Posted by: Scott
on 2011
Tagged in: Untagged
Being able to rent out your rental property is not only inportant - it is a must. With the increasing supply of foreclosures and more people turning to renting, it is important to have a good understanding of when to manage a home yourself and when to allow a professional to do this for you.
Many new investors will decide that their property is worth a certain rent amount and just to try and prove a point, they are willing to lose months of income in the efforts of holding out for their rent price. This type of thinking is what turns new investors into troubled or distressed owners. Having the skills to properly evaluate a rent market can be the difference in renting your home fast or having it sit on the market for many months.
Another thing that new investors seem to migrate to is bad tenant choices. When a potential tenant is enquiring about your rent home you might take this advice - run a credit and criminal history check. I only rent to people with good credit. Why, you ask? Well, someone with good credit did a lot of work to get that way and they are less likely to disrupt that good credit. The other thing you must check on is criminal history. Don't rent to people that have no capacity for following the law. If they will break the law, what makes you think they won't break the lease.
Posted by: Scott
on 2010
Tagged in: Untagged
Can't get the list your looking for? There are literally dozens of ways to find foreclosures - from picking them up at the auction after the banks take them back, approaching the Banks with REO's on their books, chasing down leads from pay sites, and many others.
At some point in time, you may determine it is best to have the deals coming to you, instead of you doing all the work. With that, you may want to try getting set up on a MLS alert system.
To do this, contact your local realtor and ask them if you can be emailed anytime they receive new foreclosures.
Most realtors will tell you, "sure - I can put you on a list!", but they don't even know what to look for half the time. This is when you, the investor, will need to help them by teaching them how to actually weed out all the waste and send you just the properties that meet the right criteria.
To do this, first let the realtor know the target area your looking to buy in. Once he knows this he will then be able to narrow searches to only those areas.
Then, you will want to give him a list of key words that you would like for him to query for on the "remarks/comments" section of the MLS listings. This field is used by realtors to describe things about financing, status, payment methods, condition, etc.. It is important to know what keywords to use, so here are a few that I personally use that will get you started.
