All Forum Posts by: Chris John

@Joe Villeneuve

I won't argue about zillow.  It's low for my part of California, but seemed high for the part of Alabama I was looking at.  It seems dead on for the part of Florida I bought in.

Your Craigslist comment made me laugh though.  In my neck of California, if you put a house on Craiglist at what you'd think would be 10% above market, you'll have so many emails in the next hour that you won't know what to do with them all.  Nothing is sitting on Craigslist out here...

I guess that's why they say that real estate is local.

@Remington Lyman

Oof.  You know why you kick a man when he's down?  Because he's closer to your feet.

@Trent Werner

I mean, congratulations obviously.  That's insane.  My problem is that when I hear stories like this:

-It makes me question every property I've ever bought.  Like, what am I doing wrong?

-It makes me never want to buy another property again until I find a deal like this one.

So, congrats and all, but I'm off to second guess all of the decisions I've made up to this point...   :(  haha.

@Kat Hussey

I'm commenting so this ends up in my followed posts so I can see other people's responses as much as anything, but I:

-Use Zillow's rent estimates

-Check Craigslist and realtor.com for the local area to see what people are actually asking for open vacancies

-I don't subscribe, but I know a lot of people use rentometer.com

Hopefully this can get you started and good luck!

@Ryan Shyng

I just want to make sure that you mean they're 117k each and not 117k total for both.  If it's 117k for both and there's not some crazy issues, I'd say that you should have been buying them instead of typing your post!  haha.

Assuming that they're 117k each and don't require much in the way of rehab, I think they're fine deals.  If things go well, they should pay for themselves and put some money in your pocket.  I'm guessing that you could probably look around and find more lucrative deals, however.  I was able to buy 4 houses recently with an average cost of 80k and average rents of $925/mo.  I considered them good, but not great deals for comparison's sake.

I don't know anything about either market and am just running the numbers on a 3.75% loan (no idea what you qualify for or your lenders rates).

Good luck either way!

@Anthony Wick

Yep.  For now.  They're moving on commercial property already.  I don't doubt that residential will be very far behind.  It really makes a house you've owned for a long time a lot more affordable, but certainly encourages you to never sell.  The laws of unintended consequences are never very behind every well-intentioned law!

@Andrew Marsh  Do it for the rest of us.  It's great to hear they took care of the house (definitely not always the case).  We've been taken for a ride by tenants more than once only to find out that their previous (unmentioned landlord) had issues with them.  I'd have loved the warning on the credit report to be able to make an informed decision for myself.

@Ken Nguyen  Good luck and enjoy the ride!  The first one is special!

I'm not an expert, but I am in California and I definitely agree with @Jon Catterson.  Prop 13 keeps the property taxes near the purchase price, but the inflation has been insane since the crash of 2009.  If that thing was purchased around 10 years ago (or even 5, really), it's probably seen massive appreciation for the owner, but with the benefit of the old, low tax base.

Make sure you're running your numbers off of the current price though!  If my math is correct, you're probably looking at around $800/mo in property taxes instead of the $150-300 the current owner is paying.  It makes a huge difference over time.

Keep an eye on this year's California Prop15 also.  It's meant to change this same taxation method on commercial properties so that the taxes can float with the appreciation prices.  Many consider it the camel's nose for residential property tax changes to come.  I don't know the specifics of whether it grandfathers anyone in or not however.

Good luck!