Introducing - Multiple Streams of Income Radio Show
January 7th, 2010 by Bernadette
INTRODUCINGMultiple Streams of Income RADIO SHOW w/Bernadette Trafton, Owner, Co-Founder of the Boston Area Real Estate Investors Association
Multiple Streams of Income is an innovative talk radio program that focuses on theneed for multiple streams of income. With the economy raging like the perfect storm around us, we need multiple ways to protect ourselves and our families from what seems like inevitable damage. Join us weekly (Wednesday’s at noon EST) at: http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/68350 Or call into 724-444-7444, Call ID: 68350to hear host Bernadette Trafton interview top rated CPA’s, Lawyers, Real Estate Professions and various business owners who will share their stories, the reason for their chosen businesses and business strategies that have set them up to weather any storm.
Want to learn 23 ways to buy property at deep discounts? Click Here for your free report. Jan 13th - Zack Childress 12:00 pm
Join Bernadette as she interviews Mr. Automation, Zack Childress. Zack made investing in real estate so easy that now anyone can invest from anywhere they have a computer and phone. From Boston Foreclosures to making your Massachusetts real estate agent your best friend. Learn how Zack automates the process.
Jan 20th - James Goddard 12:00 pmJoin Bernadette as she interviews James Goddard, author of Freedom for a Day. Learn how you can remove limitations and have the perfect day!
Jan 27th - Joe Craft 12:00 pm
Join Bernadette as she interviews Joe Craft, CPA Extraordinaire. Learn the importance of mulitple streams of income, the best way to set up your business and how to take the most tax advantages. How does your state, including New Hampshire and Massachusetts Tax Law measure up for investors?
Feb 3rd - Matt Desrochers 12:00 pm
Join Bernadette as she interviews New Hampshire and Massachusetts Attorney Matt Desrochers. Learn the importance of multiple streams of income, how to protect yourself in real estate transactions and and make sure that all your i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed. Matt recently spoke at Boston AREIA regarding the Ibanez Ruling, how to avoid pitfalls as a Massachusetts real estate investor and things to be aware of when working Massachusetts REO’s and pre-foreclosures.
Send Bernadette your questions for speakers at Bernadette@BostonAREIA.com
http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/68350Or call into 724-444-7444, Call ID: 68350
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Another day…
December 7th, 2009 by Maryann
I need to talk to some other investors in our group. When do you say “enough” and hire a property management company? Right now, where we only have the 3 units, I can’t see doing that. We make some money every month, but I just don’t see that we’re making enough to cover the cost of a property management company.
This past weekend was horrible. My new, wonderful tenant moved in. She moved into the 2nd floor tenant’s boyfriend or “friend” calling the cops on her accusing her of purposely hitting his car. I’m not sure exactly WHAT happened, but I know my new tenant was moving in and had trouble with parking. I told her where to park, and the 2nd floor tenant’s friend was in the spot. Now to be fair to the 2nd floor tenant her lease states she has two spots. She is single though, and the only one on the lease, so she doesn’t NEED two. Regardless of that fact, I told her that the new tenant was moving in and where she was parking on the day of move in, so the fact that the spot wasn’t clear for a clean move in shows me her true colors.
This tenant has been an issue from day one. We have bent over backwards for her, but no more. I’m tired of the games she plays. We’ve already decided not to renew her lease. She is section 8, so I’m not sure exactly how that plays into the formula, but I’m giving her 90 days notice that we are not renewing and a notice to vacate and sending it along to the state.
A good tenant should be easy to get along with. That is a sign. This tenant is not easy to get along with. She bucks the system every step of the way. It’s tiring. Last night when we told her to have her guest move so the new tenant could have access to move in, well, that started a &^%storm. From that point, I got the “crazy” emails and well, then the laundry list of things wrong with the apartment. It’s not a good environment for any of the tenants and the two others that I want to keep are getting equally as frustrated.
I’m not sure we have any legal rights other that she is potentially in violation of the lease for having an overnight guest more than 7 days and not having rental insurance. If I push either issue, she’ll push all the problems with leaking the unit has. We have spent over $3500 in the last two months making sure no water gets into her apartment, however, we cannot help if a rain storm blows the door open to the upstairs unit and water comes into her unit.
So, the saga continues…till next week.
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The newbie investor - what I would have done differently
November 29th, 2009 by Maryann
Being a landlord is hard work. We have owned our 3 unit since December and are finally getting it straightened out. It’s been a long road from beginning until now. I really started looking at properties 3 years ago well before the market tanked, and thankfully we waited until this property to purchase last December. So, what would I do differently? Well, I would have joined my local REIA if I knew better. Even though we bought a foreclosed property, there were multiple offers on the property which drove the price up for us. Our original price was $33,000 less than what we offered when we found out other offers were in. Was that the best choice in hindsight? No. I just paid $33,000 more for a house than I thought it was worth. My local REIA would have taught me how to determine the correct value and offer price.
Before our meeting one day I asked Ann to help me determine the cost. She explained it was the ARV * 65% - Rehab costs. Well, we offered at least $12,000 more than that price. What I find interesting about this equation is that all 3 of the appraisals were extremely good, high. If I could sell the house today, I don’t think I could come close to ANY of the appraisals, so your ARV number should be extremely conservative in my opinion. My ARV values were at the tip top of the mountain. This number really is important. It was great because we got our loan, but bad because it was well more than we should have paid for the house.I also would have looked to other investors for buying. I would have tried to find non-mls listed houses, as I think buying direct from an investor could have saved me some money.
I would have EDUCATED myself about what hard money really is and how to work with it. I had a horrible experience. Wish I knew Ann back then. I would have had MORE than one conventional lender set up to roll me OUT of the HML. I put all my eggs in one basket and that basket told me over and over again, “you’re all set”, only to find out when it was time to come out, we WEREN’T all set and he couldn’t do the loan. That mishap cost me two months more in a hard money loan that I didn’t need. Honestly? Next time, I’m not sure I would buy a rehab. I love the house, but we have been out there quite frequently for repairs. A few weeks ago the 2nd floor unit flooded. We just had no idea the pitfalls of bank owned.Because we haven’t owned the house for a year, we’re going through all seasons with it now and see how each season is affecting the house.I would have set up my leases just a tad differently. Mainly, no “grace period” on rent collection.Now, all of the above seems pretty negative, but would I do this again? HELL YES!!! I need to concentrate on getting steady income from all 3 units which is about to happen – THANK YOU GOD for my new tenant! She asked me how fast she could get a deposit to me? Can you IMAGINE that? I think once she is in the apartment and we start a flow of rents going, we should be all set.
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It’s a great December!
November 29th, 2009 by Maryann
(Hmmm - this was supposed to be published LAST WEEK - Obviously I’m having technical difficulties so you get TWO wonderful blogs from me this week!!)
It’s been difficult. Our one 3 units has not been immune to problem issues, tenants, etc. Thankfully we’ve worked hard to resolve most things. Last month we had severe water damage in our 2nd floor apartment which led to us ripping out a rotted wall and replacing. We also installed gutters that should alleviate some of the excess water. Interestingly this water came in from one storm. We had all that water last July and NO PROBLEMS. We had one bad storm two weekends ago that ruined a wall, and some of the tenants stuff. Even her mattress got soaked. Now I realize her renter’s insurance should cover this stuff, HOWEVER, I’m a bad landlord and never got a copy of the insurance so I expect that there is none. I will send along a waiver next month. She is our section 8 tenant too, so she only pays a portion of the rent. We told her to exclude it this month. I am going to send her along a credit for that amount, so she realizes that December rent is the only rent that she won’t need to come up with the difference. We have been searching for a new tenant for three months. Is that a long time? It feels like it. To have an apartment sit empty for three months is killing us. I know it doesn’t seem long, but it really helps to have all three units rented. Once this new tenant is in place, I will likely take the old tenant to court. She left us high and dry 3 months into a 12 month lease. I’m going to sue for the three months total rent and then the difference between the newly reduced rent from our new tenant to what we would have got if she never left, which is $175 dollars. The total amount is $2800. I think it costs me $100 to file paperwork for small claims. Soooo, we found a new amazing tenant. We found her by chance. She has a better credit score than me at this point and a
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The money pit?
November 15th, 2009 by Maryann
I’m waiting to see the joys of being a landlord. This week the prospective tenant from meetup.com stood me up, my second floor apartment has water coming in all side and I STILL don’t have the bottom floor rented.
I got a call this weekend from the second floor apartment tenant. Now we have had some water issues in the apartment which I thought were remedied, but apparently not. There was water coming in behind her fridge and part of the wall was rotted. No, I’m not happy. She is very very anxious about it as well as I am. So, we are back out there for another day of trying to isolate where the water is coming in from. I will say the house needs gutters so WHERE are the gutter installation guys??? The water is pouring down the side of the house like a waterfall. Not fun. It’s collected in a huge pool between our land and the neighbor’s house. I have a feeling that could be some of the problem. We need to get the water out into the street. So, how do you mess with Mother Nature? Not sure. The water coming in before was from a drain in the upstairs apartment which is where we thought we had isolated and stopped the problem. Actually, I think we did, but now this new rain issue is beyond our control. So, I’ve got calls into gutter people and contractors to see about getting this unit squared away and how much it will cost. Uggg…talk about the money pit.
Right now I’m loosing money on this building. Until we get the 3rd bedroom rented, I pay $100 a month towards it. That doesn’t include what I pay in water quarterly which is around $200. I need to get the bottom rented. We did have a prospective tenant say she loved it and took the application. She did say she has less than stellar credit. Great. Who has applied that has HAD great credit? No one! So basically you’re choosing between a 520 credit score and a 480 credit score. Neither seem great. One thing I will say is I do check where they were late and how much. I mean, anyone can have a 30 day late posted by accident, so if it’s a minimal amount, then I’m not ready to jump to harsh judgement. I also believe Mr. Landlord was correct that if there is a ding for non paid medical, that doesn’t seem as bad. Anyways, I do scrutinize the credit report, but the days of great credit do seem to be gone.
Ok – Off to fix the wall in the 2nd floor apartment and see about getting the water out of it!! Gutter people…CALL ME!!
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A new tactic!
November 7th, 2009 by Maryann
So, I will admit up front I’m NOT a fan of social networking on a personal level. Let me clarify that a bit more. I do a lot of social network posting for Bernadette and Ann and BostonAREIA. I see HUGE benefits for the business aspects of social networking. It’s a very different approach than direct marketing. I would tell anyone running a business to get their web presence up on line and running. It helps with branding and absolutely makes you more approachable as a business.
Now, that said, I don’t want what I ate for breakfast out there for the world to see. I won’t post my picture or any of my family’s pictures up on the internet, as I just personally think this invites trouble. I don’t necessarily care what YOU ate for breakfast either and think social networking on a personal level takes up FAR too much of my valuable time, but again, this is just my opinion and I have heard the heated other side. TRUST ME.
So, I’m going to sort of eat crow here…SORT OF…I got desperate with my open unit. The price is down to $750 and we’re not getting a line of qualified applicants. I need to remind everyone, two months ago I was getting $875. Now it doesn’t seem like ALL that much of a difference, but it’s a LOT for me. So this week I logged onto Meetup.com. After two open houses with no shows, and numerous people calling saying they want to see it and either not showing up or not even bothering to fill out an application, Meetup.com was a different approach for me. Don’t get me wrong, Craigslist is great, but I had to expand. We tried sending info to the HR department at hospitals about the open apartment, I sent info into the chamber of commerce for the town, I HAVE tried alternative approaches to Craigslist, but NOT Meetup.com.
So, I do have a Meetup account that I use, but it hasn’t been used in maybe 2 years. Obviously I’m NOT a Meetup kind of person, but one thing stuck with me that Mr. Landlord said when he came to speak. TARGET your market. Hit those people you WANT in your apartment rather than HOPING someone will apply (such as posting on Craigslist) – So last weekend, I went to work. I searched local groups and found ANYTHING with “professional” in the title of the group was a group I wanted to post to.
Well, it was about an hour’s worth of work, but I made one nice contact. Someone emailed me off the posts, and she’s a professional (WHAAAAAA HOOOOOO). She has a picture of herself and her gorgeous dog, and people, she has a GREAT JOB!! She WANTS to be close to Newburyport and Portsmouth and guess what!! We’re the mid point. So, here I am again, HOPING she is a great fit for us.
So there IS something to social networking. I still refuse to do it on a personal level, but professionally, it ROCKS.
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Where have all the good tenants gone???
October 29th, 2009 by Maryann
Well, it’s getting frustrating. I’m a ½ glass full kind of person that’s feeling ½ glass empty about this bottom floor apartment. THE ONE applicant we had was certainly not the cream of the crop, but I called to have him fax a copy of a paystub and he never even returned our calls. SOOOOOO…..here we are again.
We’re left to drop the rent ANOTHER $50. We’re at a very low point. I can’t believe we were collecting $875 two months ago and are now at $750. I called the Realtor that sold us the house and he explained we could do a “winter” rental. I’m at a loss. I do think we could potentially re-rent in May for the $875 again, but WHO WANTS to move in the fall and winter…NO THANK YOU. I get it. I wouldn’t want to move now either, but if we rent for $750 now then we have to take that for the year and I’m not sure we want to do it. I might even drop it to $700 and try to ONLY get a winter rental so I have the chance at getting more money next year.
The whole thing is rotten. Ok, I know I’m miserable right now, but at this point I want to get a good paying warm body in there. Am I wrong?
I have to say I LOVED Mr. Landlord. His tips were incredible, but I’m finding it difficult to get the price we once had and we are trying to advertise in a different manner.
Well, I’m going to put together a new ad. Wish me luck. $750 it is. I’ll post next week and let you know.
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Online Marketing Article for MA Real Estate Investors and Agents
October 12th, 2009 by Bernadette
Hi folks, I found this article by Duncan Wierman that focuses on internet marketing for real estate investors and agents. I thought it might be pertinent for our Massachusetts and Boston Area Real Estate Investors and Agents.
Internet Marketing For Real Estate Investors and Agents
By Duncan Wierman
Today online marketing has become key for many businesses and real estate is no exception. The Internet has become the first place most potential homeowners search when looking for the perfect property so with this in mind it goes without saying that today’s real estate investors must have an effective web presence in order to continue being successful even through these tough times.
I feel it is safe to say that the most dramatic and important changes to happen to the real estate industry has been brought about due to the Internet and all real estate agents and investors should embrace it. This is especially true when you think about the fact that there are over 2,000,000 searches for the keywords ‘real estate’ everyday on the major search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN; just think of the amount of potential customers that this could bring to your business and best of all with an online presence your real estate business will remain open 24/7, so you will never miss out on closing a deal. There is however one thing that you need to keep in mind, which is the fact that in order for your real estate business to do any good online you need to ensure it’s ranked high within the search engine results pages.
When a potential property buyer performs a search on one of the many search engines they will type in something that resembles the name of their city and the keywords real estate. In order for them to stand any chance of clicking on your site you need to generally appear within the first two pages of the results. This is thanks to the fact that 80% of people never look further than the first page of the search engine results and 95% of people never make it past the second page of results. Basically if your site isn’t ranked within the first two pages you will be receiving little or no traffic. So how do you get your real estate website to appear in these positions? Through Internet marketing of course.
There are a number of advantages to Internet marketing for real estate investors. Because of the numerous advantages Internet Marketing is offering to both investors and their clients, it has become more and more of a popular platform for all competitive real estate investors. Some of the main advantages that Internet marketing for real estate investors are as follows:
1. It is a lot quicker - clients can double the amount of homes they can sell when they are listed online as oppose to going through real estate agents.
2. Clients can easily narrow down their search to find the property they want
3. Due to the fact the more potential homeowners are now of the younger generation, they grew up using the Internet in their daily lives so they are more likely to find a property by using the Internet.
Websites, thanks to Internet marketing are more appealing than other promotional material such as brochures. Also by using websites to promote and sell real estate, communication is easier and cheaper as it is all done by email.
The Internet is now the best way to buy and sell all forms of real estate so if you are in the business of doing this make sure you get on board with it now
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And the search continues..
October 9th, 2009 by Maryann
And the search continues…. We haven’t found the ideal tenant yet. I’ll be honest and say we have not been aggressive in our search. There are a few things that have worked well. I keep in close contact with the great Realtor that sold us the house. He has always been a good referral source for us, so when we lost the first floor tenant, he was one of the first people I called. He has referred two people to us as we’ve been searching. Right now I’m waiting to be contacted by one of the two.
Obviously another good referral source and probably my favorite is Craigslist. I’ve found some interesting things out about Craigslist. If you’re searching for a good tenant and advertising an apartment you really need to update the ad probably every other day. Every time I’ve reposted my ad, I get a small handful of calls and emails. I haven’t been as active and good about this as I could have been. So, if you want to get it rented be on top of reposting. When you repost, you really need to delete the previous ad or Craigslist won’t let you repost it. I’ve found something else that’s quite interesting about Craigslist. You can be “ghosted” – I you don’t know what that means, do a little search on it. I was ghosted. It’s very very frustrating because even at this moment, I don’t know why, but in a nutshell I can’t post ads that will be seen by the masses from my email account. So, we had a small handful of people take applications on Wednesday this week. We did get an application that looks promising on the surface. I still need to check his employment, and credit. I say he looks good on the surface because he’s rented in the same spot for over 3 year and then 2 years in another spot. That shows a bit of stability to me. He worked at one company for 4 years and then left and has been at Best Buy for 2 years. Again, he’s not job jumping so it looks like he’s a bit stable. I also had a brief conversation with him on the phone and well, he seems eager and can hold a decent conversation. You would be shocked at some of the conversations I’ve had. Anyways, if his credit check doesn’t scare me completely he looks good on paper. He make just about 3X the rent which is a must and it’s just him. That apartment only has a spot for 1 car. Keep your fingers crossed everyone!! I’ll check in next week and let you know how it goes.
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Still looking…can’t wait for Jeff Taylor to talk this month
October 3rd, 2009 by Maryann
I can’t wait for Mr. Landlord to come to the next meeting. Since we lost our bottom floor tenant, we have renovated again, painted, cleaned and freshened up our beautiful one bedroom. We have dropped the price progressively and had some prospects.
I’m not feeling the anxiety 100% yet, but I want to get this apartment rented. The two other apartments cover the mortgage, but if I loose one more tenant, there will be trouble on the horizon.
I will say one thing I’ve learned in all of this is how to word my lease. Even though we lost the first floor tenant, which was out of our control, I’m very confident in the lease itself and what we had in place. One change I do intend to make to the lease is removing the “grace period” if the rent is late. I have learned that’s NOT a good option to give tenants as suddenly the 5 day grace period, becomes the new due date each month. It really frustrates me, and I had to quickly adjust my expectations. The beauty about re-renting the first floor, is I have the opportunity to change what I now know I don’t like about our current lease. I’ve read a lot from different gurus and landlords and there is all sorts of different opinions out there on “grace periods”, but from my perspective at this point, it doesn’t work. I read about a landlord last week who gave incentives to pay the rent on time. He paid his tenants $25 if they paid the rent on time or gave them $25 off the rent. I personally can’t see this. I guess this works for him, but the way I look at it is WHY should I reward someone for doing what they are contracted to? Imagine if my credit card company gave me a $25 credit for paying my bill on time? Imagine if my utility company gave me a credit for paying my electric on time? I think you get my point. I’m given the privilege to pay my bills within a certain time frame or then I typically encounter a late fee. Do you know when that occurs? It occurs the first day that I’m late on a payment. So my
Some landlords I’ve read about charge a daily fee. So let’s say they are late on the 1st. Each day after the first the tenant is charged $5. I like this idea, but almost feel it’s not enough incentive to pay on time. So let’s say I pay on the 2nd, a $5 fee is not to bad to swallow. Obviously, if they are 7 days late they would owe me $35. I just don’t think that’s enough incentive. I’m going to see if I can charge a $70 late fee the first day late. I think if they are 7 days late, that fee will double to $140, and so on. For me, that would be true incentive. I’m certainly open to ideas on this.
This is why I can’t wait to see what Mr. Landlord says this month at Boston AREIA. My newbie status is showing in a big way and I think he’ll be fascinating to hear about.
So keep posted for the trials and tribulations of filling our open apartment. I hope Mr. Landlord can give us some ideas for quickly filling this as well. I suppose I could drop the price again, but it really will eat into our profit. I guess this is what all landlords face. When it comes down to it, it’s more important to get a good quality tenant in the apartment. So, I may have just answered my own problem, but I’m STILL waiting to see what Mr. Landlord will say this month.
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