Can't Find Tenants? Do This! & How to Pay Off Your Rental Properties

Episode #969

Your rental properties are sitting vacant—what do you do? Do you sell or lower your rent price to spark some interest? Will reducing your rent open you up to bad tenants? We’re getting into exactly what you should do in this sticky landlording situation, and many others, in this episode of Seeing Greene. This time, we’re sharing wisdom on what to do when you can’t find tenants, how to invest with just $15,000 in 2024, which rental property mortgage to pay off first, and whether to keep or sell your newly renovated rental.

As usual, your real estate investing experts, David Greene and Rob Abasolo, are on the show to help answer any investing question you can think of. Our first video submission comes from a new investor who is completing his first BRRRR (buy, rehab, rent, refinance, repeat). With only $15,000 in the bank and a desire to build a real estate portfolio, what’s the BEST way to use such a small amount of cash? Next, a landlord with multiple rentals wants to know which mortgage to pay down first: her primary residence or her other rentals. An out-of-state investor with a vacant property struggles to find a tenant even after lowering his rent price. A medium-term rental owner with a burnt property asks whether to sell or re-rent the property after his insurance-paid renovations are completed.

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00:00 Intro

01:24 Build a Portfolio with $15K?

10:43 Which Mortgage to Pay Off First?

20:22 I Can’t Find Tenants!

30:00 Sell or Keep Renovated Rental?

35:30 Ask Us Your Question!

[calivalley]

I pay off all my rental properties, I have open HELOCs for when a property pops up for purchase or need the cash for major fixes. I have almost worked it so that I will never need to go the bank for mortgage again, maybe two more rentals and I’m there.

[cruzmissile]

I looked into getting a real estate license. You have to start as a salesperson, then a broker, then an agent. and the salesperson course is 60hours online before you can take the test.
If you want to be an investor, being an agent is a waste of time

[briandeluca]

taking out a heloc to pay debt does infact work if you refinance the loan you just paid the chunk to. You refinance it back out to 30 years (the amount of years is irrelevant) causing the payment to go down. You continue to pay the same amount you were paying before refinancing the loan. This strategy is called velocity banking. It does work and it does help to significantly pay debt off a lot quicker. Once you pay off the heloc, you take all of it back out and pay the mortgage again then refinance it once more. the interest rate is irrelevant with this strategy. You are focusing on making the payment lower therefore you are pushing more money into the principle. It works. I have used this method to pay a car off. I refinanced the care 5 time and paid it off in a year without doing anything differently. The key here is you need to switch to using the HELOC as you bank account. Put all you income into it and then use it also to pay expenses.

[JustinPanariello]

The HELOC isn't amortized like a conventional loan so interest goes down as you pay it. I think she's thinking of Velocity banking.

[zacharyzero]

Hello. I live in San Diego, California. I have a rental property in Winchester, California about an hour and fifteen minutes away. I have a property manager. My previous tenants have vacated after 2 years and now it’s vacant. It’s been empty since the 31st of last month. Today is the 11th. Prop mgmt sent me photos of the house and walked through it around the 8th, more than a week after the tenants left, and they’re saying they can get someone out this next week to give me quotes for repairs I need after the tenants have left. I’m getting frustrated because it’s been almost two weeks and they haven’t started marketing it yet. It seems like they’re taking their sweet time.

However, I’m obviously not a property manager. How long should it take to get this all done after a tenant leaves? Is the amount of time they are taking justifiable? Should I look for a new property manager? What’s a fair amount of time?

[Thehharrison]

TX Homestead Exemptions take the value that your home would be taxed at less the current exemption amount. Last year (2023) was $40, 000. This year (2024) I believe is $100, 000.

[slikio]

So how long can you wait to pull out refi after brrr? 4 to 6 months?

[jsanchez]

Bruce out!!! I'll be BaacK!!! Thank you for sharing!!!

[JevonMusicGroup]

Only 31 episodes away from 1000! Have you started decorating and ordered the llamas?!

[patrickg]

Lol thanks for the shout out guys. I consider this acknowledgement a major milestone achievement in my investing journey. 😂

[highnw]

23:50 … spreadsheet analysis probably come from rent to retirement 😂

[butchgreene]

Rob’s t-shirt…thought for a second it said Hamas. Then…oh…Bahamas. 😂

[aardon]

The Snowball method doesn’t really apply here. Dave Ramsey would have told you to save and never have that mortgage. The Snowball Method is when you have a bunch of credit card debt on different cards and owe money on other things where they are in the thousands of dollars. There the mental benefit of having fewer debts as you go and they get paid off quicker as your is very beneficial and keeps you motivated.