ilovedolphins
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Post by ilovedolphins on May 21, 2019 9:41:19 GMT -5
Do you have a property you use for investment purposes that is managed by a management company?
I am considering buying a condo near Disneyworld for investment purposes and additional income. It is in a management supervised rental program where they will rent it out for you. I don't know if this would be a good investment for me. I don't know what kind of hassles it might entail on my part.
Have you had any experience with this?
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hoops902
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Post by hoops902 on May 21, 2019 9:51:20 GMT -5
Yes, but they are houses that already had renters in them. We have a local realtor who also does property management, and he manages the homes. He essentially worries about handling calls about fixes, collecting rents each month, etc. It wasn't really any "hassle" because prior to that, my parents were managing them themselves, we moved to a management company to get rid of the hassles.
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Miss Tequila
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Post by Miss Tequila on May 21, 2019 9:53:53 GMT -5
Be careful buying a condo. HOA feed can be a killer
I self-managed 10 units locally until October. I was not being effective as I was way too busy at work. I now have a property manager and my life is so much better. But it is also costing me $15k a year on average so it isn’t cheap.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 21, 2019 9:59:02 GMT -5
How did you come to hear about this? Were you condo shopping in the area or was it marketed to you by someone as a money making opportunity?
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ilovedolphins
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Post by ilovedolphins on May 21, 2019 10:07:19 GMT -5
How did you come to hear about this? Were you condo shopping in the area or was it marketed to you by someone as a money making opportunity? I was researching for a place for my son who works at Disneyworld. His rent is high so I thought about buying a place and renting to him. But then I came across the condo/hotel condos and thought these might be a good investment for additional income for me.
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Tiny
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Post by Tiny on May 21, 2019 11:11:57 GMT -5
I have a condo in Fort Myers and use a property manager. I decided that my "target audience" renter was someone (or family) that lived and worked in the area - so tenants sign a yearly lease. That decision figured strongly into the cost of, the location, the size/configuration, and type of condo community of the condo I bought. The Property manager takes 10% of rent each month as their management fee. I believe that is close to the standard fee. The property manager advertises the property, screens tenants, collects the rent, coordinates any maintenance issues while the tenant is living in the property. I, of course, am billed for the costs of maintenance, and the re-condition of the condo between tenants. I chose a Property Manager that is affiliated with a large real estate office and that already manages other units in my condo subdivision. I, personally, am uncomfortable with an investment property that is used as a "hotel room" serially by different people over the course of a summer (or Season) and then sits empty for periods of time in between short term renters. I couldn't afford the higher end property that would command a bigger "rent" price, not to mention that I couldn't afford to pay out of pocket for that type of property if I couldn't get enough short term renters. The thing about houses/condos is that they always need "maintenance" of some sort.... over the last 10 years that I've owned the Florida condo - I've had to put a new roof on it, have the decorative cedar shingles repaired and re stained, a new A/C unit, 2 new microwaves, a new washer and dryer, a new stove, new carpeting on the second floor, a new front door and a new glass patio door. And I needed rent (minus all the PM fees and costs) to cover that AND the Mortgage, Taxes, Insurance and HOA fees. Which, thankfully, since I got the unit so inexpensively during the housing crash - it has. The condo doesn't really provide much usable "income" during the year... all of my "value" is tied up in equity. Just some things to think about.
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justme
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Post by justme on May 21, 2019 11:20:01 GMT -5
Are you talking short term or long term rentals?
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souldoubt
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Post by souldoubt on May 21, 2019 11:23:21 GMT -5
I don't own any investment property and have no desire to as it doesn't appeal to me. I know multiple people who do and like anything in life it's a mixed bag. One friend owns multiple properties on the other side of the country that he rents out with the help of an agent. He was touting how good it was and was trying to sell the rest of us as he was talking about forming a trust while trying to get other investors. One of his tenants moved out and he's in the red for years on that property because of how much damage was done to it. When his renter moved out of one of his local properties he had the unit cleaned and found out his property was the one everyone else in the vicinity hated. The renters dogs never stopped barking and the backyard which backed up to a courtyard between multiple properties stunk as she never cleaned it and none of the neighbors could open their windows. Her dogs also tore up his new floors with their nails and he was in the red on that property for quite a while. On the other hand some of his other properties have been rented to families who have always paid on time and the properties are well maintained. My thoughts are if you're worried about a hassle then being a landlord whether or not a management company handles it for you might not be the best investment for you because when it goes bad it's stressful, expensive and a headache.
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Tiny
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Post by Tiny on May 21, 2019 11:36:49 GMT -5
Do you have a property you use for investment purposes that is managed by a management company? I am considering buying a condo near Disneyworld for investment purposes and additional income. It is in a management supervised rental program where they will rent it out for you. I don't know if this would be a good investment for me. I don't know what kind of hassles it might entail on my part. Have you had any experience with this? Some questions to ask: What is the monthly Management Fee? What services does the Property Manager provide? (How do they decide on the rent amount? How will they advertise the rental? How do they screen potential tenants (ie what qualifications do they use?)? How do they handle maintenance calls from the tenant and what service companies do they use and what kind of fees are involved? Will the property manager communicate/work with the HOA? I strongly suspect that most people who buy investment properties do not have much disposable income from a property the first handful of years they own it (unless they paid cash for it and then used cash to get it up to snuff for renting). You will really need to crunch the numbers on the purchase price, the monthly cost of the unit (property taxes, mortgage, insurance, HOA fees, and then utility costs if it's not rented), and any "forseeable" expenses (like appliance replacement, roof, AC, carpeting) and then re-conditioning costs (painting, minor repairs between tenants) and the amount of rent you can expect. For my condo, I've had to transfer the Electric and Water to me... so I could pay the bills between tenants. Thankfully, the Lee County (Fort Myers) Utilities are set up to handle out of state/out of country ownership/bill pay. So I was able to do this online from home. I believe I DID have to send an image of my driver's license though, which was a bit of a pain. It's also several hundred dollars out of pocket when it happens (the utilities have "start up/connection charges" in addition to the monthly usage charges).
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bookkeeper
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Post by bookkeeper on May 21, 2019 12:52:20 GMT -5
Also be aware that air conditioning is a year round expense in Florida. You can't just shut it off when the unit is empty. Mold can grow very quickly in homes that are not air conditioned in Florida.
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TheHaitian
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Post by TheHaitian on May 21, 2019 14:55:09 GMT -5
Be careful buying a condo. HOA feed can be a killer I self-managed 10 units locally until October. I was not being effective as I was way too busy at work. I now have a property manager and my life is so much better. But it is also costing me $15k a year on average so it isn’t cheap. 10 units? If things do not workout with your current boyfriend, give me a call
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 21, 2019 15:03:08 GMT -5
Do you live anywhere near there? Would you be comfortable being a long-distance landlord? I'm not sure I'm cut out to be a landlord period, but I'm positive I wouldn't like having a rental so far away that I couldn't just drop in whenever and check on it.
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ilovedolphins
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Post by ilovedolphins on May 21, 2019 15:05:15 GMT -5
Do you live anywhere near there? Would you be comfortable being a long-distance landlord? I'm not sure I'm cut out to be a landlord period, but I'm positive I wouldn't like having a rental so far away that I couldn't just drop in whenever and check on it. No, I live about 1500 miles from there.
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hoops902
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Post by hoops902 on May 21, 2019 15:19:43 GMT -5
Do you live anywhere near there? Would you be comfortable being a long-distance landlord? I'm not sure I'm cut out to be a landlord period, but I'm positive I wouldn't like having a rental so far away that I couldn't just drop in whenever and check on it. No, I live about 1500 miles from there. So I'm making a generality, but we don't have a lot of details so I'll make it...it seems VERY unlikely that the best possible rental opportunity lies 1500 miles away. Would you be comfortable being a hands-on landlord? Not having to hire a management company? Paying someone else 10% of the income to manage it for you, while also being so far away it could be difficult to manage that management company...it doesn't sound ideal (for the most part the people I hear having something THAT far away is because they used to live there and had the property while in the area...then moved away from the area).
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Miss Tequila
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Post by Miss Tequila on May 21, 2019 15:43:17 GMT -5
Be careful buying a condo. HOA feed can be a killer I self-managed 10 units locally until October. I was not being effective as I was way too busy at work. I now have a property manager and my life is so much better. But it is also costing me $15k a year on average so it isn’t cheap. 10 units? If things do not workout with your current boyfriend, give me a call Lol!
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bookkeeper
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Post by bookkeeper on May 21, 2019 20:30:33 GMT -5
To be fair, I bought an investment property 1400 miles away from my home. I bought for $65,000 and it is now worth a little over $200,000. I bought in a Phoenix suburb in 2011.
I am very happy with my purchase. I don't know if I will keep it forever, but I do enjoy skipping the below zero winter where I am from.
I don't rent it out. When I bought it, I was going to be happy if the market recovered in 10 years. It took 2 years for the value to return to what the original owner paid for it.
It was an investment property that I never expected to generate an income. I had cash to buy it and cash for it's ongoing expenses. The equity was the thing.
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resolution
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Post by resolution on May 22, 2019 7:26:33 GMT -5
(for the most part the people I hear having something THAT far away is because they used to live there and had the property while in the area...then moved away from the area). This is my situation. When I moved away, it was around the time the bubble popped and I didn't want to sell at that price, so I rented it out. Back when the value was lower it was more profitable for me than the stock market would have been, but now that the value has recovered I would probably be better off selling it and investing the money. However, I don't really want to sell it from under a family that has been paying on time every month for nine years and never caused me any trouble. The management company handles all maintenance calls, collects the rent, and direct deposits it to my bank. This year we had to replace the hvac and do some roof repairs, but it was expected due to age.
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countrygirl2
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Post by countrygirl2 on May 22, 2019 9:42:55 GMT -5
We have rentals, hubs does all our work, I do the rental process and take care of all the books. We do well, but its not for everyone. We buy, pay cash, this one is number 8 and due to our age our last one we will put in service. We are totally hands on, not just an investor.
We are currently dumping all the income into the last remodel and paying all the fixed expenses from our current rentals. After that at least a 1/3 will pay for all our property taxes and ins on our home and also expenses from the rentals. We are happy with what we have. We wanted 2 more but we are to old. If we sell the property in Texas likely will buy another house with that money, but one needing way less work then this last one we are working on. In this area we are able to buy houses very inexpensively so that helps us.
People do what you are talking about, how well they do I do not know. Would I do it, no. We want control and all the income from our properties so we are different in that respect. We have rented properties for over 20 years and ours have always had positive cash flow, we would not have bought them otherwise.
Maybe in a large city you might make money from appreciation, we have done that too, but know where we live now it will be minimal. In the instance you are talking about, I'm guessing any benefit would be from appreciation. This has not always come through for people either.
We gross $36k, net $28k, currently, our fixed expenses are low, but we have been dumping the money pretty much into remodels each year since being up here, this is about to end. Next year, fixed is still $8k, net will be $36k, we plan to pay all of our fixed expenses for personal from our income, so it will be a good add. We were to this point in Texas and then with MIL's issues had to sell out and move here and start over again. Hubs has managed to do it in 3 years so far, he retired in 2015. This one will drag it out to 4 years but he loves doing it. That is another thing for us, its not all about income, he thoroughly enjoys working on these. He treats it as a job, goes in around 9, works till about 4. Of course he is free to go and do whatever also.
Just be aware of what its going to cost you to maintain these places, you need to set aside money annually for repairs also and for fixed costs or these "investments" can eat your lunch.
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raeoflyte
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Post by raeoflyte on May 22, 2019 11:05:04 GMT -5
I do and I love it. I'm very hands off right now even though my properties are local, but my parents have been burned by being too hands off too.
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Knee Deep in Water Chloe
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Post by Knee Deep in Water Chloe on May 22, 2019 13:20:33 GMT -5
I've had three rental properties, but it wasn't because I wanted to. It was due to the Great Recession. I couldn't afford to sell the houses, nor could I afford a property manager. If I were to go back to being a landlord, I would prefer to have the financial wherewithal to have a property manager. I'm much too emotional to be good at managing a business, and that's essentially what one has to do with rentals.
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Post by The Walk of the Penguin Mich on May 26, 2019 13:41:39 GMT -5
We thought seriously about a vacation rental in Myrtle Beach. We had been at the facility many times, and were happy with the amenities. The condo was a fantastic price, sale due to death in the family and they needed it gone NOW.
We just could not get the numbers to work. Between the HOA (which were high) and property manager, at best we would have broken even. We did choose conservative numbers, of a 90% occupancy rate in season, 30% off but being 2500 miles away was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
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