All Forum Posts by: Charlie Price

@? Doesn't seem to work here either...

John Dombrowski When I type the @ and name it auto fills and I can click on it. But doesn't seem to tag them in blue like it does when on my computer. Using newer iPhone 6 Plus. I have the same 3.5.1 version updated Oct. 16. Don't see updates.

I remember back before the last RE crash in '08-'09 and how it felt to look at our balance sheet and see those paper profits going up and up and up each year. The banks were going away loans left and right and we signed up for them. My wife and I owned 20 or so properties that we purchased during the run up mostly in the Atlanta area. They were Single family homes, duplexes and triplexes. We were doing very well, or so we thought. A few years later we lost pretty much everything and then some. The wife waited tables for a while and I went out and managed a gas station!! Fast forward to now and we have recovered nicely. We moved to the FL panhandle and live not too far from the sugar white sand beaches on the Gulf of Mexico. It is absolute beautiful and we feel truly blessed. We are far far less leveraged then we were back in '08. We currently have a couple triplexes out of town and a 30 unit apartment complex here locally. We are at $30K + per month in gross rents. We owe $0 on our primary residence and only about 400K on our appx. $2M market value of our rentals. The rental market here like most other area is extremely strong. We stay mostly 95-100% full. Two summers ago we went on a 3 month 16 state RV road trip out west (I grew up and still have family in Nor CA). We visited 18 National Parks and about 25 State & local parks along the way. We had such a great time that we're getting ready to hit the road again on a 5-6 month vacation trip with our 5 & 7 year old boys to Alaska and then back down the West coast. Planning to hit another 20 National Parks. We plan on renting our 4,300 sq. ft 2 year old primary residence out fully furnished, which will more then pay the expenses of our trip plus some. And we have managers that help us with rentals when we're on the road. As far as this area, Florida Panhandle, the prices are going up and up. There seems to be floods of people coming to this area from what I can tell. This is a big military area so a lot rides on that also here in this area. It is also a big vacation/second home market as well. I am always very optimistic. Prices seem to be at or near the '06, '07 prices in some areas here and even a little higher in other parts around here. And I feel like things will never go down. But I remember that same feeling back in '08. This time we are not nearly as leveraged. It feels much better and like we could weather a big downturn at this point. We would be able to reduce our rents drastically and still sustain with our low mortgages. So I have no clue how high these prices can go. I hope they continue to go up for the next 20 years! But I can tell you that we're not going to get "over leveraged" ever again in our life times. Cheers and happy travels!

Chris Martin & Lee S. Thanks for the encouragement. Chris....I'd like to know more about the "less expensive" options. I only have rooftop are to use though. No area for ground based system. I'm already committed on this first $46K phase. Installation starts week after next. But if it works well, I'd like to invest in phases 2 & 3 on this same property which will be another 23KW and another $68K. I also have another smaller, but similar property that I could potential install about 15KW or so system on. David Freestate Thanks for the tip on the website/software. Sounds a little deep & technical for me, but I'll take a look at it. I'm going mostly by what the salesman at the Solar installation company is telling me and the numbers he has ran. Probably not the best idea, but as far as my studying and research over the years it seems that the numbers are hopefully close for the savings and payback.

I just got this e book from Amazon and read it in a few hours. It's a great book and quick easy read. Very informative and entertaining. It is also very motivational. I'm sure I will re read this a number of times in the future. I would highly recommend it to anyone from beginner investor to high end expert. It details out a number of very useful techniques for creative investing and also a number of excellent tax ideas. If your a real estate investor then you need to buy this book for your accountant. It can easily save you thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars over the next few years. I am going to definitely implement a few of these ideas into my business. https://www.amazon.com/Janitor-Multi-Millionaire-Mike-Weese-ebook/dp/B0070PNOLU @Rich Weese

Thanks for the thoughtful responses, ideas, and encouragement.... Alexander E. Yes, the seller is that cheap and incompetent that he wouldn't higher an attny and get it fixed. That will probably not happen. Welcome to the South. I do say that lovingly as most people here are extremely friendly and kind. But many are not the sharpest business people. :-) I'll give Lawyers title a call and see why they advise. Thanks for the Referall. Mr. Jones Hiring a competent attny is what I will probably end up doing. Even if I have to pay for it. Carl Carlson No..... deal is definitely not worth losing over $1,000. I'm leaning on this route of hiring an attny to clear it up and then have him close the deal. I've never ran accross this type of issue, but I'm thinking an ad for x number of days in legal newspaper and if no one claims the interest then they are written off? Again. I'm sure I could find an attny with a few phone calls that would know. Andrew Cushman I'm not sure about the 3rd person that did not sign off back in 1994. Bore does the seller. They may or may not be alive. If not, then we'd have to get their heirs to sign off. But if they would do that for $500 No Problem. But hopefully they don't want $10K, $20K or even more when they find out it is now a $350K piece of property. I like your idea about getting the seller to file a claim. Not sure if the timeframe of working that out and how they would clear the title though. Worth asking.

I have a contract to buy a 9 unit deal with Seller financing negotiated and ready to close. Closing attorney called today and said there is an issue with the title. The title insurance carrier, First American Title, this attny uses will not write a title insurance policy on the deal, thus he is not able/willing to close the deal. Back in 1994 (three owners ago!) the owner passed away. She left property to 3 children. Children sold said property, but looks like only 2 of the 3 signed off on the sale. When the current owner purchased the property from a different owner in 1999 he says he knew nothing about this. He holds a title insurance policy from that transaction that he purchased from Pioneer Title Insurance company. So I'm not sure what to do next. I'm slightly concerned that if I searched around and found someone to write a title insurance policy and close the deal that I would forever have a clouded title, just like the current seller has now. But not sure how to get it cleared up. The seller is not very sophisticated at all. I'm fairly sure he would spin his wheels and never get it done, and continue to run his property into the ground. I'm sure he wouldn't go out and spend $500-$1,000 or whatever it would cost for an attny to get it cleaned up properly, which would be my next move. Do I maybe make a deal with him to hire attny to clean it up and back it out as a credit at closing or offer to split the cost? Walk away and let him figure it out on his own and call me back when it's cleared up, which would probably never happen? Sales price is $275K. Needs about $75K in rehab to get it where I want it. Future rents would be $10K gross per month after rehab. NOI in the $6K range/mo. (self managed) It's 1 mile from the beach in Pan Handle Florida.

@Bart H.

Thanks for your thoughts...The prices I have researched seem to currently be in the $3-$4 per W range.  So $46K for 15.6 KW for twoninverters and & 53 x 295W panels installed and tied into Power companies grid shouldnbe about right.  That is all in including all permits and EVERYTHING.  Total turnkey.  They do this all the time so they seem to know what they are talking about.  As far as a smaller system, for me this is pretty large.  And this is phase #1.  If. Is wroksnout well I'll have 2 more phases phase 2 Installed 5.9KW for $18K & phase 3 @ 17.1 for $50K.  That would be a total Woth all three phases of 38.6KW for a total of $114K.  And if it pays itself off in 6-8 years as advertised, then years 8-.........40 years + will be all free money!  Even thought they would have somewhat diminished performance by then.

The panels are manufactured by Solar World out of Hillsboro, Oregon.  https://www.solarworld-usa.com/ Here is the Limited 30-year performance guarantee/Warranty

1. SolarWorld warrants to the end user that the actual output of the product, as measured by SolarWorld, will amount to at least 97% of its initial e ective output during the rst year after purchase of the product, and as of the second year after purchase of the product, the e ective output will decline annually by no more than 0.35%
for a period of 29 years, so that as of the end of the 30th year after purchase, an actual output of at least 86.85% of e ective output will be achieved. 

- As far as submetering, it's not my business model here on his project.  The 30 units have just 3 meters that all the units run off of. See my earlier explaination ofnthisnon this thread.

@Lee S. I'm having new roofs installed the week prior to the solar panel install.  $21K for this section (3 buildings) for the new 35 yr. architectural shingles.  I agree with all you say!  I'm also a fellow Norther Californian.  Born and raised in Eureka CA!  👍

Keep saving and find a duplex you can afford as a primary residence in your area. It's a gr8 idea. Your tenant will pay a bulk of your mortgage so you can justify a higher priced property initially. You'll learn far more managing the in and out of tenants and advertising and interviewing perspective tenants, repairs and such if your right there. Keep onto it and your be laughing all the way to the bank in 10-15 years or so. And that time will go by quicker then you think. Let us know how it goes!

I do use PayPal quite a bit. I normally eat the first transaction fee, then let the tenant know that if they would like to continue to pay their rent with PayPal that they have to pay the extra 3% for that convenience. Some do it for the convenience. You can also get a PayPal credit card scanner gadget for next to nothing that you can plug into your phone and scan people's credit cards. You can even take their credit card number over the phone and charge it remotely in a pinch. Same 3%, maybe 3.5%?? I also always set up bank accounts near my properties and give the tenants deposit slips. I coordinate their payments with their apartment number, and have then write their apartment number on the deposit slip. Like apartment 1's rent would be 700.01, apartment 2's rent 700.02. So on and so forth. The bank teller green bed then a receipt for their records, I have them send a text when they pay. Then I confirm online and check them off the list for that month. Works fairly well for us.