All Forum Posts by: Bill Wallace

My daughter lives in a rental I own. It's a 2 br condo. I think it totally depends on the level of trust you have with your daughter.

We don't have a lease with her but she is ultra responsible. She is a working professional and extremely good with her money - she saves 50% of what she makes. She is responsible for finding a roommate she wants and then I put that person through my normal application/screening/background process before they sign a 12 month lease. We will be going on our 5th year in August and this has worked quite well. Daughter does pay about $100 less than the roommate but that's because my wife doesn't want to charge her full boat (even though she has plenty of funds). Property still makes us a decent return.

I'd be a lot more leery if it was my son.

 Mostly true - but you are required to disclose murders that happened in the home in MN.

I had a listing once where the seller insisted house was haunted. I even helped her locate a resource to come exorcise it from home as she insisted it was the reason the house wasn't selling. It actually surprised me how many people provided this as a service.

I don't agree with Sawyer's approach as it will open you up to potential discrimination claims.

Instead I recommend a written document that you use to outline your requirements, applications process and possible reasons an applicant can be rejected. Have them sign it to acknowledge.

If they go to the next step of filling out an application you should process those applications in the order received and accept them if they meet your written criteria. Certainly, this should include a criminal background check, credit check, income verification and contacts with prior landlords. If someone doesn't meet your criteria based on those checks you should document the specifics against your own written requirements and send it to them to show why they were rejected.

Any other option and you are exposing yourself legally - you might want to consult with your real estate attorney to find out more.

Looks like the average home price in Madison was up 3.8% last year. You can find the stats here -  http://www.rascw.org/  That's not all that much above inflation or what's happening in other markets.

People rent vs. buy for all kinds of reasons. First off, many people have a hard time even saving the 3.5% needed to get an FHA loan. Also, it seems like the millennial generation is marrying later and less interested in home ownership. Rents will stay steady or increase as long as there is demand - the whole economics thing :)

The only potential advantages I can think of -

- You get the whole commission and don't split it with your broker

- It's possible in rare occasions that you'd run into a deal that didn't want dual agency which could preclude an agent with that firm from writing an offer. I ran into this once when my company was listing agent for a type of Fannie Mae property and they wouldn't let anyone from the brokerage to write an offer on it for some reason.

That said, I think the disadvantages would outweigh the advantages.

You'll want to check with your state's licensing laws. I know in many states, like Minnesota, you need to be a salesperson for some number of years before you can get a broker license (it's 3 years here).

From a practical standpoint I would advise you to just start on the salesperson side anyway. There is a lot of value in working under a broker who can mentor you through your first transactions. In addition, being a broker brings a lot more liability to the table and you need to have a lot more things in place like banking, escrow and insurance.

No need to rush it in my opinion.

You can get a complete demographic breakdown of every Minneapolis & St Paul neighborhood here - 

http://www.mncompass.org/profiles/neighborhoods/mi...

Gives you things like age, race, % rentals, incomes and a ton more. 

I think you can pretty much determine the rental class by the demographics and this is much more defined than your map (although your map looks pretty good as a general guide).

I agree with the sentiments regarding Nicole Curtis. Been in one of her flips and wasn't impressed with the quality - looked way better on TV.

Then there's the financials. One of her first seasons was a nice house on Minnehaha Parkway in Minneapolis. She bought it in August 2009 for $350k. Finally listed it in June 2011 for $850k. It expired 3 months later at $799k. It finally sold in an off-MLS transaction in January 2012 for $610k. It was a tough market about then but to have 2 1/2 years of holding costs, all the rehab on a 4,600 sf house and then overshoot the final sale price by $200k+ sounds like a money loser to me.

Like this?  

http://www.amazon.com/CBU-Commercial-Mailboxes-Door-Gray/dp/B00819YM6U

Personally, if my spouse and I aren't on the same page then we either need to work together to find a solution that's acceptable or it's not a good plan. If your spouse is against the flip and it goes well I guess you can say you were right. But what happens to your relationship if they were against it all along and it doesn't go as successfully as planned?