All Forum Posts by: Kevin C.

Free heat to a tenant means 80 degrees in the dead of winter with the windows open.

You can't even begin to compare a typical 3BR, 1BA owner occupied home's heating costs with a 'free heat' tenant occupied home.

Go to a buffet sometime and see all the waste, then think about all the heating fuel that will surely be wasted by a tenant that is not on the hook for heating costs.

Don't even consider it.

I've had credit cards with well over 30% utilization for at least a year with minimal negative impact on my credit score.

Normally, I never carry balances on credit cards, but a few years back when you could still get 6%+ on savings and/or CD's, I had several 0% credit cards with close to 80% utilization with little impact on my credit score (maybe 15 to 20 points - my score runs in the high 700's so 15 or 20 points was nothing to be concerned with).

I wouldn't be real concerned with utilization percentage until you get up around 80% on a single card or 50%+ utilization of the available credit amount available across all your credit cards.

Of course, if your FICO score is marginal to begin with higher utilization may have more of an impact.

FYI - Most credit cards these days charge a 4 to 5% fee for cash advances, plus a higher interest rate - so not sure they would be that much better than a hard money lender anyway.

A few years back you could get 0% cash advances with no fee and the 0% was good for 12 to 18 months, but those days are over.

How to profit with 0% credit cards - guide from a few years back.
http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/finance/632935/

All these are from the same tenant:

"I mailed it from my office late Friday, I guess mail is not picked up on the weekend at my office".

"It's been mailed, it must have gotten lost in the mail".

"I ran out of checks".

"My Father died and I had to help cover the funeral costs".

Rent has never been more than a few days late and late fees have been paid.

I have a feeling this tenant is about to go South, so a 3 day pay or quit notice is ready and waiting to be sent if rent is late this month.

Tenants will harden you for sure.

Edit to add: Lease states that rent is not considered paid until I have received it, proof of mailing doesn't cut it.

Agree 100%!

My broker says for the 5th loan, the requirements really get stiff. He said he can get loans done for up to 7, after that he's done.

I'll be on number 4 if I get this deal done - at that point I really won't be actively pursuing another property until probably next year.

We'll see where the market is when I go for #5, at that point I'm sure I'll feel the squeeze.

The pendulum has swung from too loose to too tight. If the market was left to correct on its own it would heal itself in due time. It's the government intervention that forced the liar loans in the first place, if they'd keep their noses out of the market it would correct itself.

Working on an offer for an investment property now, nothing creative though.

Will be 25% down, sub 5% fixed rate for 30 years, broker says he can get me closed in 21 days or less.

I'll be stating 30 days on my offer, but I can shorten it substantially if it will help close the deal.

This would be my 3rd loan through him, he gets it done, no BS.

I agree that in this environment with these super low rates, RE debt is good.

Locking in long term at sub 5 rates, how can that be a bad thing (within reason of course).

I'll take free and clear over mortgaged RE anyday, but locking in some debt for the long haul at these rates will look brilliant in a few years.

No problem getting financing here.

No more liar loans - good riddance to that garbage, lending to anyone with a pulse is what created this mess in the first place.

My last purchase (Oct 2009) was our personal residence and it was a tough property to appraise and find comps for. My mortgage broker still got it closed in 30 days. It took some hand holding, and he had to push hard to get it completed on time. It was not a typical property yet we still managed to close on the scheduled date.

I'm looking at properties now, spoke to broker yesterday to verify where rates are and how much time he thinks we'll need to close a deal. He's still telling me 30 days will be no problem, says we can close even quicker if need be.

I keep hearing how hard loans are to get, but personally, I'm not seeing it.

LOL - Question was not whether one could list a property where you had no relationship to the property, the question was not even in reference to selling a property.

The question was - Could you list a property for Lease once you had an accepted purchase contract on it.

To take it a step further, the question really was if you had a signed contract to purchase a property, could you, while still in the option period, list that property for Lease.