I have looked at the various fees from many different managing agents and I just find it incredible that the fees are so high, In particular the renewal fee for the sitting tenant – just ridiculous.

There are a myriad of other fees that they will charge you which seem to be anything at all to do with you property – apart from keep it on their listing.

What on earth do they provide for their 10% commission????

Getting away from the fees they want to charge the other aspects of the Leasing/management agreement that I despise are the set term instead of simply an agreement until such time that they fail to provide the services required. In Australia at most the RE's try for a 90 day agreement and are lucky to get 30 days. What's even worse with the Term clause is the wording which will automatically renew the term and further the term will be extended based the tenants term of the lease.

The other dozy is the clasue that selling to the tenant (tenants family, tenants friend or anybody that is in some way remotely connected with the tenant) will incur a Re commission and furthermore that this clause will survive the term of the management agreement.

It might be a business but at some point you need to give value for money!!!!

Regards

All good questions. 

1. Prices falling,,, In atlanta who really cares if they fall 10 or 20% are you going to sell tomorrow???? The prices are already off market hi's by 50% or better. The prices are now down so low that 10% drop means 4k big deal.  10 or 20% drop on a 400k home is a big deal. So those that do not take action thinking they can buy for 10% less will be trying to time the market and will miss the bottom no doubt. Luck is the only way you time the bottom. There is no investment expert that will tell you otherwise. Just like timing the top.  thats my take on price. ( AA an investor I was buying houses in the hood for $25k , now I can buy houses in nice areas for under $20k . So I don't really care what the experts say.I am going off for me personally over 15 years off investing. Again we buy in bulk so I will keep what we don't sell.Cash flow is what I am after..

2. Amercians by and large do not share homes, other than having a child come back to live with them, or elderly parent. If they did the rental market would really tank.  The Asian's and Mexicans though will definatly have 2 or 3 generations in one house. You have to take into consideration your demographics in the South East, 50% or better African american, as a demographic here in the US they have the most disrupted family structure of any group by far. And a very large % do not even know who their family is much less live together. Its a Matriarchial society. women and Mothers are the strenght of the family unit. The Men come and go. Many children have no idea who their father is, thats where the term Baby Mama and Baby Daddy comes from in the US.
If you watch American sports you will see all sorts of Human interest stories with our Black star's and how they were raised by their mother and or grandmother and never new or met the father.  Just the way it is.
So in Atlanta your not going to get tight cohesive family units living in close quarters.( Jay says it rougher then I will but so true)

3. What I  see in the rental market is on par with what Alex is talking about, there is no question huge amounts of properties being bought by Investors instead of going to Owner Occ's… Now this is great for investor short term long term not so great for neighborhoods if they get over run with rentals. Lithonia is perfect example if any one thinks I am full of it. Type in any address in Lithonia on Zillow notice the little red and yellow flags and purple flags. I am willing to bet les then 20 % are OCC but now are rentals. When a retail area becomes a rental area it's value will drop.

4. The feedback we get from others in the industry is there are those that claim to have renters lined up for homes in Atlanta and if thats the case they are not doing enough DD on the tenant and are going to have a lot of issues with non payment trashing of units excetra. there is no doubt a lot of rental inventory and their are renters. We are not a volume shop for our fully managed program. So In each of our 4 markets we add 2 to 4 homes a month.. company wide thats a nice pace 8 to 10 a month however in our market we are very very selective on who we rent to. Much more so than say one of the big volume players that needs to get tenants in the houses to appeaze their client and live up to their representations that induced an investor to invest in the first place. We get an average ( like Alex in Charlotte) 4 to 6 applications before we take one. We do some Sec 8 but hey have to qualify as well. There are property managers that will slam sec. 8 in just for the rent realiability factor, but the tenant can be a bad one on  phycially and do more damage then they are worth. I own the management company for the homes  in Rock Hill SC and Charlotte NC. I can assure you  I have been doing this for years.We have some great referrals but are turning down more tenants for Charlotte and Rock Hill then before. The group running things in Atlanta  for us are seeing the same thing.So for any Aussie or American saying you have a waiting list of ready available tenants.Sorry you are full of it and taking people for a ride.  We do have some people who pre qualify and we then find a home for them. Our current list of pre approved is 4 deep.

If your having problems finding foreclosures at your price range I can only take that to mean your looking at super low end prices. there are thousands of houses that can be bought just off the MLS for 30 to 60k… Depends on what you are looking…Just saw a house I bidding $35k on an Australian group purchased ( Well not sure what they purchased it for but they are selling it in Low 60 K with $15k or more rehab( I know this because they did not close and trying to flip the house first.. Same house I bid $35k and $45k was my highest and best. Type in any address on zillow and look for comps on what sold.Go to bottom left side and see what is for sale.  Stop over paying is my advice for you guys…..

The real trick is picking the best bang for the buck in the best areas and neighborhoods.. Proximety to the freeway for instance is huge in Atlanta. And Atlanta is geographically a very very large spread out MetroPlex.

Since i'm buying my third property in GA, near Atlanta, my educated guess of the final cost would be between 42K to 45K.
30K is what the Bank sold the property for but the reno cost, closing etc would push the total cost past 40K easily…but that's just my perogative but unless the figures are disclosed, we can only speculate based from experience.

Beautiful home.

Click on this article when you are thru with my jabber:  Hudson County Rental Market

In 2012, a report will come out that NJ created the most private sector jobs in 2011.  The Garden State is definately going to record the largest annual gain in private sector jobs in more than a decade. 

If you have ever been to NYC or Metro NJ, you will notice that it is very urban…Double that these days.  Proximity is everything and Manhattan real estate buyers are overflowing into the NJ urban markets such as Hoboken, Jersey City, Bayonne, etc… From there, you can be in Port Authority or 33rd St in less time it takes to get there from the Upper West Side.  About 7 minutes. 

New Jersey is a market for buy and hold.  Your Cap Rate on a single unit condo will be low, about 5%, but your long term growth potential is incredibly high.  High dollar investors are also targeting the area including NYC due to future potential.  Take a stab at my website and get to know the area..

Multi-Family buildings in the $400k to $1 million range are getting 9% Cap Rates and the area commands rental units like you command oxygen. 

http://s1178.photobucket.com/albums/x374/selectamericanhomes/Course%20Side/?albumview=slideshow