All Forum Posts by: Andy Webb

I agree with @Frank S. - tell them how to shut the water off so they aren't just flooding the yard and running up the bill, and get a plumber out there first thing on Monday.

Great way to go is buy a wreck of a house at a discount with hard money, get it fixed up and then refi out into a 30-year Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac loan.  You can do up to ten loans in your name that way.

Get with a local real estate agent and have them check the Days On Market (DOM) for listed rentals, both active and leased, and see which direction DOM is headed.  If it is getting longer, you may have over-saturation.  Of course condition of the rentals will play into the speed of the lease-up as well.  And being a big college town, I suspect you will have some seasonality in there as well.

Ideally find a broker that is familiar with landlords and their needs and that shops multiple insurance companies.  As opposed to a captive agent (e.g. that only works with one agency, such as Farmers...).

Yes, absolutely.  Three immediate reasons come to mind:  1) by talking about it all the time, you create focus for yourelf (ideally) and hopefully a sense of urgency, 2) you create a sense of accountability, since you keep yakking about it, people hopefully will check in with you to see how it's going, and 3) those friends and family and others may bring you a deal.  We got a great rental from a relative whose coworker had inherited a house.  If we had not made known what we do, that relative would not have connected us with the off-market, distressed seller.

It may depend on your state...in our case we use the standard Texas Association of Realtors lease which has some fixed language and a fill-in the blank for the number of days...we just run with 15.  Anything above that requires the consent of the landlord - so that gives you and them an out for a longer period, as someone above mentioned the visits from overseas and the like.

@Mindy Jensen @Brandon Turner - Hey guys - not sure if this has been asked before: is it possible to exclude User Names from the Key Words alerts?  For example, I have an alert for a local municipality "Richardson"...this is also a pretty common surname and anytime someone responds to and tags, say "Joe Richardson" - I get an alert that is not relevant to me.  It would be an awesome improvement if those could somehow be excluded!

Thanks!

@Adam Ward - if you are around and have the time, this would be a good event to swing by.  Closer to your neck of the woods.  And @Sherry Patterson is a good person to know in the investor community.  I will be stopping by.

@Vernon Watts - are you saying you have already wholesaled this property?  If so congrats! If not, good luck - I hope you find a solid buyer quickly.  (The "in negotiations" comments confused me a bit...)

Agree with @Jeremy Pace - check with your local code office.  I would also ask your favorite home inspector how that typically will be called out on the buyer's inspection, or how the pig-tailing may be presented.  Most inspectors will pop the panel cover at the fuse box and see the aluminum branch wiring, but I am not so sure they will be popping off outlet covers to even see that it has been pigtailed - I would want to hear from an inspector on that piece.  

Of course you will have your flipper fill out a seller's disclosure when listing the property, and there is a box on there to check - Aluminum Wiring Y/N....

Last item - aluminum can be difficult to insure so could give a buyer pause.

I think most retail buyer's won't have a clue about copper vs aluminum and a lot of agents won't either, so a lot will come down to how you present that on the back end.