All Forum Posts by: Andy Collins

I never buy a house with a professional home inspector. I use the same inspector every time, I have walked away from deals because of his reports.

Now he tends to write every little thing up, so I told him I don't care about appliances, I don't care for something like an electrical socket is obviously broken,,I want the things I can't see. This gives me him more time to focus on what I want him to look for, major problems.

I normally know if the house might have foundation problems, if it does I have that done before the regular inspection,,the foundation inspection is free (from my foundation company), and there have been times i walked away based on that report and saved myself the inspection fee.

Whatever you do, don't walk in the attorney's office and ask "what is best, an LLC OR C Corp...say here is my situation, lay everything out for him and ask what do I need to do to protect myself....don't assume you know what will be the best way to proceed.

If you ask which is better, "a' or "b",,he will answer that, but maybe you really need "d"

the big question is the debt to income that Pam brought up. I would also ask approximately what you credit score is, I'm wondering if you will continue to get the 0% etc transfer offers. If those run out getting rid of your credit card debt could become more important, and when the interest rise, so do the payments, which would hurt you on DTI.

I am a big believer in leveraging, if I can put $15k cash into a house that will throw off $300-$400 a month, I don't mind borrowing that $15k if I can get a long term deal on the money (which i often have to do to keep reserves at the proper level),,,but I have an exit strategy, if everything ever starts to cause a problem I sell one rental and pay off all non-mortgage debt.

if you have more than 4 mortgages (or houses with any debt tied to them), then you can't do a cash out refi at all.

People tend to say you have 4 or more confirming mortgages, but if you have 3 confirming mortgages, and 2 houses in hard money, if they find out about the two (and trust me, they can), they will put you under the 5-10 guidelines with no cash out,,,trust me on this, I know from experience

I'm not an expert on direct mail, but am a real estate investor with several properties, in my personal name.

In the past I got maybe one mailer a month,,,lately its to the point I get 2-3 every week,,today I got 2!

Direct mail to absentee homeowners is over saturated based on what I'm experiencing

Yes, 360 Mortgage is out of Austin (512 area code), I have had a couple of mortgages through them, always great to work with

The person hasn't been late in 2 1/2 years, says they were out of town due to a death in the family, and you are worried about late fees?

Please send them to me, I'll happily put them in a house,,,sound like a good tenant, I would tell them what happened was automated and of course you wouldn't charge late fees because of their history and the situation they were in.

I don't want to win every battle, I just want to win the war,,,,I would never bring up the mention of late fees being right,,,just drop it unless it is a problem going forward

Get a $5 Million umbrella policy, it will cost less than $500 a year, and don't do anything to get sued (don't have a handy man do electrical work, do respond if a tenant calls with a problem that could cause injury)

Obviously a jury could award more than $5 Million in a suit, but to be honest, if you aren't doing anything wrong (you hide the fact that there was a gas leak, etc), chances of getting a verdict over that amount is very, very small, and the insurance company will pay for your defense (unless you hid that leaking gas pipe and 5 people were killed, then they will pay the $5 Million and tell you good luck)

Most landlords would never be in a situation where they were 2 months behind on rent and had no security deposit. If a tenant is more than 10 days late they get a '3 day letter' telling them to pay or vacate. If they bounce a check (and I have had that happen), I give them a 3 day letter (a bounced check doesn't count as payment obviously).

I am sorry your friend got burned for $4k, but chances are they wont' see any of it,,but they really shouldn't be in the landlord business if they are going to handle it this loosely (did they even have a signed lease/credit report?)

Two years ago I tried to be "all in" at 70%,,,today in the same area, I'm probable closer to 90%,,,to a large degree the market will influence how good of a deal you can find.

As others have said, I'm looking at cash flow,,if it fits the area/size/neighborhood specs I use, and still cash flows what I'm trying to achieve,,I'm not too worried what discount I'm getting.