All Forum Posts by: Chris Calabrese

The main catch is the pad. You have to buy the premium Stainmaster pad and pay their crazy markup. The other catch is it's "basic installation" - they charge you for tear-out, haul-off, steps, tack-strip, transitions, etc. I have used them a couple of times, and they tend to have good installers because the installers don't want to lose their contracts with Lowe's. Good finished product, but total value, not so great.

To elaborate, we are a 2-person LLC taxed as an S-Corp, and our CPA recommends taking 50% of income as salary, or maybe as low as 40% if you have a larger income and want to be aggressive.

So as an example:

You earn $100,000 for the year. As an individual or LLC, you would pay $13,300 in SE tax (currently 10.4% SS and 2.9% Medicare), but as a Corp you could take a $50,000 salary, on which you would only pay $6,650 in SE tax and take the other $50,000 as a dividend. Income over $106,800 isn't subject to the SS tax anyway, so most of the benefit goes away after you've made double that amount.

Keep in mind that you'll have to have someone do payroll and withholding for you, which will eat up a little bit of your savings.

Personally, I would do the opposite and give them an incentive to sign on for another year, which is more beneficial to you. Charge a premium for the uncertainty of having a month-to-month lease.

I have found CreditKarma's scores to be inaccurate. I recently pulled all 3 credit scores through Equifax, and my CreditKarma score was almost 100 points off from any of the 3. I've updated it several times with the same result. However, it does show you various statistics and how they are affecting your score, like age of credit, total lines opens, and debt ratios, and this can be useful.

Yes, I'm talking about the courthouse steps. Actually, they do them inside a courtroom now, or in Horry county (Myrtle Beach) they are using a big conference room because there can be 200 people there.

The main reason there's so few deals at the courthouse is that everyone is underwater, and the banks will bid the full amount of the judgement. But for the few with a lot of equity, there can be some great deals and less competition. Once the banks buy them back and put them on the MLS, there's so much more competition from other investors and owner-occupants. I figure we could pick up a couple of extra deals a year this way. The biggest flipper in town here buys most of his properties at auction.

Yes, it actually allows us to use private money to finance the deals if we choose, or even wholesale them out. And I guess if you really made a mistake and realized it after the sale, you could get out and only be out 5%.

I know that at auction, you pay 5% of the bid upfront, and then have 30 days to pay the balance. At that time, the Master signs the property over and it's yours. I guess I was thinking there would be 2 ways to handle this:

1 - Pay the full balance immediately (or quickly) and then work on getting the people out.

2 - Pay the deposit, talk to the owners and try to work something out within 30 days, then only pay it off once it's vacant. The problem with this is they still own the home until you get the deed, so you can't enforce anything anyway.

Tactfully offer to help them clean up their yard. We have painted buildings and done landscaping for neighbors to boost our value. You could even offer them cash to keep it neat until your house sells. Privacy fences are nice features too, but potential buyers will still see the mess when they drive up.

I'm getting ready to start bidding on houses at the courthouse auctions to add another weapon to my arsenal. I've been to several in different counties and am familiar enough with the process to feel comfortable bidding. My biggest concern is having to remove the former owners from the house. I know if you can't get them out, you can get the sheriff involved, but does anyone have some suggestions on how to make this process easier?

I can echo everything on here. There are kind of like dealing with HUD, but maybe even worse. I think all their support is outsourced to India, although they use a Florida number, so communication is definitely an issue. They don't have voicemail, so you have to just keep calling until you get someone, and make sure you answer when you're expecting a call from them, or it may be another day before you can get back in touch. They also pull the "highest and best" trick on every house, so just stick to your guns when bidding.

With that said, I've bought 2 flip houses from them and were 2 of my most profitable deals. As a realtor, I would never want to buy a house for a client from them. Way too frustrating for Joe & Jane Homebuyer.