All Forum Posts by: Andrew Weiner

I would strongly discourage this as a first purchase.  You cannot see the inside of the house, the condition is unknown and you might be walking into a bad situation.  I have seen bidding wars on the new online auctions over properties that were already demolished.  These are unforgiving sales.  

It was said above but there is no reason that I can think of to use any power of attorney to purchase a home out of state.  If you find something that you want you just put in an offer through a realtor, they should be able to send you everything you need and have it signed online.  We have many out of state clients and we have never needed a power of attorney.  

There are plenty of purchase agreements available online for our area, I'm based in Beachwood. We always offer with a proper agreement, negotiate verbally, and send a revised version with the terms for signature. I use an LOI for a larger or more complex transaction.

East Cleveland has high turnover, major crime issues, and high unemployment.

The vacancy rate in other parts of Cleveland and the suburbs is actually quite low.  Economic prospect is hard to speak to with everything being impacted by COVID.  The overall Ohio unemployment rate is improving steadily and we haven't had many tenants with major long term issues paying their rent, just some short shut down related issues that we were able to work through.  People keep talking about the decreasing population in Cleveland but we see very high demand for rentals.  

There are a many reasons that people stay renters, in many cases for life. Many people do not have even basic financial education, they live pay check to paycheck and saving up even a few thousand dollars for an FHA loan is beyond their abilities. Other reasons include need for flexibility, believe that they end up spending less long term due to maintenance, they don't want to deal with maintenance, moving into a better school district that they can't get afford a down payment in, and the list goes on.

As to your question about 50K houses in a market like Cleveland, you can find them on the MLS but they are not the kind of property or in the neighborhoods that most owner occupants want to live in.

   Originally posted by @Murali Jesudoss:

There are quite a few Clevelanders on the forums. Do you have specific questions or any areas in particular you are looking at?  It’s a great market to invest in and if you do your due diligence properly it can be quite profitable.  
My biggest piece of advice is as you look that if it’s too cheap then you might want to avoid it.  Most people will tell you to avoid East Cleveland and many neighborhoods in the city of Cleveland.   I focus on suburbs with better school districts like shaker, Cleveland Heights, Euclid, or Garfield Heights.
Good luck finding some properties!

Cleveland is a great area to invest and I’m super passionate about the city. As of this week we even have a winning football team!  Your budget is realistic but I would move towards the higher end of your price range.  If a property is too cheap there is probably a reason.  Also some neighborhoods tend to have higher turn over and more tenant issues.  Better areas don’t just demand higher rents, they can demand more qualified tenants.

Does your property manager have someone they can recommend.  Usually if you use a lawn care company they can also do driveways.  The bigger companies are already full for the season by the first major snow.

Do not misstate the sale price, that is almost certainly illegal! I am not an attorney so you can take that with a grain of salt. I would never sign a document that says something different than what the truth is. If your buyer doesn't want the purchase price recorded then you can quit claim the property into an LLC and then sell the LLC, any real estate attorney should be able to help you do this properly.
Good luck!