs on the property. However it looks like there is a high demand on home pets now, and I think I have to consider it. What do I need to worry about? What should I mention in the lease about their pet?

It's hardwood and tile floors in the apartment. No carpet.

Do they need to buy any dog insurance with dog bites coverage or anything like that?
Should I mention that in case the dog create problems and I get complains from the neighbors, the lease won't be extended or can be terminated? (or it's impossible to execute?)
Are there specific breeds or parameters that are recommended, or specifically not recommended?
What should I worry about and specify in the lease regarding the dog?

Hi all, I want to start a thread about the pros and cons of listing STRs with a personal individual hosting account vs as a 'brand' or 'business' account. I currently own and self-manage two STRs in Maine and should be closing on a small 'cabin campground' with 10 cabins nearby that will also be operated as STRs. 

Currently, I manage my two listings with my personal Airbnb account, like most do. https://www.airbnb.com/users/s.... 

But I have seen other pages, especially ones that have clusters of listings like this cabin campground will have, have the host be a brand/business. And then the personal page host is listed as co-host. Here's an example: https://www.airbnb.com/users/s...

I'm trying to be forward thinking as far as how I will eventually exit the STR management business. I intend to continue to scale a bit in this area, but eventually I'd like to either sell or hire someone to manage everything. So I'm trying to have a "built to sell" type mentality here.

I'm curious to hear from others who have been through this longer, have more listings, have a business account, or have even sold / transitioned their properties to managers before. What would you the pros and cons are of the different hosting account strategies? Here's what I have so far: 

Primary host with personal account + co-host(manager, brand account)

-Pros: My super host status carries over which will help the new listings get off the ground. People like to rent from a person not a 'brand', it's more personal. My reviews carry with me for life, maybe I sell these properties but in 15 years I want to start another STR business.

-Cons: On sale of property, the new owner would have to start from scratch on the income generation. No way to transition listings to someone else and detach my account from the property. 

Primary host with brand account + co-host with personal account

-Pros: Could continue to scale and then sell all listings & account together as a business rather than strictly real estate assets (more valuable with the 10 cabin property than with the SFH STRs). People looking to book may see that it is a brand account and look up the brand, then book direct. Easy to transition this to a property manager, or even have multiple people run the account, than if the account is a personal account.

-Cons: Feels less "Airbnb-y" and personalized to book from a brand instead of from a person. Have to start from scratch on reviews/super host status. 

Additionally, would love to hear how others manage multiple listings with the help of others. Do you put managers/assistants/employees in as co-hosts? Let them reply from your personal account? Is this all handled by the PMS and then routed to the guest by whoever is the primary host? Do these messages disclose that you aren't speaking with the actual owner if you aren't?

Own a 6+ million dollar portfolio currently. Was more until recent price declines. Waiting to buy more once things settle, rates go back down, etc.