All Forum Posts by: Victor Chico

Another Puerto Rican here. There are a few in BP. Saludos!

@Bryan Williamson,

The sites @Brian G. mentions are the best to search for real estate in PR. There are two other sites, Abreu and Tasamax, but they are not free.

"Alma Mater Colegial, epopeya del saber donde se aprende a beber..."

@Yashira Zayas de Zavala, 

Me too! ICOM 1998.

I believe you can find something in the West Coast (not including Rincon) in the $100k range (probably not beach front, but close to).

Keep your eye on Clasificados PR and on Clasificados Online.

Saludos Boricua!

While I like your strategy, I think finding a $50K beach property might be very difficult. Specially, if you want it in a place where people might rent it as a vacation property. I have though about it myself (I live on the island) and haven't seen anything in that price range.

Where in PR are you looking?

As far as renting as vacation property, I have seen that sites like VRBO, HomeAway and the like are getting a lot of traction here. I know at least 3 people that have properties in the Condado/Isla Verde area that rent via these sites and are very happy.

To all who have responded: Thanks for your input! I have a lot of work to do. I'll soon post an update of my plan going forward. I'll definitely have to do the door to door knock that Ann Bellamy mentioned. Luckily, the contracts are with the section 8 office, so I can get it from them - on second thought maybe I may not be so lucky. ;-)

Let's see where this adventure takes me.

George Paiva: In my legal office, I use the Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500 for scanning everything. It's about $400, but comes with an Adobe Acrobat X Standard license which costs about $300 if bought separately. I researched the Neat, but read better reviews from the ScanSnap.

If I'm on the go, I use TurboScan on the iPhone which was mentioned by Prashant P.

Greetings!

I am an accidental landlord hoping to become a real estate investor. I have several properties which I inherited. I have been actively reading and learning about rental properties.

I would like to hear opinions on documents that a landlord should have/keep and how to organize them properly.

As of now, I have 7 tenants. I have zero information on 6 of them except for their names. All of the tenants are currently section 8.

My plan is to have a system such as:

- Physical files - I have some idea on how to organize them, but would like to hear yours (i.e., one per tenant, one per property, etc). What should be in them?

- Digital files - A scanned copy of the paper files in a Dropbox folder, so I can share it with my partner

- Financials/Ledger - Use Quickbooks so I can quickly generate reports and also be able to input info from more than one place. I usually handle contract renovations, taxes and similar expenses. My partner lives about an hour away and he handles repairs and that sort of stuff.

I'll probably expand on this latter (i.e., give concrete examples of what I am doing or plan to do), but for now I wanted to get the ball rolling and hear your opinions on the matter. I have a very improvised system. I KNOW that if I want to grow I need a system that can grow as my number of properties/tenants increases and can be taught to others who I may have to bring in to help.

Thanks!

James Vermillion:

The market here followed the same pattern as in the US. We are tied to the US economy, so whatever happens to the US economy happens to the PR economy about 6 months later.

According to an appraiser which I know the market will still take around 5+ years to recover.

I actually bought my home in September and it was a short sale for $100K less that what was owed.

Chico

Raquel Barela, I was born and raised here and love it!!!

Brandon Turner, thanks for the articles and there's my ugly mug! ;-)

Ben Schembri, thanks for sharing. Any advice on handling property with family? I share some of the properties with my uncle. I am studying precisely to do what you mention. Hopefully, I can grow my portfolio and pass it on to my children later in life.