All Forum Posts by: Rob Brautigam

Yeah but that is fun too! Just a different sort of fun. You've learned to appreciate delayed gratification while your friends want it now. Welcome to the best real estate forums on the net.

Welcome to the site @Derrick Watkins. Be sure to check out all of the free resources, in addition to the Forums. I recommend the podcasts and the free books (both under the Learn tab on the website). Good luck in Fairfield County!

UPDATE:

Thanks for all the responses, everyone. Seems like the general consensus is to close with conditions/escrow.

Got a call from my attorney this morning saying the seller had a crew come over last night (working through the night? haha) and move everything to the front yard and coordinated with the city to pick up everything, at a higher cost.

So if all goes as planned, all the trash will be removed by this afternoon, and we will end doing another walkthrough and close on the property this evening.

If there happens to be any remaining items, I will definitely use the 'hold back funds' approach.

So I'm about to close on a 3-unit investment property tomorrow morning and I go check the place out tonight with my realtor for a final walk-through.

Good thing we did that.

The seller has basically emptied the basement into the backyard and is now waiting for the city's Bulk Trash Removal service to come pick everything up. This trash includes furniture, full garbage bags, cardboard boxes filled with various items, paint containers, plastic buckets, etc.

She ordered the bulk trash removal service 2 days ago, and apparently they can take anywhere from 5 to 10 days to come by and pick up  from the FRONT yard only.

My closing is (was) tomorrow morning. I spoke with my attorney and we decided to postpone the closing until they clean this mess up. I'm not buying a dump. The house is in good condition, but this display in the yard is unacceptable. If it was 1/5 of the amount of waste, I would consider closing under conditions (holding escrow), but this is crazy...I'm surprised all this came out of the basement!!

My question is what would you guys do in a situation like this? Has something like this every occurred to you before? Would there be a financial reimbursement from seller to buyer for inconveniences? 

I will most likely have a couple of days to think about this now, so I figured I might as well post this on the forums and see what y'all have to say about this.

Photos taken from upstairs back porch:

House for those interested:

Hi "Joe," welcome to the site. The New England Area, as you can imagine by any area that encompasses 6 states, has a diverse range of markets, from A to B to C class and everywhere inbetween.

It's tough to provide any numbers without further information.

I would recommend you search for apartment deals on Loopnet, and start doing research in more defined markets/regions/metropolitan areas to compare the values, price per unit, expenses per unit, NOI, Cap rates, and any other helpful datum.

Good luck!

P.S. If that's your real name we need to hang out.

Hi @Phyllis Be and welcome to the site! I see you're from Sandy Hook...I'm from Newtown, I'm curious are you looking at a property in town or elsewhere?

This is just my opinion, but I would never buy into only 1/2 of a duplex for a few reasons. 

One of the biggest reasons is you never know what the owner of the other half plans on doing with their half of the structure, and how they plan on maintaining both the structure and the property.

Most importantly though, even if the owner of the other half is an amazing person, what happens when they decide it's time to leave. Will they be able to sell it to WHOEVER they please? This could be a terrible situation down the road. 

There are many more things to think about than the above. Who will maintain the property? Mow the lawn, plow the driveway, paint the house, replace the roof, etc, etc, etc. These things even cause problems in well-written partnerships where one of the owners does not want to put any time, money, or energy into upkeep of the property, which can be a huge hassle if you want to improve curb appeal and value.

I'm not saying any of these things will happen, but you always need to be aware of what may happen down the road. Always have an exit strategy. Personally, I would look for a $100,000 duplex and own the whole thing outright rather than putting in $50k to a risky situation. Good luck!

Hey @William Leuenberger welcome to the site... Have you looked into using VA loans to invest in real estate? I think you would definitely enjoy the BP Podcast Show 103 which hits on this topic primarily.

Highly recommend listening to this podcast... and the rest of em.

Hey @John Kameen welcome to the forums... I think you would definitely enjoy the BP Podcast Show 103 which is all about how to leverage VA loans to invest in real estate.

Highly recommend listening to this podcast... and the rest of em.

Grant would rather do 2 HUGE deals per year than 200 small deals per year.

It's all about thinking big in a sense of owning a few multi-million dollar properties rather than owning hundreds of relatively cheap SFRs. Once you're on that level, it's a lot easier to cash out of 1 or 2 deals using a 1031 Exchange and roll the profits into your next deal. This would be close to impossible on the same scale by using SFRs as the investment vehicle.

Then comes the ability to increase value on large multi-families vs SFRs. For example if you could find a way to raise the rents just $50/mo on an 5 cap apartment building with 100 units, you just increased the value of the property by $1.2 Million. Try doing that on 100 SFRs at the same time.

I am planning on taking the Connecticut Real Estate Salesperson course and exam this fall and am trying to come up with an approximate total cost for each of the steps to becoming licensed and affiliated with a broker.

Here's what I have so far:

The initial costs are approx. ($500) 60hr course & books, ($80) Application fee, and examination fee ($65). The latter two are obtained from the CT DCP site and the PSI exam PDF which explains the licensing process in CT.

After that, I believe the next step is to go interview a few brokerages and see which one works best for you. These are the costs I'm unsure about:

• Does anyone have some insight on these annual fees?
• What are the costs associated with 'hanging' your license with a Real Estate Brokerage?
• Local MLS fees?
• Any additional fees???

Any other insight on the licensing and brokerage process would be a huge help, thanks!