All Forum Posts by: Jason Minnich

@James,

I followed through with firing the pervious company. They have since merged with RPM, which is somewhat ironic. I didn't go with the new PM company and have been self managing long distance for a little under a year. I use rentec direct for a tenant portal and have had little issues with the property. I've visited once to meet my tenants and checked with my neighbors to keep me in the loop. I'm in the process of locking down a new lease to adjust rent so that is going well. There have been some delays in getting rent checks but we have negotiated after a period they will be switching to direct ach which I have set up via intuit's spark rent system. Thus far everything seems to be going well but I'm thinking for my current property I will be getting a PM because I don't think I will get the same long term tenant situation here as there is more turnover. Thanks for checking in!

Thanks for putting this together! See you there.

I really think you can work with the credit union. That would make the most sense. Also, what are market rents? It seems unusual that the units would be very different in prices if they are all part of the same condo floor plan. I mean realistically are those rents correct or are they just the current values?

@Adam, don't feel bad about the tagging other members part, if you are on a phone (like I am now) it doesn't work. And in general it's very finicky. I think you can only tag one per post too.

Yeah I was figuring the 10 might only apply to current military, but with the draw down and many folks getting out it seems like it might not fully be meeting the spirit of the rule. If I can't sell under that statue I'll just have to 1031... Would be silly to give up the 4% VA loan anyway. Thanks for the added sounding board!

@Kenneth Hynes Great Info! I forgot about that and now that you reminded me I might have to reconsider selling my California property when the lease is due... I wonder how they treat people who were in the military when they had to move but are not when they sell the property... hrm...

So my wife and I had a blast playing this game with

@Ben Leybovich and I have to say it was a blast. Its been several years since I played cashflow and it amazed me how close to real life some of these deals were. My 3/2 in California for example is a prime example of a mediocre deal which had room for appreciation, and I did this in the game to positive results... That was until I pulled the "rates increase 10% and you foreclose" card. Some things don't always match up, but that's fine.

I also thought the different decision spaces was unique. At one point I managed to hit all the bad luck, foreclosure, lots of kids, lots of debt, just scraping by. Ben had already got his amazing stock deal and was sitting pretty and every time I looked at his balance sheet it infuriated me that he would have 100k sitting in the bank but wouldn't repay his 5k bank loan. In my situation I was making 350/pay and needed to pay down every time I could to start building myself back up, but Ben rightly so didn't need to bother. There comes a point where the money you are making on your portfolio is such that you NEED to stop sweating the small stuff, and as someone that is REALLY analytical I need to keep that from interfering with the day to day operations of my business, especially as I grow.

When I was better off in the second game I found that the similarities to real life were getting rather creepy. Especially when we had just been talking about my (rather large) watch and I pull a Doodad card saying "you buy a watch for $150". Honestly, it was a lot of fun, and there were a lot of similarities to real life, I just need to take the lessons learned and apply them to how I do business.

@Dustin Rushnock , Your plan isn't bad, but at the same point I agree with Matt in wondering what benefit your partner will bring to the table. Further, Is your job worth it? I only ask this because I understand New York City to be one of the most expensive places to do anything real estate, and I'm not sure if the landlord laws are that favorable either. I am not really sure you would be able to find a good, cash flowing, multiplex in that city and be able to do what you are planning. It might be possible, but I just don't know. I've heard better things about Pittsburgh, but I don't know much about that market either.

That being said, out of state investing is always an option, but you wouldn't be able to owner occupy. So it sounds like you would have to seriously consider your market vs your job when it comes to your plan.

Finally, when it comes to your partnership. If you have a material interest in your partners VA loan that needs to be documented both to protect you and the bank. The problem there is if you are putting forward money the VA might not like the fact you have a material interest in the property. Again, since you want to try to rehab the property you likely wouldn't be able to use VA anyway, but depending on what kind of deals you are looking at, the TSP loans you are able to get might not be worth the funding fees in order to cover the repairs.

The big red flag I see is your VA occupancy requirements. You need this deal to go through fast in order to occupy before you deploy and there is a greater than zero chance that something will be delayed.

Next, consider that if you already have orders to deploy you might not be following the letter of the law as the VA requires you intend to use it as your primary residence, but if you know you're deploying that's not the case.

Additionally, your vacancy factor assumes it's been filed forever. But you are forcing a vacancy in one of the units so you can meet VA occupancy and then leaving again. I would be very concerned and include vacancy in your numbers.

Finally, I don't know the Clovis market, but this just seems expensive. When I was looking at multiplexes in the Kirtland area they were much cheaper than this. I will admit I didn't get to check your zillow link because I'm on my phone but it all just feels no good.

First question is if you inherited a PM company, what exactly are they doing and why are you having to do all this. I think firing them would be first in line of business and then deal with the tenant. Then if you don't want to self manage shop around for a new company before a new tenant but that is just rediculious!

Also by the sounds of it they already broke the lease of they didn't list all occupants, of course underage children could have been left off but still, not good all around. Good luck and post updates!

If the service member was not on the lease, the SCRA does not apply. I personally would not give back the deposit because you had it written in your lease that way for a reason, to deal with vacancy and turnover. The minimum that the SCRA requires is 30 days notice that starts at the end of the next month. The reason for that is because military units have been given direction to get orders cut at least 60 days before a move. If you weren't given notice and she stayed the full 2 months, and your lease states deposit is forfeit, keep it. If they want to fight you just bring up the fact you could get a judgement.

That all being said, there can be extenuating circumstances say where a member was deployed and as he comes back gets orders to go overseas. In this case I would want to sit with the commander and understand the timeline to know it was out of the wife's hands other than her getting a power of attorney to put the service member on the lease. But then I would bring up the SCRA requirements not being met.

This is partly a judgement call and partly understanding what the real story is. Figure out the truth and then act according to your business plan.