All Forum Posts by: Emilio Ramirez

I'm beginning the process of converting a duplex (two family) that I own to condos for retail sale. The process should be complete by March/April 2010. I have tenants in the property right now through August. I assumed that unless I bought them out of their lease that I would have no other means of getting them out of their contract.

I've been reading Wisconsin Condo law, however, and there is a stipulation that requires 60 day notice and a total of 120 days before the tenants are required to leave. Wisconsin Tenant law basically offers two contracts between landlord tenant, month to month which only requires 30 days notice at any time from either party for termination or a lease which requires a waiver of the contract from both parties to end the lease early or two breaches of the lease to warrant an eviction.

I have a call into a lawyer to ask him about this, but have not heard from him yet. I started wondering why would Wisconsin have this law? Maybe my assumption was wrong. If a tenant is on a month to month lease, why would they require 120 days notice to vacate the apartment because it is being converted to condos when if it stayed as an apartment they could be gone at any given time in 30 days? Does this mean that because the conversion to condo actually changes the legal type of property that any lease that is in place is for a property that doesn't exist anymore? And thus the lease becomes null and void and the 120 days is to protect the tenant that is in a lease from being kicked out into the street? Any insight you might have would be greatly appreciated.

Much grass.

Read the statutes in the WI administrative code that pertain to tenant and landlord. All available online at the wisconsin gov website.

Alright, this is going to be a bit vague, so bear with me.

If you were to chose between Los Angeles co/ Orange co and phoenix/maricopa co for REI which would you choose and why?

Pros/Cons
Opportunities
Cashflow
Demographics
Climate
Nightlife
Economy
Networking
Properties available
Competition
Market entry
Schools

Whatever you can think of would be great.

If anyone has any experience with the Making Home Affordable process your input would be appreciated. It seems painfully familiar to a short sale process.

One of the brokers told me that if they had a 620 they would qualify for a FHA refi with a 5-5.5% rate. I think it had a payback of 8 months and their monthly payment would be be down +/-$200. While I was writing my first post I thought about the Making home affordable program and both of these situations seem to qualify for it in one way or another. I am going to suggest they go that route. Don't know what kind of success they might encounter with that approach.

A couple of friends have approached me for help.

#1 SFH FMV $408k
two mortgages at about $215k at 6.5%
credit score 602 550 550
$48k annual income

#2 SFH FMV $650,000
one mortgage at $450K at 6.5% interest only
credit score 550
$100k annual income

I spoke with two mortgage brokers and a local bank on their behalf. The mortgage broker told me that no one will qualify for a loan without a 620 score. The bank told me that no one will qualify without a 640. I'm pretty sure both of these folks are SOL, but thought I would double check with the experts here. Any one know of any programs that might help these people?

I feel like we are in the eye of the hurricane right now. While technically the recession may have ended, there is probably another one around the corner. Just read a ULI post that is reporting many banks "extending and pretending" on their CRE loans that are coming due. This is actually creating a bigger bubble while they wait and hope that over the next year or two that values will recover. When they don't all of these CRE properties will hit the market like a tidal wave. If you look at the 1930's the great depression was actually a string of recessions over the course of a decade with a few periods of growth sprinkled in between.

You need to check your local building code on the double cylinder lock. I know in Milwaukee you are required to have a thumb latch on the inside in case of a fire.

I recently read somewhere, I think in Edelman's book, that if I bought a property for cash and then took out a home equity or some kind of note that the interest is not deductable versus if I purchased the property straight away with a down payment and a mortgage. Is that true?

What about a second? Is the interest deductable there?

Thanks

I think it's a concern, but...

If the property is cashflowing then why would you want to sell. If you need money, at 10 years you will probably have enough equity in the property to pull out some cash for another purchase or whatever.

Rich Weese has discussed real estate cycles in some of his posts, I would check them out. If the interest rate is truly that high, then that would be the wrong time in the real estate cycle to sell if you didn't have to.

If the property or owner is distressed and a sale is forced, then you're in trouble anyways.