All Forum Posts by: Deborah Burian

At present I work from home. We downsized and I now have a pocket office instead of a full room. The paperwork and office detritus is becoming too much for my little pocket office and I'm planning on building an office space into my newly acquired shop. Much work occurs from my pickup truck.

One of the more successful ones in our community is private stand-alone. That's all I know about it but they are very happy with their investment. They bought a largish area, built a few rows, filled 'em up, built a few more, rinse and repeat

Timely topic - I've been thinking of putting a shed up for tenant storage for my garage apartments, just to keep crap out of the yard and give a place for bikes etc. Thinking of partitioning a large shed - any ideas?

We don't fool with properties with liens. Life is too short and both deals and money have a time value. Keep looking, you'll find something workable!

@Stan - I have one that's about 7 years old and my banker offered to write another one if I wanted it just the other day. Community bank that holds its own paper under 2 mil.

@Ashli U. - aaarghh. I don't care what a website says. Light bulbs are not wear and tear. I would love... just once... in my landlording career... for a tenant to replace the blasted light bulbs. They are a standard item on my truck because at this stage of the game I KNOW tenants aren't going to replace light bulbs. They're a buck a pack. How hard is it to replace a light bulb. I'm going to my corner to weep now.

However, no, we don't charge in the deposit for light bulbs.

Tax records are public documents and in most counties, you can get them on line. Ditto what @Michael Seeker says.

@Michael Seeker - great point. I should have specified that I'm done acquiring and am transitioning to optimize cashflow.

You know what? Section 8 had nothing to do with this. This is how some tenants work. You have to screen then verify... and, I got tickled because on Monday, after a trash-out, I came home and scrubbed the bottom of my shoes. Yes, the house was that dirty and cockroach infested. Yes, it was on me, I let it happen.

As in bigger brains than mine to help me think about financing options for my multi-unit...

The property was purchased with seller financing of one year, bank is on board to convert note whenever I'm ready. I am reasonably confident that when the structural repairs are done, some exterior paint is updated, occupancy is at 80-90%, and a few interiors are completely renovated, the properties will appraise for an amount that will allow me to do whatever makes sense to me.

For purposes of this discussion, let's call rents $4500/mo. Seller financed note through June 2014 is $1251/mo. 30K upfront costs, including Capex came out of my IRA. Any refinancing will result in the interest rate going from 5% to 6% but that's going to happen in June 2014 regardless.

Incidentally, the IRA cash came out in two chunks and it's too late to return the first one.

These are the choices I see, there may be others.

1) hold the way it is. Low payment, great interest rate, life is good. Risk - markets change, maybe my banker won't love me as much next June. Mortgage $1251/mo.

2) refinance for balance of note, call the upfront cash an investment, eat the IRA penalties and move on. Mortgage $1334/mo. Cost of early conversion to higher interest rate, about $600.

3) refinance for balance of note plus 15K that could be rolled back to IRA, eliminating a portion of the penalty and restore the 15K to the IRA. Mortgage $1460/mo. Now I'm below $100/door but still profitable and gaining a significant tax advantage.

4) refinance for balance of note, plus 15K for IRA plus 10K to essentially create a property-financed emergency fund. Mortgage $1545/mo. Now I'm further below $100 a door in the short term but the leverage may well be worth it and as we continue to improve the property, the $100/door comes back.

5) and so on, all the way up to 100% self-financed property at a mortgage of $1586/mo

6) take a little early profit for $1629/mo

etc.

Still ultimately more interested in cash flow than short term profit so the sweet spot is probably somewhere in the middle. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.