Post: #51

(06-07-2017 09:49 PM)RoastBeefCurtains4Me Wrote:  If you want to be able to potentially rent it, I'd get an apartment in the most walkable area near you, and try to optimize its potential as an airbnb rental. Make sure any HOA or local city regulations allow this. If not, find a different building or municipality where you can.

For several years I've been very interested in potentially buying a dedicated AirBNB property however I lean towards the traditional landlord model. I deal with one person or one family, they are long term tenants, for the most part it's very passive I setup auto deposit of their rent and as long as there's no problems with the house I could go years without ever speaking to my tenant or having to do anything beyond simply login to my bank once a month to make sure rent hits.

With AirBNB I imagine it's more active in terms of managing it. You have to manage your AirBNB account I imagine on a daily or at least weekly basis as you have a new tenant all the time. You have to figure out a way to have someone clean and stock the apartment between tenants, you need to arrange to access of the property to people everyday or several times a week.

I'd be curious to know any of you who do this what your strategy is. I imagine hiring a cleaning lady is fairly easy, I know you can use smart locks with apps that let you change passcodes between tenants, still though it just seems more hands on to me than the traditional landlord thing.

The other thing I'm curious about is that I realize if you have 100% occupancy your going to make way more off AirBNB rates than you would a traditional rent payment. For example at $100 per night you'll make 3k a month where as traditionally that place may only rent for $1500, however it's also a lot less work to do things the traditional way. I wonder what occupancy rates are even in a popular tourist destination or business district or very walkable area. I mean if you have a 50% occupancy rate I wouldd imagine your doing more work than a traditional landlord and making about the same money however if you have the place always occupied I imagine you'll make much more than with a traditional lease.

Post: #52

I AirBnB my place for 2 months a year while I go away on holidays.

Even when I put my place up for a full month, it tends to get 'full' only over the weekends, despite the discount I offer for weekly or monthly rentals. Averaged out, I am sure I would make more with a full time tenant, but this is not an option. I live there.

I use a cleaning service that specialized in this type of rental. They cost a bit more, but they take care of the sheets/towels and anything else associated.

I live in a high rise, so I use a key drop service called 'KeyCafe' where the cafe below me has digital wall safe boxes so the guest punches in a code to get my keys and fob.

I rent a full concrete bunker in the bowels of my building to store all my personal things. I move everything into labeled bins, onto a dolly and down the elevator into the bunker. This takes me four hours now.

Anything left behind I could care less about. AirBnB insurance covers all this easily. Some people can't believe I would let strangers into my home while I am not there. At first I thought it might bother me, but it never did. Its 4 walls in a concrete high rise. Who cares if a stranger takes a shit in my toilet bangs on bed (I have a complete separate AirBnB bin for towels, sheets, shampoo, soap, etc)

This is an extra $10k a year for me, and pays all my holidays. I can't imagine having to go back to paying for them out of pocket. But Vancouver is fucking retarded sometimes and is trying to make AirBnB illegal, so we will see.

Post: #53

Lots of RE naysayers in here it seems like. All the guys with experience in real estate seem to have mostly bad things about it. Shame.

I'm looking to purchase a rental property hopefully next year. Something multi-unit preferably (a duplex ideally).

I don't know a lot about RE yet, but if I was in OP's position (married, starting a family) I would certainly want a home. Renting of course has it benefits of alleviating a lot of personal responsibility for the property and the freedom to leave if you please, but to the same token it's actually a pretty volatile living situation. Rent can get hiked up yearly, you need to go through middle men to get repairs done, you can make any alterations to the property, and what if your property owner sells? The new owner may just kick you and your family out so they can move in or renovate and rent to new tenents etc. This happened to my mother. She had been renting a modest condo in a highrise for almost 10 years. One day she got a call from her property management that some people would be coming in to look at the property here and there over the next couple weeks, and then next thing you now she got a notice saying the homeowner sold the property and she had 30 days to get out. Also saw this happen to a multi-family home where I was renting the garage for storage. Property was sold and all the tenants were moved out within a month.

Property is an asset, and it's never worthless (barring something insane like the dirt becoming heavily irradiated due to some catastrophe or something). Also, unlike renting, you can pay as much as you can towards and eventually you own it and all you are paying for is taxes and insurance.

Post: #54

(06-08-2017 09:50 AM)Laner Wrote:  I AirBnB my place for 2 months a year while I go away on holidays.

Even when I put my place up for a full month, it tends to get 'full' only over the weekends, despite the discount I offer for weekly or monthly rentals. Averaged out, I am sure I would make more with a full time tenant, but this is not an option. I live there.

I use a cleaning service that specialized in this type of rental. They cost a bit more, but they take care of the sheets/towels and anything else associated.

I live in a high rise, so I use a key drop service called 'KeyCafe' where the cafe below me has digital wall safe boxes so the guest punches in a code to get my keys and fob.

I rent a full concrete bunker in the bowels of my building to store all my personal things. I move everything into labeled bins, onto a dolly and down the elevator into the bunker. This takes me four hours now.

Anything left behind I could care less about. AirBnB insurance covers all this easily. Some people can't believe I would let strangers into my home while I am not there. At first I thought it might bother me, but it never did. Its 4 walls in a concrete high rise. Who cares if a stranger takes a shit in my toilet bangs on bed (I have a complete separate AirBnB bin for towels, sheets, shampoo, soap, etc)

This is an extra $10k a year for me, and pays all my holidays. I can't imagine having to go back to paying for them out of pocket. But Vancouver is fucking retarded sometimes and is trying to make AirBnB illegal, so we will see.

It's reassuring to hear that renting your place out to strangers didn't bother you as much as expected. I'm soon to rent out my place full-time due to heading overseas and having spent a lot of time and effort fixing the place up, i'm finding the idea of (albeit vetted) strangers living here a little disconcerting. I've always refused to fall into the trap of 'the things you own end up owning you' a la Fight Club, and have minimalism down to an art form, but it's funny how you can still grow attached to shit.

Getting the personal stuff out and into storage will no doubt help; once the place is just walls, floor and ceiling I'm sure it will be a lot easier to leave

Post: #55

(06-08-2017 01:51 PM)Scuba_Instructor Wrote:  

(06-08-2017 09:50 AM)Laner Wrote:  I AirBnB my place for 2 months a year while I go away on holidays.

Even when I put my place up for a full month, it tends to get 'full' only over the weekends, despite the discount I offer for weekly or monthly rentals. Averaged out, I am sure I would make more with a full time tenant, but this is not an option. I live there.

I use a cleaning service that specialized in this type of rental. They cost a bit more, but they take care of the sheets/towels and anything else associated.

I live in a high rise, so I use a key drop service called 'KeyCafe' where the cafe below me has digital wall safe boxes so the guest punches in a code to get my keys and fob.

I rent a full concrete bunker in the bowels of my building to store all my personal things. I move everything into labeled bins, onto a dolly and down the elevator into the bunker. This takes me four hours now.

Anything left behind I could care less about. AirBnB insurance covers all this easily. Some people can't believe I would let strangers into my home while I am not there. At first I thought it might bother me, but it never did. Its 4 walls in a concrete high rise. Who cares if a stranger takes a shit in my toilet bangs on bed (I have a complete separate AirBnB bin for towels, sheets, shampoo, soap, etc)

This is an extra $10k a year for me, and pays all my holidays. I can't imagine having to go back to paying for them out of pocket. But Vancouver is fucking retarded sometimes and is trying to make AirBnB illegal, so we will see.

It's reassuring to hear that renting your place out to strangers didn't bother you as much as expected. I'm soon to rent out my place full-time due to heading overseas and having spent a lot of time and effort fixing the place up, i'm finding the idea of (albeit vetted) strangers living here a little disconcerting. I've always refused to fall into the trap of 'the things you own end up owning you' a la Fight Club, and have minimalism down to an art form, but it's funny how you can still grow attached to shit.

Getting the personal stuff out and into storage will no doubt help; once the place is just walls, floor and ceiling I'm sure it will be a lot easier to leave

I keep all my furniture and kitchen shit in there. By personal I mean clothes, albums and things that have some sentimental value. Anything that can be replaced with money, I don't give a shit about! It does feel good.

Post: #56

If it's just full for the weekends I don't think it could be worth it to let out. That's only around 8 days a month. If you are going for 2 months I assume you have a pretty flexible work situation. But Why not just rent to a friend if you have dates fixed in advance.

Post: #57

To the people espousing condos- I suggest avoiding owning them for personal use. The rules they have can be very limiting for what you want to do (such as changing your oil), and the HOAs will absolutely eat your money over time, as there's nothing to keep them from raising. As well, HOAs and Condos that offer community amenities can absolutely suck if they don't consistently offer or upgrade them. I used to live in a condo (as a renter), and the gym was a joke and the pool and hottub was only open 3 months out of the year. I was able to pack up and leave, but all the owners were stuck with the shitty rules.

I also used to live in a luxury apartment right next to a set of condos. Our gym was nicer and our pool and hottub were fixed in a day, whereas they went months without it. The condos have you on lock and it's not easy to leave, so they're less responsive. Apartments know their customers can exit at the end of each lease, and create bad publicity, so they tend to be very receptive (at least the higher end ones- ours gave a 100 dollar discount for a Yelp review)

Post: #58

Just going to add my $.02 here.

I bought in Vegas, knowing that I'll be here for at least several years if not longer. Buying here is probably the single best thing I've done for my net worth. I bought a 20 year old home that's had 2 major renovations done, and this place, for all intents and purposes, IS my dream home. Yes there's maintenance, yes I'm sitting on 2 AC units that could crap out at any moment (which would cost $14,000 to replace both) but overall I strongly feel that I'm poised to use this place for eventual location independence.

I rent out a room on airbnb that brings in about $800 per month. My total PITI payment is roughly 22% of my take home income (not including airbnb revenue), and every month I pay an extra $1000 against my principal if not more. My home value has shot up significantly in the 1+ year that I've owned it and that's confirmed by comps in my area. There's no HOA and thank god my neighbors have the decency to not keep cars on cinder blocks in their front yard.

I looked at at least 30 homes before finding my place and I feel it's a diamond in the rough. There's a LOT of shitty homes in Vegas. The overall craftsmanship here is terrible BUT, for a major city there is still great bang for your buck, at least compared to what I was used to in L.A. With everything that's coming to Vegas, Raiders, Resorts World and other developments, tech companies, I'm predicting quite a big boom here over the next 5 years and high demand for quality homes. My ultimate goal is to pay off my house within 5 years and rent it out.

If I was forced to live in L.A. I would look at buying a condo. At the age of 35 I will never ever rent ever again (except rooms overseas for traveling obviously). I'd try to find a place with $150 condo fees and certainly nothing over $300.

I'd say the 2 things that are absolutely crucial are finding the right real estate agent and home inspector. I would never cold call a real estate company for assistance or use somebody I didn't know. I would through my social network (which I did) and find someone with at least 5+ years experience. A good agent will direct you to a good inspector, contractor, plumber, electrician, damn near anything you would need when facing home ownership.

Home ownership obviously presents more responsibility and risks. Do your homework in order to reap the benefits. Owning a home means you're responsible for plumbing, gas, water, garbage, security, painting, structural, pest control, landscaping, cleaning, hvac...there's a lot that can go wrong, but the benefit is when you upgrade or renovate, in most cases it goes towards the value of your home.

Post: #59

Veloce, how are you managing such a good haul from Air BnB? I feel like with all the casinos and hotels are super cheap prices there'd be steep competition

Post: #60

(06-12-2017 09:34 PM)Sonoma Wrote:  Veloce, how are you managing such a good haul from Air BnB? I feel like with all the casinos and hotels are super cheap prices there'd be steep competition

The people I rent to are looking for month-to-month rentals. There are a lot of professionals looking to buy a home or are just starting a new job in Vegas and looking for month-to-month accommodations. Also a lot of convention business. I work a lot and the people I've rented to are pretty stoked to get full use of my house with the kitchen, washer/dryer, back patio, ample parking etc.

I don't get any requests from partiers seeing as how I'm 15-20 min from the strip. I probably wouldn't rent to them anyway.

Post: #61

If you're looking to buy, the best site I know of to check for listings is realtor.com, an ex's father was a broker and turned me onto it. Accurate and up to date database unlike the third party sites, although they only have houses listed on the MLS, so no FSBO properties. I bought my place after looking at 20-30 in person and probably 1000+ online. The beat up house in a good neighborhood as someone mentioned, no HOA (instant dealbreaker for me), little bit of land but still near the action. In ~ two years it has nearly doubled in value vs what I paid for it, which admittedly was well under market.

If you're looking to live there and don't mind getting a little dirty you can get some killer deals on Homepath "First Look" foreclosures, that are unavailable to investors for the first 20 days. As a buying condition you have to live there for at least a year. I missed the first property but got the second at about $10k over listed.

One thing I'd change - if I could do it again I'd tell my agent to listen to me and just submit the friggin bid for full price - I wanted to avoid the offer process to get it locked down more quickly since if you offer less than asking it has to go through more channels at Fannie Mae and takes longer, but he convinced me that he could save me a few thousand bucks or they'd pay my closing fees or something and in the several days it took to process the request they got another offer and I had to pay $10k more. Know your market and check it regularly and when you see a deal jump on it!

There is nothing you can't do to your home if you have access to the internet. Back in the day I taught myself all I needed to know about residential electrical with little more than half a day with a $10 Black and Decker book. And now with Youtube it's even easier. None of this stuff is as difficult as you might think, just comes down to the old time is money thing, and how much time do you have. Of course, it's best to know something of residential construction before you venture into the market so you can assess how much time and money it's going to take you, before you bite off more than you can chew.

It's not just for familes either, I'm a single (with a GF who lives elsewhere) guy. I don't have the first date bang logistics of someone paying $750,000 for a 1br condo an hour away from me, but I still do pretty well, and I can work on one of my several cars in the driveway or garage and then come upstairs and kick back with a drink in front of the real wood fireplace with room to spare, and that's what I wanted. And it's what the woman that I'll eventually share the place with should want too.

Post: #62

(06-08-2017 01:51 PM)Scuba_Instructor Wrote:  It's reassuring to hear that renting your place out to strangers didn't bother you as much as expected. I'm soon to rent out my place full-time due to heading overseas and having spent a lot of time and effort fixing the place up, i'm finding the idea of (albeit vetted) strangers living here a little disconcerting. I've always refused to fall into the trap of 'the things you own end up owning you' a la Fight Club, and have minimalism down to an art form, but it's funny how you can still grow attached to shit.

Getting the personal stuff out and into storage will no doubt help; once the place is just walls, floor and ceiling I'm sure it will be a lot easier to leave

The thing you and many others miss from this concern is this:

(06-08-2017 03:10 PM)Laner Wrote:  I keep all my furniture and kitchen shit in there. By personal I mean clothes, albums and things that have some sentimental value. Anything that can be replaced with money, I don't give a shit about! It does feel good.

So many people are worried about the "expensive" stuff getting broken and they forget to realize that the only valuable stuff is the sentimental or the stuff that's easily replaceable. Have a 60" TV? Make your security deposit high enough to cover replacing it and then stop fucking stressing about it. If you are renting out a place short-term and you are renting to someone who would break a TV or do major damage, either your price is too low or you're not being selective enough when renting. Professional travelers, families, responsible adults not looking to party are who you're looking for.

(06-08-2017 07:11 PM)worldtraveler3 Wrote:  If it's just full for the weekends I don't think it could be worth it to let out. That's only around 8 days a month. If you are going for 2 months I assume you have a pretty flexible work situation. But Why not just rent to a friend if you have dates fixed in advance.

Renting to a friend in advance? How many friends do you have exactly that need a place for only a month or two? This is an extremely rare situation, so I'm surprised you'd suggest it as an easy alternative.

He's in a nice area with high demand from travelers/tourists, so his weekend rates I'm sure are high enough to make it worth it.

(06-08-2017 09:50 AM)Laner Wrote:  Anything left behind I could care less about. AirBnB insurance covers all this easily. Some people can't believe I would let strangers into my home while I am not there. At first I thought it might bother me, but it never did. Its 4 walls in a concrete high rise. Who cares if a stranger takes a shit in my toilet bangs on bed (I have a complete separate AirBnB bin for towels, sheets, shampoo, soap, etc)

This is an extra $10k a year for me, and pays all my holidays. I can't imagine having to go back to paying for them out of pocket. But Vancouver is fucking retarded sometimes and is trying to make AirBnB illegal, so we will see.

While I'm not recommending people do short-term rentals on their place. A nice unit (like Laner's sounds like), in a high demand location, can definitely bring in pretty decent income. If you're willing to take a shit in a hotel bathroom after it's professionally cleaned, which has had thousands of people shit in it, what's the difference between that and your toilet? They make waterproof/spill proof mattress pads and you could use completely different sheets/towels.

The downside is that you can only make any decent coin on short term rentals if your place is in a great location for tourism/visitors and sleeps a decent amount of people. There's not much money usually in shared situations (where you have 2 bedrooms and rent out the other bedroom only and they share the rest of the space). Best bet is multi-bedroom homes that people can rent the entirety of (focus on families and working professionals in town for conferences/events) in a high end area.

I have a friend who rents out his 2 bedroom when he travels and it usually pays for most/all of his vacation expenses. The added benefits he has are that his place is always ready to go which means he doesn't accumulate a bunch of shit in his place (minimalist) and it's almost always clean/picked up. Further, in order to attract more rentals he's upgraded his place so he gets to enjoy his place even more as it has higher end furniture/appliances/decorations than he would if he just lived there.

It is not for everyone, and most places won't have enough demand to actually make any real income, but it can definitely be a strategy for some money success given the right situation.

The same factors apply to any very small business/sole propietorship. Even if you're not doing the cleaning or maintenance yourself, you've gotta be on top of cleaning, maintenance, mundane paperwork/office work, responding to potential guests quickly, inspecting the property well, dealing with the inevitable issue that comes up, and of course keeping the neighbors happy by doing solid screening and making sure your occasional or full time business doesn't get fined/shut down.

Post: #63

Jeebus Vegas is cheap

https://www.redfin.com/NV/Las-Vegas/1664...e/29467656

Post: #64

@Aneroid:

Your friends situation is exactly like mine.

Because we have our system down, I can have my whole family packed and moved in under 4 hours now. Its actually a liberating feeling. The first time we set this up, it took a few hours a day for almost 5 days. So we have come a long way.

I think even kids enjoy it. I know my son does, packing boxes, riding dollies, fetching cold beers. Its exciting and he has never complained about his toys going away. Even though he is young, he sees the bigger picture and knows that the excitement of travel far exceeds the short term enjoyment of playing with toys. His play during this time is imagination, which is triggered through things like boredom (packing is very mundane!).

Also, because this is taxable income, we take some of the money and use it to renovate, buy new sheets or kitchen supplies. Keeping the place well designed is good for pricing and good for our lifestyle too.

Post: #65

(06-09-2017 07:14 AM)Sonoma Wrote:  To the people espousing condos- I suggest avoiding owning them for personal use. The rules they have can be very limiting for what you want to do (such as changing your oil), and the HOAs will absolutely eat your money over time, as there's nothing to keep them from raising. As well, HOAs and Condos that offer community amenities can absolutely suck if they don't consistently offer or upgrade them. I used to live in a condo (as a renter), and the gym was a joke and the pool and hottub was only open 3 months out of the year. I was able to pack up and leave, but all the owners were stuck with the shitty rules.

I also used to live in a luxury apartment right next to a set of condos. Our gym was nicer and our pool and hottub were fixed in a day, whereas they went months without it. The condos have you on lock and it's not easy to leave, so they're less responsive. Apartments know their customers can exit at the end of each lease, and create bad publicity, so they tend to be very receptive (at least the higher end ones- ours gave a 100 dollar discount for a Yelp review)

You aren't kidding about HOA's. Here in Chicago we have some amazing condos. My girl used to live in Aqua which had an olympic swimming pool with underwater stereos, acres of walking paths, movie rooms, an amazing fitness centre, coneirge all the bells and whistles. It cost a fortune though.

I was at the beach near Edgewater the other day and was curious how much the condos across the street cost. To my suprrise there were studios for $80,000, two bedrooms for as little as $130,000. The buildings weren't really outdated or anything either. The catch however is association fees were like $860 per month if not more. While you can get an affordable mortgage payment you pretty much are going to be paying double after fees and those aren't even deductable so kind of turned me off to the idea of grabbing one for a rental.

Post: #66

(06-13-2017 09:16 PM)Gorgiass Wrote:  If you're looking to buy, the best site I know of to check for listings is realtor.com, an ex's father was a broker and turned me onto it. Accurate and up to date database unlike the third party sites, although they only have houses listed on the MLS, so no FSBO properties. I bought my place after looking at 20-30 in person and probably 1000+ online. The beat up house in a good neighborhood as someone mentioned, no HOA (instant dealbreaker for me), little bit of land but still near the action. In ~ two years it has nearly doubled in value vs what I paid for it, which admittedly was well under market.

If you're looking to live there and don't mind getting a little dirty you can get some killer deals on Homepath "First Look" foreclosures, that are unavailable to investors for the first 20 days. As a buying condition you have to live there for at least a year. I missed the first property but got the second at about $10k over listed.

One thing I'd change - if I could do it again I'd tell my agent to listen to me and just submit the friggin bid for full price - I wanted to avoid the offer process to get it locked down more quickly since if you offer less than asking it has to go through more channels at Fannie Mae and takes longer, but he convinced me that he could save me a few thousand bucks or they'd pay my closing fees or something and in the several days it took to process the request they got another offer and I had to pay $10k more. Know your market and check it regularly and when you see a deal jump on it!

There is nothing you can't do to your home if you have access to the internet. Back in the day I taught myself all I needed to know about residential electrical with little more than half a day with a $10 Black and Decker book. And now with Youtube it's even easier. None of this stuff is as difficult as you might think, just comes down to the old time is money thing, and how much time do you have. Of course, it's best to know something of residential construction before you venture into the market so you can assess how much time and money it's going to take you, before you bite off more than you can chew.

It's not just for familes either, I'm a single (with a GF who lives elsewhere) guy. I don't have the first date bang logistics of someone paying $750,000 for a 1br condo an hour away from me, but I still do pretty well, and I can work on one of my several cars in the driveway or garage and then come upstairs and kick back with a drink in front of the real wood fireplace with room to spare, and that's what I wanted. And it's what the woman that I'll eventually share the place with should want too.

I hate Realtor, Zillow, etc. The interface is great but every place I message my relator about is already under contract. I found the exact opposite in terms of it being current.

There's a new real estate company / site called RedFin, not sure if it's everywhere or not. It's big in Chicagoland area, not in Indiana as I was looking a while back. It's kindn of a more internet based lower fee idea. Commissions are lower for sellers and if you buy a place over 200k they give you 2% of the purchase price back. They also update every 10 minutes or less. Its not quite as good an interface as the Realtor.Com or ZIllow but a much more accurate site and shows way more properties than the other sites including auctions, foreclosures, etc.

Post: #67

(06-15-2017 09:16 AM)Sonoma Wrote:  Jeebus Vegas is cheap

https://www.redfin.com/NV/Las-Vegas/1664...e/29467656

Beautiful house at under $100/sq ft, but sadly in a shit neighborhood. Going rate for a good size house, reasonably up to date, and in a good neighborhood, will be around $150 / sq ft -- which is still only maybe 20% of what you'd spend on something comparable in SoCal.

Edit - on the topic of realtor.com, Redfin, etc, does anyone know a site with more robust search functionality than standard square footage, price, HOA fee? I'd like to be able to search by price per square foot, does/does not have a pool, guard gated/not guard gated, septic vs public sewer, that sort of thing. Basically the ability to incorporate any/all of the MLS fields.

I know the MLS search that realtors get licenses to use allows for all that, but they dumb down the options available to us plebs so they can remain guardians of the sacred MLS database.

Post: #68

(06-15-2017 09:16 AM)Sonoma Wrote:  Jeebus Vegas is cheap

https://www.redfin.com/NV/Las-Vegas/1664...e/29467656

This is off of Maryland Parkway. Like he said ^, shit area.

You could easily find something in that price range in a more desirable spot like Summerlin.

Post: #69

What are your thoughts on piling clothes and low value items into suitcases and sticking them in a closet while AirBNBing?

Is this acceptable or considered unprofessional?

Post: #70

(06-20-2017 05:50 PM)BallsDeep Wrote:  What are your thoughts on piling clothes and low value items into suitcases and sticking them in a closet while AirBNBing?

Is this acceptable or considered unprofessional?

I've done this, I just tell them it's a personal closet to store my stuff when checking in my guests. No one had an issue. There were like 2 other closets for them. Actually, some of it I just threw inside and closed the door...didn't even arrange it or arranged it nicely.

4.8 star rating over 8 stays.

Post: #71

(06-20-2017 06:01 PM)Cattle Rustler Wrote:  

(06-20-2017 05:50 PM)BallsDeep Wrote:  What are your thoughts on piling clothes and low value items into suitcases and sticking them in a closet while AirBNBing?

Is this acceptable or considered unprofessional?

I've done this, I just tell them it's a personal closet to store my stuff when checking in my guests. No one had an issue. There were like 2 other closets for them. Actually, some of it I just threw inside and closed the door...didn't even arrange it or arranged it nicely.

4.8 star rating over 8 stays.

Good answer, but here's the reality. You will have a random person who will complain about this but it's really low likelihood. When accepting people, just tell them about it. Note that it won't be in their way, but you wanted to make sure they were aware.

Most people don't expect you to take absolutely everything personal out, but at the same time, the higher end the place, the more people will expect it to be like a hotel room. My friend doesn't take down his pictures of him and his girlfriend for example, but he does make sure that people know they have x closet and y closet available, but z closet is theirs for their stuff. Same thing with food/fridge space. He doesn't empty it completely, but he makes sure it's clean and there's plenty of space if anyone wants to bring in food and cook.

The best defense you have is to have a detailed (but not crazy lengthy) list of things about your place they should be aware of. It's their responsibility if they didn't read the description all the way through, but it's your responsibility to make sure that possible conflicts are clear in the beginning (such as "NO PARTYING" and things like that).

Post: #72

(06-07-2017 05:15 PM)Darkwing Buck Wrote:  Can someone with experience comment on condos for rent vs an actual house/apartment?

I want to buy a condo in a year or two but be able to rent it out for passive income if I move elsewhere.

Thoughts? Experience?

lots of condos and even HOAs have rules against renting. Some allow it but only up to 25% of units. The idea is that non-owners are trashier.

Condos that can be freely rented are the exception. Read the condo docs if you are buying with the intent to rent to others

Post: #73

Owning a home is good if you are going to live there for a while. You generally can pay the mortgage, taxes and insurance and be several hundred buck ahead of what a comparable rental would cost, but you have to have the juice for a down payment and capacity for repairs, etc. While you will have to mow the lawn, you get some nice tax breaks, forced savings as you pay down the mortgage, and potential appreciation. This is the slow way to get wealthy.

Rentals can be headaches depending on your tenants. Not every property is ideal. You shouldn't offer your property for rent unless the monthly rent is at least 1% of the value of the property. In other words, if the market rent is $1,000, and you can sell the property for $125,000, then you are better off selling it (or not buying it in the first place) because the rent in relation to the cost of acquiring and holding the property is too low. Alternatively you can charge higher rent but my assumption is that $1,000 is the going rate. If you buy a property to rent out, compare the monthly rent to 1% of the purchase price and try to maximize this percentage. This is an old real estate rule of thumb. If you want to know more about this sort of thing, you need to understand capitalization rates and not pay more than 8 times gross rent multiplier. Some info to get you started here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_Rent_Multiplier

What some people do is buy a starter house to reduce their rent expense and get a tax deduction, and then eventually get a second house and rent out the first. Take baby steps, don't try to hit a home run.

Post: #74

Is anyone here familiar with the in and outs of PMI and how to get rid of it? Originally I was under the impression that it goes away once the ltv reaches 78% but it seems like it's not that simple. My current understanding is that PMI is only required to be taken off at the date the mortgage was scheduled to reach 78% WHEN THE MORTGAGE WAS ORGINATED. Is this correct?

To sum up my situation, I made several large payments and my current ltv is under 74% and my mortgage investor still will not waive the PMI. My mortgage servicer recommends I get an appraisal on the property but even with that there is no guarantee they will get rid of the PMI. Am I understanding all this correctly and is there anything I can do?

Post: #75

(06-26-2017 11:43 AM)goodburger Wrote:  Is anyone here familiar with the in and outs of PMI and how to get rid of it? Originally I was under the impression that it goes away once the ltv reaches 78% but it seems like it's not that simple. My current understanding is that PMI is only required to be taken off at the date the mortgage was scheduled to reach 78% WHEN THE MORTGAGE WAS ORGINATED. Is this correct?

To sum up my situation, I made several large payments and my current ltv is under 74% and my mortgage investor still will not waive the PMI. My mortgage servicer recommends I get an appraisal on the property but even with that there is no guarantee they will get rid of the PMI. Am I understanding all this correctly and is there anything I can do?

Based on this article, you should be able to cancel now. Call them back, tell them you are going to complain to the CFPB unless they cancel it.

http://www.foxbusiness.com/features/2016...-asap.html