All Forum Posts by: Jonathan Sher

Michael, like you mentioned, it's very unlikely you will be able to get this cheap enough to make a buck off of it since it's already rented and bringing in money. Although it's different in different areas of the country, the 2% rule would make me a buyer at just over $40,000 to make it a rental.

It's definitely a negative it doesn't have a washer hookup, but that could probably be installed fairly cheap. Slabs are also less desirable IMO in general but is certainly not a deal killer.

I lived in a large apartment building and the total water usage in the building was divided by the total square footage of the building and whatever square footage your apartment was, you paid that share.

I would say you can't really be mad at her. Even though the property has been listed for less than 24 hrs, thats all it takes for someone else to see it and submit an offer, she can't turn down the other offers, she has a duty to present all offers to the seller.

David, who are you using for an agent? Are they aggressive? Well known with the agents that get the consistent bank listings? My agent is well known and the listing agents know he has clients that come with cash and close fast. Although the agents don't come out and give him information he can make them beat around the bush and tell him "Don't bother on this one, there's already 15 offers " things like that.

Hey David, I see you're in KC, I'm in Saint Louis and I can definitely tell you the competition here has increased dramatically. I've probably put 20-30 offers on houses this year alone and I've gotten 3. I've come to realize that I need to step my game up and pay a little more than I'm used to because the demand is greater than the supply right now.

Did you collect a security deposit from them?

I believe in my state you cannot deduct someones unpaid rent from their security deposit, so I would check on that. I wouldn't put up too much of a fight on this, taking her to court would not be worth the cost. I would take the money you need to fix the melted siding, and send whats left of the security deposit. If you want, send her a bill for the last month of rent and just see if she ends up paying it.

You can always ask for concessions, I bet they say no, but it doesn't hurt to ask. That's want an inspection period is for, walk away if you're not happy with the condition.

Thanks Mike. As soon as we put the property up for rent we get apps. It just takes a little time to find a tenant that meets our screening, but within 1-2 weeks we usually find a qualified person.

Hey Jon, thanks for the reply. Right now I've got 6 properties (two of them waiting to close on). I've always considered multi-family, but the deals are very hard to find if you want to make decent cash flow from them. The ones that would make the cut for the 2% rule are in bad areas. Saint Louis is unique because the county didn't a lot a lot of multifamily properties to be built much past the city. There are some 2-4 family units in some really upscale areas but are very expensive.