Unlocking Success: Section 8 Property Management Strategies for Real Estate Investors

In the world of real estate investment and property management, navigating the complexities of Section 8 property management can be a game-changer. Whether you’re a seasoned investor or just starting in the real estate industry, understanding the ins and outs of Section 8 property management is crucial for success. Join us as we delve into the strategies, benefits, and challenges of Section 8 Property Management in Las Vegas and beyond

What is BRRR?

BRRR stands for Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, and it’s a popular real estate investment strategy.

The BRRR strategy, which stands for Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat, is a popular approach among real estate investors. It involves purchasing a property, renovating or rehabbing it to increase its value, renting it out to tenants, refinancing the property to pull out the initial investment, and then using those funds to repeat the process with another property. This strategy is favored by investors because it allows them to leverage their initial capital to acquire multiple properties over time, ultimately building a more extensive and profitable real estate portfolio.

Here’s a breakdown of each step

1. Buy: The first step involves purchasing a property, typically one that is undervalued or in need of repairs. The goal is to find a property at a price that, even with the cost of repairs, will still allow for significant equity.
2. Rehab: After purchasing, the investor will renovate or “rehab” the property. This can range from minor cosmetic updates to significant overhauls. The aim is to increase the property’s value and make it appealing to potential tenants.
3. Rent:Once the rehab is complete, the property is rented out to tenants. This provides the investor with a steady stream of rental income.
4. Refinance: After the property has been rehabbed and rented, the investor will typically refinance the property with a new mortgage. This allows them to pay off any initial financing or loans used to purchase and rehab the property. Ideally, due to the increased value from the rehab, the new loan will be based on the property’s higher value, allowing the investor to pull out a significant portion of their initial investment.

The BRRR strategy is favored by many investors because it allows them to recycle their initial capital into multiple properties over time. By pulling out most or all of their initial investment through refinancing, they can then use that money to start the process over with a new property.

Introduction

The BRRR strategy, which stands for Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat, has been a popular approach among real estate investors for years. It allows investors to maximize their returns by leveraging the power of refinancing after adding value to a property. When combined with the benefits of Section 8 housing, this strategy can become even more potent. In a recent discussion on the Bigger Pockets podcast, Dr. Joe Asamoah, a Section 8 expert, shed light on how the BRRR strategy can be effectively used with Section 8 investments.

The Core of BRRR

The BRRR strategy revolves around buying a property, renovating it to add value, renting it out to tenants, refinancing to pull out equity, and then repeating the process with another property. This approach allows investors to recycle their capital and grow their portfolio without continually injecting new funds.

Section 8 Housing – An Overview

Section 8, a government program, offers rental assistance to low-income families. For landlords, this means guaranteed rent payments from the government, reducing the risk of rental income loss.

Section 8 Property Management offers investors a unique level of financial security, thanks to the consistent and timely payments from the government and sponsor agencies. Regardless of economic downturns or unforeseen circumstances, Section 8 landlords can rely on their rent payments arriving punctually. This unwavering commitment to payment stability provides a significant advantage for property owners, as it ensures a steady income stream, even in challenging times. The government’s commitment to fulfilling its financial obligations makes Section 8 property management an exceptionally reliable and secure investment option.

The Fusion of BRRR and Section 8

Dr. Joe Asamoah emphasizes the importance of tenant selection in the BRRR strategy, especially when dealing with Section 8 housing. A good tenant can make or break the success of an investment. With Section 8, landlords have the added assurance of consistent rent payments, but tenant selection remains crucial.

Benefits of Combining BRRR with Section 8

• Guaranteed Rent Payments: With Section 8, a significant portion of the rent is paid by the government, ensuring consistent cash flow.
• Property Appreciation: Properly rehabbed properties can appreciate in value, allowing for a successful refinance.
• Diverse Tenant Base: Section 8 opens doors to a broader range of potential tenants.

Challenges and Solutions

While the combination of BRRR and Section 8 offers numerous advantages, it’s not without challenges. Dr. Joe points out issues like navigating government regulations and potential property inspections. However, with proper knowledge and preparation, these challenges can be effectively addressed.

Real-life Case Study

Dr. Joe shared a specific property he bought, highlighting the importance of factors like property staging, tenant selection, and the unexpected benefits of having an appraisal come in higher than anticipated.

Future of BRRR and Section 8

As the real estate landscape evolves, the fusion of BRRR and Section 8 is poised to offer continued opportunities for savvy investors. With potential changes in regulations and the ever-evolving market dynamics, staying informed and adaptable is key.

Section 8 Property Management offers a remarkable level of convenience for real estate investors, making it an increasingly popular choice. One of the standout advantages is the guaranteed rent payments provided by the government. This assurance means that investors can count on a steady stream of income, even during uncertain economic times. Additionally, Section 8 properties often attract a diverse tenant base, reducing the risk associated with vacancy.

Moreover, the government typically covers a significant portion of the rent, which can lead to more reliable and substantial rental income. Investors can also benefit from the potential for higher rents in certain markets, further boosting their returns. These advantages, coupled with the stability and reliability of Section 8 rental income, make it a highly convenient and appealing option for savvy investors.

7 Proven Section 8 Property Management Strategies for Success

1. Understand Section 8 Guidelines

The first step in effective Section 8 property management is to familiarize yourself with the federal guidelines and local housing authority rules. This will help you navigate the complexities of Section 8 housing and ensure compliance.

2. Screen Tenants Thoroughly

Just because a tenant is on Section 8 doesn’t mean you should skip the screening process. Conduct background checks, credit reports, and reference checks as you would with any other tenant.

3. Optimize Rent Pricing

Consult the Fair Market Rents (FMRs) published by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to set competitive yet profitable rent prices. This ensures that your property remains attractive to Section 8 tenants while maximizing your revenue.

4. Regular Property Inspections

Section 8 properties are subject to annual inspections by the local housing authority. Make it a habit to conduct your own regular inspections to ensure that the property is always up to code.

5. Build Relationships with Local Housing Authorities

Having a good relationship with your local housing authority can make the Section 8 property management process smoother. They can provide you with valuable insights and even direct high-quality tenants your way.

6. Streamline Rent Collection

Since a portion of the rent will be paid by the housing authority, set up a reliable system for collecting the remaining rent from your tenant. Make use of property management software to automate this process.

7. Legal Compliance and Eviction Procedures

Be well-versed in the legal aspects of Section 8 housing, including eviction procedures. Section 8 tenants have certain protections, and you must follow the law to the letter should you need to evict a tenant.

By implementing these Section 8 property management strategies, you can ensure a smoother, more profitable operation. For more in-depth information, consider consulting resources like the HUD Handbook or joining a local real estate investment group focused on Section 8 housing.

Conclusion

The BRRR strategy, when combined with the benefits of Section 8 housing, presents a compelling opportunity for real estate investors. As with any investment strategy, success lies in understanding the nuances, making informed decisions, and continuously learning from experts and real-life experiences.

Managing Section 8 properties is a unique niche within the broader scope of rental management in Las Vegas. If you’re interested in expanding your investment horizons, our guide on Section 8 investments provides a comprehensive look at the pros and cons. As you grow your property management business, you’ll also want to consider various strategies for scaling. Our article on property management business growth offers actionable tips to take your business to the next level.

About the Writer Federico Calderon

Federico Calderon is a seasoned real estate expert with years of experience in the industry. His insights into the world of real estate investing have been invaluable to both newbies and seasoned investors. With a keen eye for opportunities and a deep understanding of market dynamics, Federico’s expertise has paved the way for many successful real estate ventures.

In this insightful video, Dr. Joe Asamoah, a seasoned real estate investor, delves deep into the intricacies of combining the BRRR strategy with Section 8 housing investments. He sheds light on the advantages of this approach, emphasizing the stability and consistent returns it offers. Dr. Asamoah also touches upon the importance of understanding local housing regulations, the potential for higher rental incomes, and the unique benefits of Section 8 tenants. For those looking to amplify their real estate investment game, this video serves as a comprehensive guide, breaking down complex concepts into easily digestible insights. Whether you’re a novice or a veteran in the field, Dr. Asamoah’s expertise offers valuable takeaways for everyone

this is the bigger pockets podcast show 5.75 this part in my opinion is gonna make or

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break the burr okay your decision uh on who you select

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uh because if you make a mistake here all those calculations the roi cash on cash for their return and so on all

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those comes to zero if you don’t have a 10 it’s gonna pay you uh if you don’t have a tenant who’s

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gonna take care if you have a tenant who’s gonna trash your property destroy your property not pay you give you drama

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and you have that revolving door where they stay for a year and then they’re gone and so all your calculations goes

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to naught okay if you don’t if you don’t do this part well what’s going on everyone it is david green your host of

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the bigger pockets real estate podcast here today with a phenomenal episode with our returning guest

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joe assama now joe is a section 8 expert so if this is your first time listening

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to bigger pockets i just want to let you know you’re in the right place this is the show where you can come to learn how

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to find financial freedom through real estate we do that by bringing on different guests highlighting different

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topics and explaining different strategies from people that have done this well so you can learn from them and achieve the same success that they have

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today’s guest dr joe is a repeat guest and he’s going to be explaining the specifics of a property that he bought

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rehabbed rent it out refinance and is now in the process of repeating but he’s doing this specifically with section 8

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tenants he gets rent that’s guaranteed he can have his pick of the litter when he wants to choose who he wants to rent

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to he gets to make the strategy work in an appreciating market instead of chasing after cash flow in somewhat

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sketchy markets it’s a great story it’s a great strategy and we are excited to bring it to you today all right today’s

Quick Tip

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quick tip take a notice that we have done things a little bit differently on the podcast

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here we are trying to bring you as much detailed information as possible i’d love it if you’d go on youtube and leave

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us comments to let us know what you think about what we’re doing in particular we recently did a show with

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andrew cushman who’s my multi-family investing partner now andrew and i break down our system for how we identify

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screen do our due diligence on and then close on multi-family property and we give you the exact steps that we have

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put in place to pick the right ones and then we actually just put one in contract very recently like not too long

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after the show happened using the same system so go there if you would like to learn exactly what multi-family

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investors do you’ll get a ton of information similar to what you get if you paid at a boot camp but without having to pay and then rob abasolo and i

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do the same thing we have episodes coming out about how we identify do the due diligence on and lock down

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short-term rentals we break it into the exact steps that we’re taking how we choose the location what type of

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property we’re going to go after what type of financing we’re going to get all the way down to the rhythm of our meetings and what we talk about in those

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meetings to make sure that we stay on track i’m trying to bring you guys into my world and show you how i do work with

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my partner specifically so that you can benefit from it so please let us know if you like this type of content if you

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appreciate it and if you’d like to see more of it here with me today to take down this awesome interview is my good friend and co-host rob abasolo rob how’s

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it going howdy man i’m excited i’m really excited about this interview for a very specific reason i think what i

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really have always appreciated about bigger pockets and just the real estate community is how people attack the same problem

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differently and everyone has so many different creative solutions to everything that’s definitely definitely encapsulated by joe and the

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way he really took on this renovation i mean a complete glow up i i don’t know if we’re gonna really talk through the befores but i got a sneak peek of the

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befores of the transformation that we’re talking here and it’s a night and day difference i mean he really really

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changed every aspect of this house in a way that not only makes it look beautiful not only does it

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increase cash flows but it also brings tenants that stay for a very very long

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time he kind of discussed a 25-year tenant and that i mean that is for me that’s unheard of if you just did the

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numbers on how much money you save having one tenant for 25 years like if you figure every two years you have a turn you have vacancy you have repairs

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that have to be made like that’s probably i gotta be thinking like fifty to a hundred thousand dollars that he’s probably saving with this

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strategy and no one really thinks like that but here on the biggerpockets podcast we bring it to you rob any last

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words before we bring in dr joe yes pay special attention to you know what

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he did to actually transform this which is a whole basement renovation and it really just drives home the point that

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when you’re a real estate investor it’s very important to see a property for what it is and what it isn’t and joe

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really just you know he took this space and he really made it his own and uh man

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i’m i’m proud of him man no i’m just kidding no it’s it’s really great it’s very inspiring so a lot a lot of lessons

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to be learned today oh one last thing if you’re listening to this and you’re listening on the podcast not on the youtube if you can if it’s safe not if

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you’re driving look us up on youtube and watch this episode there we have some really good before and after pictures of

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the rehab that was done and if you see the before pictures you sort of get into joe’s head as what he

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saw when he looked at the property that made him think this is the one i want to buy and that’s what we really are trying to do today is we’re trying to get you

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into the head of our guests looking from their perspective so that when you’re looking at properties you know what to

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look for so go follow us on youtube watch the video there if possible if not check it out when you get home dr joe

Joe’s Newest Section 8 BRRRR

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welcome back to the bigger pockets podcast how are you today happy fantastic good day thanks a lot rob i’m

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amongst geniuses here this is my joke

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inside joke y’all had to be there before it’s all good yeah i made i made a comment about

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how because uh joe osmond here is a doctor that everybody tries to talk smarter than they really are when

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they’re in the presence of a doctor and i was asking him like if everywhere you go at every cocktail party people just try to use seven syllables when one or

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two would have done in the word and so we were jumping into that now dr joe here is so popular we brought him back

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for a third episode if you want to be caught up to speed on the story of joe asama you can check out episodes 356 and

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498. now dr joe you are known as a sort of

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section a specialist i don’t know if you consider yourself that but that’s how the bp community sees you you’re probably the biggest name here when it

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comes to why rent out section 8. in episode 498 we had a deal that you bought and you

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were in the middle of rehabbing it i believe you had the rough-in that was finished and so like none of the finishing work was done but now it’s

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done and we’re actually going to dive in really deep today on this particular property and how this strategy works so

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if you don’t mind could you give us a like a brief rundown of how you bought this property um how you found it and

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then what your vision was for what you wanted to make of it sure yes uh welcome everybody and uh essentially the

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strategy is as follows i try to buy c or d properties in b neighborhoods and rent a

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tenants you got it see it and uh so that’s the gist of it all is that you you kind of buy houses that’s

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uh in a bad condition or something’s wrong with the house in a good neighborhood and you rent to the top tier tenants

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that you can find okay so uh in this particular case uh this is a house instead of the b neighborhood in

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washington dc and uh there was something wrong with the house it was uh pretty okay but yeah

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pretty not great with the greatest condition it’s a three bedroom one bath house okay and i bought it for 555 000 that’s

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just over half a million dollars and that’s in dc area that’s the way it is uh in

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other areas may be higher but this is an expensive market here anyway i bought this house at 555 there’s a three bedroom one bath

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at three bedrooms the house would not cash flow and therefore the only way i can get cash flow because uh it’s you

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know it’s so expensive is to increase the rent and that’s the beauty of section eight is that section that if

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you add more bedrooms you get a higher rent and so the only way the numbers

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could work here was to add two extra bedrooms to make it from a three bedroom to a five bedroom and to turn the drent

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from thirty seven hundred to fifty four hundred dollars okay so at fifty four hundred i can cash flow at 37 i’m

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breaking even okay so that’s the gist of the the section eight strategy is how do you turn a non-performing asset into an

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appreciating cash flowing asset and so that’s what we’re doing here that’s so in part one uh i pretty much

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talked through the design uh where i did the two bedrooms which is in the basement and i had another bathroom in the

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basement and uh we done the house was permitted so we had uh the roughing we

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did the the roughing plumbing the hvac the electrical you know and sort of the framing all that stuff was done as part

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uh the first uh what’s it called uh session and we had left it whereby the house was

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ready for roughing inspection so we’re gonna get the first line of inspections we called in the city

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and the city inspectors came over and that’s where we left it awesome well you kind of briefly cover this uh at the

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beginning with some of the numbers but just to take a step back can you refresh us what did you purchase this for how much

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did renovations come out for what what is it worth now before we jump okay just to give us a little bit so i bought it for 5.55 it was listed at 6.75 this is a

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listed property okay so everyone i know people say you can’t get deals on the mls and so forth it’s the same here in

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washington dc you can’t find a deal anywhere this was listed as 675

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okay and i was able to negotiate it down to 555 okay this is in the b neighborhood and

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uh so the deals are out there you just have to create them you have to have relationships and you have to be able to

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differentiate yourself from other people in fact the seller had another offer at 585

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and they chose mine even though mine was lower okay so it’s 555 is what i purchased it for the original estimate

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for the rehab was 175 000 that’s what i estimated going in here i’ll have to

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spend about 175 000 new kitchen new bathrooms new bedrooms in the basement and uh pretty much uh redo the house new

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systems and uh so that’s uh the initial as is going in estimates

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and uh i’m looking forward to reveal how inaccurate i was uh but the

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but what was the surprise though because the market’s so uh so hot i’m sure it’s everything everywhere i was expecting an

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arv of about 8.50 we had the appraisal coming at 900 000.

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so the appraisal came in higher than what i had estimated and even since

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then how’s on the same block and now go from nine twenty five nine fifty thousand i feel like that doesn’t happen

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as as often as i’d like it to but i’m always super jealous when i see a arv come in higher than expected i’m sure

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david can probably relate to that given where he is that’s a very good point in the burbook

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one of the things i talk about because what you’re describing is what you want the after repair value to be because that’s what the amount that you can

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borrow against the property will be based on but what i like about what you’re doing joe is you’re not only looking at the value of the property arv

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you’re actually looking at the rents after it’s been finished so you saw this as a three-bedroom property it

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would rent as a certain amount on section eight which would not be enough to cover your mortgage or at least make

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a profit so other people would just move on from the property and say it doesn’t work but you said like you said i have

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to create a deal or make a deal you realize if i could add two bedrooms to this i could bump the rent up like

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can you give me a rough idea of what the bump would be from three bedroom to five bedroom it’s almost eighteen hundred dollars there you go that could be a

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difference in making it cash flow and cash flow in a healthy way so you figured out hey i can add two bedrooms in the basement

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and then it’s gonna go for this much and then the value of it’s going to be even higher because i fixed it up and the arv

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went up from what i thought now what a deal it would be that everyone else passed up on looks really good for you

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and that’s what we’re going to highlight is kind of getting in your head and seeing it from your goggles so other

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people when they’re looking at properties can see something similar so if you don’t mind rob’s got some pictures here if you guys are not

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listening to this on youtube consider checking out and watching today’s show on our youtube channel so that you can

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see the before and after pictures that we’re going to be showing of what was done to this property and how value is added i saw the before pictures here and

Exterior After Pics

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honestly i was very stunned at what you were able to do with the place it’s amazing it’s so the curb appeal

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really is unparalleled i think for for what what it looked like before so can you talk us through a little bit of the

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transformation that you did on the exterior here and you know for those listening at home again it is going to

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be on youtube but joe if you wouldn’t mind just giving us a little bit more color in the description here for those listening on the podcast yes so we have

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a particular color scheme i use for most of my houses it’s modern it’s very attractive and uh it gives that first

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impressions when you’re walking down the block so you’re walking down the street all the houses look okay and then you see this house it sparkles it’s modern

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it’s sort of inviting and uh and so that’s what i want to do is to make sure that at least from the street level uh

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it looks great it looks engaging and then it’s going to attract people to to want to go inside the landscaping looks

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pretty decent and not a whole lot spent on the landscaping it’s just um in this house i did put a front porch uh if you

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look on the before there was no front porch and in the final there is a front porch there as well so the idea is that

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uh it’s appealing but the important thing i do want to stress is that i’m looking for somebody who’s going to go

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in here and stay here a long time okay 5 10 15 20 years okay that’s my end

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game here and uh so i look at the neighborhood as well the the street the uh the area

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uh the access uh you know proximity to schools transportation recreation although those things these are things

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which i look for in addition to the numbers as well it’s really amazing what a coat of paint can do to a house

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because before it was kind of a red sort of color and then you went in and changed it to this gray color it kind of looks like it was the original look of

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the house whenever it was first built that is a popular sort of modern color scheme around here and

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it’s it’s very inviting it’s got it pops the door is what we call the blue inked door it pops and so we have three color

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schemes on the exterior also i do want to add though what we did here is quite creative um you may not be able to see

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on this one we i’m thinking ahead that in the future uh if i do sell decide to

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sell this house it’s gonna be an expensive area and therefore whoever buys this house will probably want to

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implement the house hack strategy okay they’re probably bigger pockets uh used and so we did create an entrance on the

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front okay so if they wanted to rent this the basement as a separate unit he’ll have

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his own entrance on the front also have his exit on the in the back as well in the basement and therefore the family or

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whoever buys this house could live upstairs and have a self-contained unit downstairs so that’s another strategy

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that we implemented here i was kind of looking ahead and said okay since we’re going to renovate the house anyway

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uh what can we do here to differentiate this house if i decide i want to sell in the future to a possible buyer and if we

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can inform them that they could use the basement as a separate income dwelling unit then it sort of makes it more

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attractive as well yeah awesome so take us inside the house because you know you really did knock it out of the park or

Interior After Pics

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the exterior but you know looking through the photos here the inside has actually gone through quite the the glow

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up for the transformation itself yeah the uh the first thing you’ll notice when you come in is uh it’s an open plan

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concept uh probably the first thing you’ll see is that you see furniture there and uh you probably say what what

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is this i’ve never seen a rental where where there’s furniture there and uh again um the idea is that i want to

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differentiate my house from competition i’m trying to get a quality tenant a

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tenants okay and so the a quality tenants have choices

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they can go to dave’s house they go to your house rob and they can go to my house i’m trying to differentiate my house from yours and days okay so i try

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to stage my home and such that it makes it very very appealing when they walk through that front door

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so what you can see here is an open plan concept whereby um you know the walls that were

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in the original have been taken out we relocated the uh the kitchen from its

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original place to a new place right sort of towards the center and we have

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you know a very very inviting space and we have vinyl flooring as you can see we

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have a very nice kitchen we have granite countertops um stainless steel appliances it’s a very it’s a nice home

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um for a voucher holder this is unbelievable

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okay this is something that never in their wildest dreams would they ever feel that they’ll get an opportunity to

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live in this neighborhood in this type of home and the a type

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tenant this is a dream come true for them and this is if they don’t get this house

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they’ll never see something like this again so uh you know i hope this is making sense now for a new investor they don’t

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have to go through all of this okay this is a bit more advanced but what i’m trying to do here is to make my

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place inviting such that i can attract the quality tenant i’m desiring yeah because i mean staging isn’t

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particularly a small cost i mean i i know a lot of realtors that some stage their houses when they’re selling it

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some don’t and there is a an immediate roi for something like that right if you stage a home and you get a lot more

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offers you can get into bidding wars it can be more money that’s captured from the sale of the property it’s not really

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something that’s done very often with long-term rentals in general right no i think i’m the only one i know of who

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does this um again uh it it it i’ve done the calculation it makes sense for me

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i’m not getting whoever moves into this house the tenant that moved in her intent is to be here for 15 years

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okay so i’m not going to stage this house again for another 15 years so if you sort of uh amortize that cost uh

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it’s it’s it’s insignificant uh so to me it’s it’s it’s money well spent to

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attract the type of tenant i’m looking for okay as i said before i’ve been through this so many times so many markets

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where we are all vying for this top tier tenant the tenant who’s gonna pay their rent the tenant who’s gonna take care of

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the home the tenant that’s not gonna give you any drama and the tenant that’s looking for a long place to stay for a

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long time we’re all vying for that person okay and there’s nothing worse and i’ve

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been through this before whereby you got a house and you don’t get that many applications and now you’ve got to sort

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of pick between okay versus okay but i need to pay my mortgage and

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uh i don’t want to get into that situation i want to have multiple choices uh multiple applicants so that’s why i do this

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it pays itself off over time yeah so i i also wanted to talk a little bit about the rehab here i mean obviously this is

Rehabs, Permitting, and Red Tape

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really nice it’s a sparkling listing you knocked it out of the park it feels very homey um

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the journey to get here i gotta imagine was probably you know pretty long and strenuous is my guess so can you tell us

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about any of the problem areas that might have occurred you know during the rehab is there anything that that

19:17

was kind of a thorn in your side or anything that didn’t go according to play well first of all you know this is a fully permitted house so it took a bit

19:23

longer to get the permits from the city um you know it’s because normally it takes a you know a few weeks but it took

19:29

us a lot longer it took over almost five weeks to get the permits through so that was the first setback uh the

19:35

second thing was that you know in terms of after we did the renovations uh some of the walls that we

19:41

thought uh you know we call this salvage uh we could not so we had to do some additional repair costs there

19:48

the price of lumber went up um you know so that sort of blew some of the the the renovation cost out the window

19:55

and uh but the important thing is that we had good contractors

20:00

and we’re able to manage that process so the you know the key i think is that if

20:06

you’re doing a project like this you want to make sure that you manage the relationship with your contract

20:12

because there’s so many moving parts here and uh and so i usually meet with my contractors every week

20:19

we discuss what’s going on with the project any issues that’s going on any problems that we’re encountering and

20:25

solutions okay we meet in my home uh we provide food we provide lunch but the

20:30

idea is to build trust build a relationship such that the project can keep moving and i think that’s been

20:37

really the key to the success of this project and that’s probably something which i would recommend for all the bigger pockets community is take time to

20:44

screen your uh potential contractor develop a good scope of work

20:50

which documents exactly what it is that you want to do get several quotes as you can and uh and try to work with that

20:56

contractor from start to finish if you have a problem try and work it out if obviously if you can’t work it out then

21:02

you have to move on and maybe get somebody else but the key to my success on this project was having good

21:07

contractors and working at relationships and therefore as we went into problems we’re able to reduce those problems and

21:13

keep moving forward so joe as we wrap up the rehab part of this project i know that one of the heavier parts of that

Renovating the Basement

21:19

rehab was the basement you know that’s a very scary thing to take on especially when you look at the before photos

21:26

there’s vents and air ducts and furnaces and all that kind of stuff down there so tell us a little bit about the process

21:31

that goes into that some of the pain points and maybe some of the requirements that are needed to actually put bedrooms down in a basement sure

21:38

good question i mean there are legal requirements for a bedroom in the basement and there are essentially four

21:44

of them uh so when i first go into a house for the first time i’m thinking through my head can this

21:50

basement uh meet those requirements and there are four are as follows one is the height

21:55

it’s got to have uh at least seven feet height okay from the floor to the ceiling that’s number one so if it’s six

22:02

and a half feet then you can’t make it into a basement bedroom unless you dig

22:07

okay an extra half a foot you follow me so you gotta have a certain height that’s number one number two is that

22:12

it’s got to have what we call egress windows it’s got to have two egresses uh egress is a way to get in in a way to

22:19

get out in the event of an emergency so it has to be two forms typically it’s the um there’s a window

22:25

as you can see here there’s a window here that’s a form of egress that’s not just any old window that is what we call

22:30

an egress window so it allows somebody to get out uh from that basement in the

22:36

event there’s a fire that’s closing that front door if you see the door on the side there that’s the second form of

22:41

egress so there are two egresses into this bedroom one to get in through that front door and if that door is blocked

22:47

for whatever reason then they can escape through that window so that’s the second form the third form is that it’s got to

22:54

have a closet a place where you can store your clothes and uh and so on so we always put a

22:59

closet in the bedroom like here there’s a door here to the closet and uh and the third thing the fourth

23:05

thing is that it’s got to have electrical outlets at least two electrical outlets so they’re the four

23:11

requirements for a bedroom it’s also got to have a minimum of 70 square feet

23:18

okay so you can’t have the closet there and say that’s the bedroom because it’s less than 70 square feet so the bedroom

23:24

has to have a minimum of 70 square feet so they’re the requirements for a code and uh so once you know that you can

23:31

plan that as part of the process a part that’s part plan that’s part of the renovations so this is really good so

23:37

let’s say you’re you’re looking at a property you’re walking it with your realtor you go oh look at this basement

23:42

and this is where like all of us rob me everyone we start picturing in our head we turn into like

23:48

this like automatic architecture program we’re like the bedroom would go there where’s the plumbing okay there’s the plumbing how would i run it to a

23:54

bathroom and what you’re telling me is there’s four things you’re looking for as far as section 8 regulations to be

23:59

considered a bedroom minimum of 70 square feet has to have a closet two electrical outlets and then there needs

24:06

to be a way to get two ways to get out of the basement a window and a door out now does every bedroom need

24:13

to have a window or just two for the area no every bedroom has to have two forms

24:19

of egress okay now the the other thing is that again it’s just for code if there’s a

24:24

fire and uh you know the the door to the room is blocked yeah then what

24:31

okay so uh you’ve got to have a second form of exit from there and and and this

24:36

is the tricky part for some people in certain areas it’s an egress window means that it’s got to be big enough

24:42

whereby somebody can get out yes sometimes these windows in the basements are real small

24:48

okay uh so it’s not big enough so that technically is not an egress window

24:53

so in order to make it a legal bedroom people advertise as bedrooms all the time but i’m just saying legally

24:59

technically it’s supposed to be a certain minimum size i just ran into this problem myself on a deal that i’m

25:06

doing where the property has a big covered patio and i was going to enclose

25:11

that and make it into a living space to have it to have its own little unit it already had the bedrooms the problem

25:16

is that enclosing the patio would block the window of one of the bedrooms so i wasn’t able to do it because i didn’t

25:22

know these that that of the four so this is very valuable information and and

25:27

believe it or not those of us that are experienced real estate investors still make mistakes and still have to learn the hard way sometimes for all the

25:33

little nuances that are involved in this i’m shocked david i thought you’d never make mistakes

25:39

hey we learned the hard way so everyone at home can learn the easy way that’s exactly right it’s not that i’m dumb

25:45

it’s that i will care so much about our listeners that i wanted them to learn from my mistakes they wouldn’t have to thank you for you at home

25:53

not my ignorance but my benevolence that made that mistake right but also the other thing is that if you have to we

25:59

have two bedrooms in this basement so we also put a bathroom in the basement uh because before there was only one

26:05

bathroom upstairs so i mean in the 1930s 1920s when this house was built it was

26:10

okay to be in the basement go all the way to the top floor to go to the bathroom but in 2021 2022 people expect

26:16

not to go to two two flights of stairs to go to the bathroom so we put another bathroom on the basement as well well

26:23

i’m sure that had to do with increasing your arv also that’s good to highlight right if you can add the bathroom in the area where people are the appraisers

26:29

know that that makes the house worth more yes yes and as i said on this particular basement we made another exit

26:34

as well in the front so that way in the event we decide to sell this house whoever buys it can uh use the basement

26:42

as a separate unit that’s right right the house the house hack right yes yes it’s all the rage right now um so can

Heavy on Rehabs, Light on Headaches

26:49

you break it down for us a little bit joe on the the largest cost that was spent on this was it the basement or was

26:55

it the main level like where where did most of your funds go into this project it was kind of uh

27:00

the basement required a new bathroom and whenever you add a bathroom in the basement you’re going to have to break

27:06

the floor and run new pipes okay because all the all the plumbing systems ultimately get

27:11

down to the basement and they then connect to the main city services so if you’re putting the bedroom sorry a

27:18

bathroom in the basement you have to take that bathroom wherever it is and connect it to the existing plumbing

27:23

system which means that you have to break the floor you have to connect to that so that can be a little bit expensive uh and this house this is the

27:30

washington dc house i think this house was built in 1905 okay so it’s pretty old so we decided we

27:38

wanted to replace the electrical uh we wanted to replace the plumbing and

27:43

we also replaced the heating system from a radiator to a central air so systems were the most expensive part

27:50

new electrical new plumbing new uh hvac and uh and then obviously putting

27:56

bathrooms i was a little bit expensive and so on so it kind of again i made a cons i made a decision

28:03

to spend the money now i have great contractors uh they know how to do all these things

28:09

they have a technical know how to do this do i spend it now or do i just do the day and minimum to get through and

28:14

then deal with it later on i just made a business decision that i rather uh spend a little bit more money

28:21

now uh and that way i don’t have to worry about in the future i think it’s the right move i really do

28:28

a lot of people do get go into these you know into projects i see it all the time where they want to

28:33

you know do half of it now and then they’re like i’ll do more of it later and you know maybe i’ll do it in six months or a year and what they don’t

28:39

realize is once there are attendance in place it’s a lot harder to go in and do any kind of rehab and with you joe i mean

28:46

with your portfolio and with how you’re scaling up and how successful you’ve been the more time that passes the more

28:51

valuable your time becomes and so by putting this off another six months you’re burdening future joe with

28:57

something that you could just deal with now with a little bit more effort yeah i think so as well it just makes more sense uh to just do it now given that

29:04

we’d spend a little bit more because technically the money is made in the bedrooms

29:09

okay i don’t get any more money by making a nice kitchen i don’t get any more rent by

29:15

having a nice bathroom i only get the extra rent because of the bedrooms okay

29:20

uh but since we’re gonna do this work now i’d rather just do it now and be done with it there’s a lot of wisdom

29:27

with what was just said with your bed you’re you’re taking the burden off of future joe in fact most people i think

29:32

don’t understand that if they like things about their life right now it’s probably because of decisions that they made three to five years ago right maybe

29:39

two to three years ago if there’s things that they don’t like about their life it’s usually because of decisions that you already made and this is the

29:46

consequence right and it’s that always trying to make one decision to get out of the thing we don’t like that causes

29:51

problems and so i just want to highlight that rob you said something incredibly wise right there the cost of doing this

29:58

rehab will be more in the future than it is right now with the way inflation’s going the difficulty of it will be way

30:03

harder when there’s a tenant in there you’re gonna have to go find another contractor who’s going to do a small job who doesn’t want to do that versus the

30:10

contractor you already have on the site doing a big job and you’re just adding this onto it everything about it makes

30:15

more sense to do it right now and then joe’s life will be better in the future i’m just my mind’s racing to all the

30:21

things that i’m like oh i don’t like this part about my life and i’m like well that’s because two years ago i started doing the wrong thing and now

30:27

i’m stuck with it right now but to future david doesn’t have to live like that if i make decisions differently so

30:33

thank you both for sharing that yeah we gotta we gotta watch out for future us you know this is the most important

30:38

version of us the future rob [Laughter]

30:46

okay yeah it’s you know it’s just it’s just easier to do it that way just do it now

30:51

your capital expenses uh are done you don’t get many calls from the tenants you know the plumbing is bad or

30:56

something’s wrong with this and so you don’t have those issues because everything is new and um you get high

31:02

customer satisfaction they tend to be happier with the property which means that they stay longer higher arv also

31:08

when you go to do the refinance yes higher arv and high you know higher quality tenants happier tenants in the

31:14

long run yes which i think is probably going to be i mean that’s obviously your strategies so can you tell us a little

Finding Quality Tenants

31:20

bit now walks through the the rent part of the borough here right the the actual getting the tenants the selection right

31:26

marketing to your tenants and obviously staging is a really big component of that but can you tell us a little bit about your process on that too sure yeah

31:32

so at this point the renovation is done the house is staged and it’s looking good okay so the first thing i’ve got to

31:39

do now is transition to the rent stage which i’ve got to go and find a tenant okay i have to advertise i got to market

31:46

so i uh start off with taking professional quality photographs and videos like similar to what you just

31:51

seen here and make sure that uh you know they reflect the the property i usually contact the housing

32:00

authority because i like to rent to vouchers holders and ask them

32:06

where do they tend to send their voucher holders to look for properties

32:11

okay it could be abc it could be zillow it could be go section a it could be craigslist whatever i want to know where they tend to send people i want to make

32:18

sure i advertise there okay and i advertise everywhere else what i’m finding is for some reason

32:24

zillow is uh it’s very good uh i get a lot of success so i advertise

32:31

in the key places where i know my client base is likely to look that’s number one i’ve got great uh descriptions of the

32:37

property i focus on all those emotional uh you know language which appeals to the

32:42

kind of tenant i’m looking for i always say section 8 welcome i always say if you are looking for

32:48

a a great landlord you have found him or her uh i always try to

33:00

a great tenant who’s looking for a quality house in a quality area where they’re renting for a quality landlord

33:06

then look no further mr wonderful you’re looking at him

33:14

and so that’s the that’s the adverts okay so it’s the marketing uh again i’m

33:20

trying to differentiate myself from uh from my competition and the competition is out there

33:26

and uh and so on so the the advertising is good and then at some point uh people will call

33:32

and i have an assistant that takes the calls okay and she does the initial pre-screening to make sure that uh you

33:38

know the person is qualified in terms of the voucher side in terms of the rent and that’s all those basic questions

33:43

that people ask where is it um how many bedrooms do you have uh you know what school is it nearby you know blah blah

33:50

blah all those questions my assistant uh takes those and then we schedule what we call open houses

33:56

uh we are in covid uh so it’s kind of changed a little bit but i do open houses versus what some other uh

34:03

management companies or some other landlords do which is they do everything virtually uh

34:08

you know um they essentially you can fill an application online you can go to the house online uh you know physically

34:15

to the property you know whatever they want to do and uh and so on they don’t need to see the actual tenant um i’m of

34:22

the opinion that’s okay but i like to showcase the house answer any questions

34:28

uh get to uh answer any you know any issues that the the tenants may have explain the qualities of the house

34:35

and also showcase to them who i am what kind of person i am and uh you know what

34:40

kind of landlord i’m going to be uh and what separates me from my uh competition

34:46

i tell them that um you know many of my tenants stay for five ten fifteen my

34:51

longest tenant is 25 years now um yes i have i regularly have 17 18 20

34:57

year tenants uh and to a a person who’s used to living in a bad house in a bad

35:03

area with bad landlords uh that is music to their ears and that’s something

35:08

stability that they’re craving for and i like to be able to explain that to them um

35:14

up front and again differentiate myself and then i then if they like the house i have to see in the house and i give them

35:20

an application form i have an eight page application uh

35:26

it’s very detailed it’s very intimidating it asks a lot of questions about the individuals and uh once they

35:34

complete the application and then i will then start the screening process which is a whole nother

35:39

discussion which i’ll go through in a second so i i think the there there seems to be

35:45

a few schools of thought here and you know some people are sort of the faceless landlord i really respect that

35:50

you want to get in there get your elbows uh dirty and is that the phrase i don’t know it’s the phrase right now get in

35:57

there roll your sleeves up and actually meet your tenants so how is that really panned out i mean do you have a pretty

36:02

good rapport with all of your tenants and do you feel like actually meeting them face to face and being there from

36:07

the start has really drastically improved you know the the vacancy of your different units well

36:14

here’s here’s the key key this part in my opinion is going to make or break the

36:19

bur okay your decision uh on who you select uh because if you make

36:27

a mistake here all those calculations the roi cash on cash return and so on all those comes to zero

36:34

if you don’t have a tenant it’s going to pay you uh if you don’t have a tenant who’s going to take care if you have a tenant who’s going to trash your property

36:40

destroy your property not pay you give you drama and you have that revolving door where they stay for a year and then

36:47

they’re gone and so all your calculations goes to naught okay if you

36:52

don’t if you don’t do this part well and that’s why i play uh place a lot of attention into the screening and

36:59

selection because it’s been the key to my success uh some people are saying

37:05

25 years 18 years what is you lying no it’s not lying it’s it’s a strategy

37:12

okay it’s understanding who your customer is what they’re looking for and taking the

37:18

time to screen for that and that’s essentially where i i put a lot of it i go to this this is the part

37:25

which i i do the actual uh showings and i take the applications and i have an

37:32

assistant that does the initial screening and we check for things like landlords references current landlord

37:37

previous landlord oh first of all we checked for the id um when somebody comes in i mean let’s

37:43

just say for instance you rob you show up at the house i don’t know who you are you could be you could be dave uh and

37:49

you could fill the application as dave i wouldn’t know and uh and so you’re pretending to be

37:54

dave when in fact you’re rob and you know and if i don’t ask for your id

37:59

uh because that’s nothing if i asked your id that usually catches people in that game uh you may say rob is dave is

38:06

your landlord when in fact he’s not there’s a lot of things that tenants do uh to try and get over uh i’m not saying

38:12

all tenants do that i’m not saying some tenants do that i’m just saying that’s what happens and i’ve been through those experiences before

38:19

and and so i placed a lot of attention on the screening process to make sure that

38:25

we contact the current landlords previous landlords we do the background searches we do the credit checks but not

38:31

just the credit check but also the eviction databases i found that some quality tenants

38:37

well just call them professional tenants they pay their rent on time

38:42

sorry they pay their car note and their credit cards and so when you

38:47

do a credit check everything looks good but the reason why their credit is good is because they’re not paying their rent

38:53

and most landlords check the credit and but they don’t report to the credit bureaus

38:59

so uh so although you may have a good credit score you may not necessarily be paying your rent that’s where the

39:04

evictions database searches come in because that’s uh yeah so so it’s very intense in terms of the screening

39:10

process and then finally i do make an appointment to go visit their home

39:15

um that’s pretty controversial i get it but uh it’s something which is the key

39:21

uh to uh to find out how your house is going to be in three months is to go to their home and you may think that why

39:28

would they give you that opportunity to go their home they will do that because i have a product as you can see that is

39:34

very unique is in high demand is low supply so it’s a pretty thorough application

39:39

screening process um an eight-page application that’s uh that’s that’s the lengthy i mean that definitely would

39:45

weed out a lot of people i’m sure but you know you you have the proof here right with the 25-year tenant dave david

39:52

how long have you what’s your longest tenant i’m kind of curious that you’ve ever had is it close to 25 years i don’t know

39:58

definitely not that but my property manager would know better than me i don’t i don’t keep track of that what i

40:04

wanted to ask you joe would be how many tenants would you expect to go through this process with before you

40:10

found the right one okay in this particular house we had uh this is covet okay in a space of a week we had eight

40:16

applications applications now uh not showings uh uh not uh calls but

40:22

applications people who went through this ritual which i’ve just described and decided to put their money

40:29

down for an application so we had eight applications and then we started the screening and it

40:35

came down to three five fell by the wayside uh as part of that screening process i

40:41

visited three homes and selected the family uh as a result of that

40:46

so i started off with a lot of applications and ended up with a funnel and whereby some fell by the wayside and

40:53

i got the best one at the end now when it comes to the renting or the refinancing

Common BRRRR Problems

40:59

what are some problems that you’ve encountered as you’ve been trying to do this that maybe you didn’t expect that

41:04

you can give us a heads up to look out for the renting and the refinancing um on the renting side

41:12

i mean people lie and

41:18

you know donald always the truth uh they try to i mean they want the house and they’ll do what they got to do to get it

41:24

as much as possible and that’s the reason why the screening process is thorough is to weed out those folks

41:30

and uh so that’s also is people lie on the refinance side um

41:37

is several uh the arv in this house was uh was higher

41:42

than i expected so it wasn’t an issue but it could be an issue for when i first started out i didn’t understand

41:48

the concept of seasoning okay when you do these birds uh season is when you buy a house and there’s a

41:54

there’s a time this a time lag between uh when you are on title to when you can refinance again

42:01

and uh you know the particular lender i went to go through they don’t have those seasoning

42:06

requirements other lenders will have three months six months 12 months which means that now you’ve got to hold

42:12

on to this asset until you’re able to refinance that’s uh that’s one thing which i’ve learned the other thing is that uh the

42:18

appraisal i mean the the refinance is when everything comes to play okay you’ve done you’ve found

42:25

the house you’ve renovated the house you found the tenant all rows leads to this uh point where you’re trying to recoup

42:31

your money okay this is where you’re going to realize that your business was actually uh successful or not so the appraisal

42:39

may go under value um you know i’ve had that so now what what do you do now uh

42:46

you know i have a strategy for that sort of uh make sure that i document before the appraisal comes

42:53

the improvements that were made to the house i showed the before and after okay and i have some comps

42:59

which i put on a nicely three leaf binder and have it available for the appraiser when they come therefore uh it

43:07

again it differentiates me from other investors it tells this appraiser that this guy knows what he’s doing

43:13

uh it sort of uh lets them know that yes you know this guy is different so that’s

43:19

what i do in terms of so that’s the appraisal side uh it could go under value and if you does then you’re going

43:26

to have to decide what do i do do i need to keep more money in the house or do i need to get a partner or something or

43:33

maybe go to plan b in terms of exit strategy what about you rob you have any issues in those two areas

43:39

that you can enlighten us with in the on the appraisal side of things no just when it comes to getting the

43:44

tenant or doing the refinances things that went wrong like joe i think that’s a really good point that not every

43:50

lender is the same some have seasoning requirements of six months some have no seasoning requirements and that never

43:56

gets brought up because the only question most people ask is what’s my interest rate or maybe what are my closing costs they don’t look at the big

44:01

picture so that’s a really smart thing to ask is like well how long would i have to wait before i refinance it do

44:07

you have anything like that rob that you could share yeah i do i do yeah i always tend to dig myself in a hole

44:13

because i always like to build like weird random things like tree houses or

44:19

tiny houses or anything and so for me uh it’s kind of self-inflicted pain here where i’ll go out and build a

44:25

tiny house and try to go and do a refinance on it and then my appraiser will say hey uh there are no comps for this and i

44:32

actually had to go back and forth with my bank and say listen here’s what it was built for um here’s what the

44:38

appraiser said so the appraiser came back and actually gave me a really good arv on it i think they they appraised it

44:44

at 276 thousand dollars i had built it for 165 000 and then the bank was like yeah we don’t

44:50

we don’t really buy we don’t buy that a 300 square foot tiny house is worth that so they made a second appraiser come out

44:57

and they appraise it at like 175 000 and i was like no no we’re not going to

45:02

do this we’re going to send one more appraiser out which i’m really honestly to this day surprised that they even listened to me because most of the time

45:08

the lenders do you know they kind of dictate everything but i really fought for this i needed this right and when

45:14

you need something you make it happen and you know i was like let’s get one more out there one more and they were like okay fine if you shut up and then

45:20

they did send out a third appraiser and did a praise to the dollar that i needed it to to get all of my money back

45:26

so i can’t say for certain that that will always work because i do always fight my appraisals when they come back

45:32

i’m typically unsuccessful but now having some success i will always be the squeaky wheel right i will always fight

45:39

for for what i think a property is worth i went to a scenario whereby um this is when i flipped to home i bought

45:46

it you know rehabbed it and sold it uh well had the appraiser come in and the

45:52

appraiser we agreed with the seller you know what the price was and the appraiser came in lower and uh so now what uh the seller the

45:59

buyer didn’t want to cough up the difference and uh so it was on me so what i learned

46:04

from that is that i don’t want the appraisal process to be crossing my fingers and hope for the

46:10

best hopefully i get a nice appraiser so sometimes what i do is i i have my own

46:16

appraiser come in beforehand and give me an appraisal

46:22

and therefore i have appraisal and i put in my back pocket i don’t use it only when necessary because sometimes when

46:27

you try to contest an appraisal an appraiser may not

46:33

buy into the comps but if they see another appraiser another appraiser from

46:38

a peer then they may consider that it’s almost like a doctor you go to a doctor and you

46:44

want a second opinion you go to a nurse another doctor is not going to think highly of the recommendation of a nurse

46:50

however if they get another recommendation from another doctor there is the same peer level and

46:55

therefore they may consider that so that’s why i sometimes do is have a secondary appraisal just in case i need

47:01

it uh and i want to contest an appraisal that was done by uh the buyer and things

47:06

like that rob’s that guy that will build a uh like a gymnastic park for squirrels

47:12

in his backyard and then go to the appraiser be like you don’t understand this is worth 50 000

47:18

that’s exactly how you get yourself in the mess i’m always like excuse me sir put my life savings into this yeah look at

47:24

there’s nothing like this in the world like the way that these squirrels can run around in the backyard it’s worth a

47:30

lot but you’ll get people that say hey david if i add an adu how much will that add to the value of my house if i put in

47:36

crown molding how much will that add to the value of my house the sellers are always looking at it from that perspective and the the piece to take

47:43

away from this is it depends on what the other house is around that have those assets are worth the appraisers need

47:50

data and if data does not exist then it might not be worth anything you might spend 150 000 on an adu that they give

47:56

no value to because no other houses have adus and they don’t know if it matters or if you’re in like san francisco and

48:01

they know man a house with an adu is worth a lot more because there’s so much demand here you might spend 150 000 and

48:07

they give you 400 000 of value for that thing so i think that’s very wise

48:12

like to send your own appraiser in or to talk to an appraiser independently and say hey if you were looking at this home

48:18

what are some things that you would look at and maybe work with your contractor based on that information i mean because yeah at the end of the

Final Rent and Refi Numbers

48:24

day it’s a pretty small expense right five to seven hundred bucks to have a pretty educated opinion on what the

48:29

final project outcome is going to be so i guess actually that’s a pretty good segue here joe we kind of understand

48:36

some of the initial numbers but can you just take us through here where everything netted out so

48:41

i think you said arv was around 900 000. so correct me if i’m wrong but i kind of curious about that and then cash flow what is the

48:48

property like this cash flow for you now and okay some of those details so after the tenant was in uh then started the

48:53

refinance process and i was able to document income and therefore that will allow for the

48:59

refinance so i did the refinance uh got a local lender a local commercial lender this was bought in my entity it wasn’t

49:06

my personal name so i refinanced it in my entity as well so we got a local commercial lender as

49:11

opposed to the fannie mae lender we’re able to get an interest rate four percent wow uh it’s uh yeah it’s a

49:17

commercial loan uh i think you know it’s a uh four percent uh it is what it is yeah you do

49:23

pay a little bit more for commercial loans versus resolution that’s pretty good on a commercial loan on investment property that’s that’s not bad at all

49:29

yeah i’ll take that any day a lot okay three thousand five people

49:36

all right hang on rates have gone up joe and you got three and a half percent on a

49:43

conventional loan most likely is probably fannie mae freddie mac which meant you got to take that six-month seasoning period so this was a strategic

49:50

move where you gave up maybe half a percent on your rate to be able to get your money out faster recycle that

49:55

capital you will definitely make more in the long run with that strategy i just whining i get it

50:01

25 is a commercial loan so amortized over 25 years is a five year fixed so

50:07

every five year they kind of readjust and so on uh the principle i borrow 700k

50:13

uh which works out for that 78 or 79 percent loan to value which is not bad

50:18

for a commercial uh this lender uh you know they normally go higher uh

50:24

you know i’ve gone up to 85 percent loan to value on the commercial which is very very unheard of but they normally do but this time round uh due to some changes

50:32

in the bank we’re able to get about 79 ltv so i was able to borrow 700k

50:37

and the pi turns out to be 3 695 a month that’s the principle of interest uh the

50:44

insurance on this property is about two thousand dollars a year which works that’s about 167 dollars a month uh the

50:50

tax sorry the uh the taxes is about 4 500 which works out about uh 375 a month

50:57

so annual taxes and insurance annual is about 6 500 which break it down on a

51:02

monthly basis works out to be 542. okay so the piti principal interest tax

51:09

insurance is three six nine five plus five four two which works out to be four thousand two hundred and thirty seven

51:15

dollars a month okay so the p i t is four thousand two hundred thirty seven a month the rent is

51:21

5462. uh therefore the gross cash flow is 1225

51:27

a month that’s the gross cash flow uh obviously there’s some expenses that you incur on a daily basis on a monthly

51:33

basis yeah i i manage these properties myself um but you can knock off you know even if you knock off four or five

51:39

hundred bucks a month for expenses uh you’re still cash flowing you know five or six hundred a month but that’s not

51:45

really the key here the key here is that i i’ve got two hundred thousand 000 worth of equity from day one i’m in the

51:51

b neighborhood which is going to appreciate in value i just want to hold this asset for five to

51:56

ten years uh especially i’m going to write that appreciation that’s it that’s the game play here well what does

52:02

section 8 rental rates do over time joe like what how much would you expect them to go up every year for a property like

52:08

this uh it varies uh typically it’s around uh anything 1.8 to two

52:14

to two and a half percent uh annual increases it just depends on you know the dynamics of the area

52:20

uh and so on so their rent does increase uh it may not be as rapid as a market

52:26

rent but it does increase um but uh but what’s more important to me see the rent

52:32

here is 5462. okay nobody no market renter in my opinion

52:39

is going to be paying 5462 a month for 5-10 years at some point they’re going to say this

52:45

is crazy let’s go buy our own house okay so you’re not going to have that stability

52:50

uh where you you you you will get that with a voucher holder because they’re not paying although the rent is 5400

52:57

their portion may be significantly less so they’re in a very nice neighborhood

53:02

for a lot you know maybe four or five six hundred bucks a month 700 800 bucks a month so in that sense they want to

53:09

stay there a long time because their rent is based on their income

53:14

and if their income stays the same then their rent portion stays the same as well so so in terms of stability i don’t

53:19

want turnover and i can get that even though these high rent values

53:25

and still have tenants who are going to say 5 10 15 20 years which not which would not be possible

53:30

with market renters unless you disagree uh i mean you know feel free to disagree if you think that

53:36

uh people will pay five thousand six hundred six thousand dollars for five ten years no i wouldn’t disagree on that i think

53:43

well first off you could just look up what the comparable rents are if it’s not section eight and i would imagine they’re lower than what you’re getting

53:49

that’s first thing i would think of second is that what you’re describing so

53:54

i have all these after doing this for a while i’ve sort of put together these principles that i operate by and rob has

54:00

to hear about them all the time whether he likes it or not i’m like a grandpa who just i’m here

54:07

one of them is that there’s this uh pattern we see where as the value of a property goes up how much you can get

54:13

for rent goes up with it so you start with like a terrible property terrible condition really low price low rent as

54:18

the properties get better and more desirable the rents go up too but they don’t do that forever you hit a point where the value keeps going up and the

54:24

rents just stop and people ask me why does that happen how come i can’t rent out my

54:30

my uh seven million dollar property for the one percent roll right

54:35

why can’t i get seventy thousand dollars a month and the answer is because if you could pay 70 000 a month you would go

54:40

buy your own house and you wouldn’t do that right there’s a there’s a pool we play in as landlords where the price

54:47

point has to be the place that somebody can afford to pay rent but not so high that they would just go buy their own

54:53

property that’s why it’s very difficult to make money in luxury real estate if you need cash flow and that’s how the

54:58

short-term rental game has kind of changed the game because now we can finally get into expensive properties and make them work in a sense as

55:04

an investment property but that’s what you’re describing is yeah no tenant that can afford that would ever stay renting

55:09

for 15 years they would do what you’re doing and so that’s very wise what you’re looking at and also just to add a

55:15

cherry on top that you didn’t say if somebody thinks they could make more doing it a different way they might in

55:21

the beginning but they would not over the long term the amount of money that we spend every time a tenant leaves and

55:27

we have to fix the place up and we have vacancy and put a new one in and pay the property manager company half of the first month’s rent that adds up to be

55:34

insanely more than whatever little bit you could think like you’re playing the smart game it’s sort of like i think of

55:39

that story of the tortoise and the hare a lot of people look at real estate like i want to go invest in midwest indiana

55:46

because i can get a 20 roi right out the gate and they’re looking at that hair that just shoots out and says look how

55:51

big my cash flow is but over a long period of time the house needs so much work the tenants are always leaving it’s

55:57

such a hassle that you realize you don’t keep making that money it goes away whereas the tortoise just continually

56:02

plods along you’re not making mistakes you’re not bleeding the property’s going up the appreciation is happening and the

56:08

next thing you know you look back five or ten years down the road and the property’s got a million dollars in equity and the cash flows way higher and

56:14

you can refinance it and buy four or five more properties and you don’t have a headache like you’re doing it the the

56:20

right way and that’s just what we want to highlight it doesn’t have to be the section eight way but the principles

56:25

that you’re operating under in this section eight method are the right way to invest in real estate in my humble

56:30

opinion oh thank you no it’s true because a lot of people don’t realize the cost

56:35

of turnover it is a month to two two months typically

56:41

sometimes three months lost rent after all is said and done so if your rent is let’s say let’s just

56:48

keep it simple three thousand bucks a month a turnover um is this is the cost of the

56:54

you know you’ll clean it you gotta pay it again you gotta advertise there’s no income coming through your time all that

56:59

stuff will come into about at least a month probably two months or more that’s six thousand bucks gone

57:05

okay and uh if you don’t contain that you can’t have that every year every two

57:11

years because you make no money the cash flow that you make gets wiped out every time there’s a turnover

57:17

and that’s what i realized that i couldn’t sustain this business unless i had long term tenants

57:22

and uh and therefore uh in this high priced market the other way i could get it

57:28

was the strategy which i’m sharing with you today what we would like more than anything is when when you go look at

57:34

your next house and you’re look and you’re walking it you’re trying to figure it out look at it through dr joe’s eyes look at it through rob’s eyes

57:40

try to look at through my eyes we want you to see what we’re seeing and then the right decision becomes clear so thank you very much for sharing your

57:46

perspective as well as this deal joe and your time i appreciate you any last words before we get out of here guys uh

Connect with Dr. Joe!

57:52

if you want to follow me on instagram uh i’d love to uh connect with people uh dr joe asmr dr joesmar i do a wealth when

57:59

i’m trying to encourage more people to do what i’m doing my goal is this year is to provide

58:05

housing for 50 children children okay not me but also teach other people such

58:11

that they can provide housing for 50 children uh so that’s my goal the more people i can

58:16

teach and you know show them what i do hopefully we can make money but also do good make a difference in people’s lives

58:22

as well so that’s my goal and i love being able to share this knowledge with people i do have a wealth wednesday every every

58:28

wednesday at 7 pm eastern time on instagram so you can check me out there as well

58:34

and uh and so on i got some good news joe i think this episode is it i think you’re gonna hit your goal with this

58:40

episode because i think a lot of people will well we’ll have a pretty big pivot from probably the path they were going on

58:46

just to kind of pursue some of the things we learned today so we do appreciate you uh david thank you rob i can be found at davidgreen24 so follow

58:52

me on instagram i’m starting to do a little bit more instagram live and uh putting together some more content thank

58:58

you i also come on and as soon as i see it i’m like here i am yeah rob’s been kind of walking me

59:04

through how to how to stop being an old man and get on youtube and even tick tock believe it or not uh brandon scared

59:10

me to death by telling me about the horrors of how addictive tik tok is so i’m committed to making content but not actually like consuming content if you

59:18

want to get your life clean and you want to get off of tick tock and you need to detox follow me on there how about you rob where can people find out more about

59:24

you oh you can always find me on the tube the youtube at raw built instagram

59:29

raw built and then tick tock you can find me if you if you want to consume the content and be victims what’s your name on tick tock

59:37

it’s raw bill tell it’s just add a note to rob built someone stole your name yeah

59:42

we won’t be late for this one in this episode all right well thank you both very much for joining me today this was

59:47

a really good time joe uh if you guys would like to listen to the rest of joe’s interviews please check out

59:53

episodes 356 and 498 they will give a lot more context into this one if you wonder why did we just jump into this

59:59

and get into the details it’s because we’ve already kind of covered the big picture on some of those shows so check them out also if you weren’t watching

1:00:06

this on youtube you missed out so consider following biggerpockets youtube channel watching the videos that are on

1:00:12

there you can see the before and after pictures you can see the basement that joe saw when he made the decision this is the property i want to buy and get an

1:00:18

idea of what you could look for and then your mind will start going into wait where’s my egress gonna be where can i put the window where’s the door gonna be

1:00:24

do i have room for two electrical outlets is there 70 square feet do i need to bring a measuring tape with me

1:00:30

when i’m walking a home and is there room for a closet those four things that were shared and then as always also

1:00:37

please leave us some comments tell us what you thought about the show what you liked what you wish you would have asked us more we do read those and for the

1:00:43

reasonable ones we make every effort to accommodate them when people criticize my hair style i just let that go yeah

1:00:50

make everybody happy hey me too man don’t worry all right well thanks again joe we really appreciate you this is david green for

1:00:56

rob the fancy aristocrat abba solo signing off

1:01:07

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1:01:22

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