All Forum Posts by: Van Lam

What is the vacancy rate in the area your unit is located?   There are plenty of areas that you could be lowest rent and still find it hard to place a tenant because of how many units are available.  

where do you have it listed?  I do Zillow rental manager (which posts to a handful of sites) and FB marketplace.  I get more responses from FB marketplace but the quality of the responses from Zillow rental manager is stronger (judged by who views the property).

how many people have responded to the ads listing it for rent?  How many have come to see it?  

i suspect this will vary by market ….  I have about 8 people inquire for every one that actually views the property.  Even if everyone that views the property states they are going to submit an application, only about 1 in 4 or 5 do submit the application.  Fortunately we have about 75% acceptance rate but some who are accepted have found another place so maybe 50% of applications become tenants. 

If I had 50 people express interest I likely will get 6 to 9 people show to the open house. I will get 1 or 2 applications (sometimes 3).  I virtually always fill the unit at the 1st open house.

note if you find it hard to rent in September, imagine the difficulty in Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb.  you need to get it rented soon (move in before Nov).  You may consider paying a professional to get a tenant fast because I fear that if a tenant is not in by Nov, that you will have more difficulty getting a tenant before spring.  That is a long time without rent.  

by the way how did the refinance go?   Did you achieve significant sweat equity?   If you have, your cash flow can be more modest and you still can achieve a good return.   My last value add achieved enough equity gain that even with $0 cash flow (but it has some modest cash flow), the return would be outstanding.

in general, bad neighborhoods or close to bad neighborhoods do not make decent STRs or MTRS.  I would be leery of going this route unless you are very confident of your numbers.

good luck

Ask around to find out where people are looking for rentals.  Different platforms are popular in different areas.  Also look at your photos, description and price.

If you aren't getting any traction, you are probably over priced, you may want to consider a Mid term Rental to the Snow Bird community.

@Lam Van

I'd be happy to answer any questions you have. To clarify, can you please specify what you mean by multifamily? There are two separate categories for multifamily properties. Any property that has 1-4 units is technically a multifamily property but is considered a normal residential property as far as lenders are concerned so the process to acquire a property like this is no different from acquiring a single family home. Any multifamily property with 5 units or more is considered a commercial property and that has it's own rules for lending and requires a different strategy. 

Hey Lam, 

Very thoughtful post and best of luck on your journey. I think you are approaching this in the right way! Personally a big fan of building wealth through small multi-family. 

My suggestions would be to find a local meetup in your area, keep tuning into biggerpockets podcasts, think about your existing network, consider house hacking. 

I wish I had started when I was your age! Which part of this process feels a bit "daunting" to you? Analyzing deals, raising capital, just wrapping your head around the concept? 

Get to as many networking events as you can. There you will meet likeminded people you can learn from on their experiences in your same area. You can also meet realtors there, who should be able to help you find the right deals that match your specific goals. Us young guys have to show up and show out, best of luck to you!