All Forum Posts by: Bob McIntosh

I would be curious to know what guru's you have worked with that you would classify as good (i have yet to find one, but I'm not saying they aren't out there).

As for John T. Reed, I would say of the 10 or so guru's I have met/seen his ratings were very close to accurate, many of them are just selling you the next step in their program with each step you buy... or at least that has been my experience.

Same here, this does sound sort of like a scam, and a 40% return in 60 days is unheard of. My day job is as an IT auditor for banks and I don't honestly believe that a bank would be involved with any investment that has that level or returns... simply put... its just to risky, and banks are some of the most risk adverse businesses out there...

In addition if you google this term it does not return any usable results, which does not necessarily mean anything but I would expect if this were something that was legitimate than someone would have posted something at some point about it....

Be weary... very weary...

So I have read some threads about SureDeposit and checked their website out, and it certianly seems like a great idea however if you want to go with SureDeposit as a landlord you must have at least 1000 units!!!

Has anyone come across any other similar services that do this but with a much lower unit requirement?

Just curious!

Thanks!

I don't know why but I find it amusing that everyone on this board seems to be quite emphatic about their position on the 50% rule. I can not say one way or the other as I have no rental properties... *yet* but I can see that if it does hold true generally it could be a great time saving analysis formula...

Either way its good to see everyone's prospective on the subject!!

Thanks for the questions, I ended up asking most of those but we met with the Realtor and she didn't have some of the answers, but would get them to me by Monday.

Either way I will not likely be purchasing this property for the following:
A. I have no rehabbing experience personally, my dad (partner) has some but not in the area we were looking in (more on that below)
B. The money we think we would have but may need a hard money loan to make up the difference
C. Never honestly thought about builders risk insurance... What exactly is that?
D. I can't do any of the work myself, I am about as far as you get from a handy man
E. We had planned to sell it

There were a lot of things that were not as advertised on the MLS which changed things quite dramatically. The plans called for a significant (1200sqft) addition to be put on, and an existing addition which was not built to code to be knocked down. Overall a lot of things that as a newbie to REI I had never thought about and was not prepared for haha.

It was however a GREAT learning experience in terms of understanding the level of involvement a gutted place would require and what needs to be done to get it back to livable conditions.

Thanks for the support though, and I do appreciate the responses!!!

Avoid any of the guru's. You will do better reading the posts in this forum than 99% of the guru books available out there.

If you are not sure if its a guru book or not, check out www.johntreed.com he is sort of the unofficial guru rater, and after my experiences with a handful of "guru's" i have found his website to be 90% accurate on its ratings...

If you bought a gutted building and rehabbed it completely (everything, nothing left out), would the 50% rule still apply? Or could you assume for at least a couple of years that its going to be a little bit lower since everything is brand new?

Any thoughts on this would be appreciated!

This is sort of off topic, but would you recommend this book for anyone doing a rehab (even if they are hiring a contractor)?

So I live in an apartment currently that is supposedly a "luxury apartment", there are however quite a few things done wrong here to classify it as "luxury". Most notably the fact that between October and now, the heat and hot water (which are tied together) have gone out at least a dozen times (i think its more but have lost track...).

Now in our lease it specifically states the following:

Now each time it does go out, the maintenance guy is here to fix it within an hour, for which I am greatfull (being in NYC without heat in the middle of winter really sucks). My question is do I have any room to argue with them about the fact that this problem keeps repeatedly happening... For the amount of rent I pay every month I believe a more permanent solution could be found and yet it has not.

Whats your thoughts?[/list]

If you are truly worried that the seller might do this, then your best bet would be to get an estimate and have it done yourself by subtracting the price off of the house.

However if you do that you are stuck with the house, if the cracks are indicative of a larger structural problem you are stuck with that problem. If the seller undertakes this and such a problem is uncovered then it is the sellers problem as you will not have purchased the house yet (make sure that the purchase is contingent upon you inspecting the work done and being satisfactory with its completion).

So really its up to you...