Renting my primary home first time

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bahah81818

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bahah81818
Nov 20, 2020 12 Comments

Real estate investing first time as I plan to rent out my home starting Jan 2021. Never rented out before and dealt with tenants.

Experienced landlords, would you recommend me going to a property management company or try Zillow Rental Manager app to begin with by myself and screen tenants, background check, etc ?

I will be cash flow positive if I don’t have to deduct the 10% from rent commission to property management company.

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TOP 12 Comments
  • Amazon
    X Æ A-13

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    X Æ A-13
    Use Rocket Lawyer for prepping the lease. Use cozy for tenant application, screening, credit check and rent collection. I personally don’t think it’s worth paying 10% because it’s such less work.
    Nov 20, 2020 3
    • Amazon
      X Æ A-13

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      X Æ A-13
      Cozy is a rental management platform and is free for renters. Check it out. They offer ways to accept application and perform credit checks (tenant pays for those). Then you can set up payments, late fees etc.
      Nov 20, 2020
    • Amazon
      X Æ A-13

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      X Æ A-13
      I’ve been managing a rental myself and it’s been pretty seamless till now.
      Nov 20, 2020
  • No app, no property management company. Put ad on Zillow and use Zillow for screening. Then ask tenant to pay rent thru zelle or deposit check to your account.

    Issue with property management is unwanted repairs and usually they own a repair company
    Nov 20, 2020 0
  • Square
    IwTu60

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    IwTu60
    If your gross margin is < 10% you should probably reconsider unless you’re keeping the place for reasons beyond income/investment. Maintenance alone will kill a 10% margin, not to mention vacancy.

    That said, property mgmt companies make things easier, but you still need to manage *them*. But doing it yourself will teach you a lot about the industry. If this is meant to be the start of a career transition I would do the work yourself. If it’s just a one off thing I’d probably go with a company.
    Nov 20, 2020 2
    • Amazon
      X Æ A-13

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      X Æ A-13
      In HCOL it’s impossible to get a positive margin. Does that mean it doesn’t make sense to get an investment property? The tenant is still paying my mortgage, right?
      Nov 20, 2020
    • Agree margin is too low just clarifying that cash flow in hcol areas are obviously possible. If it wasn't non of us would bother. All that matters is cash flow.
      Nov 20, 2020
  • City of Holyoke
    revsfan12

    City of Holyoke

    revsfan12
    See YouTube channel Meet Kevin. He's a little bit odd news presentation but much of his information is pure gold
    Dec 1, 2020 0
  • No need for a prop manager but outsource the background check and applications so you never have to store information or handle application fees.
    Nov 20, 2020 0