All Forum Posts by: Jeff Bridges

Its usually the cartridge inside the single handle lever that has a blockage or the shower head itself.

Price pfister and delta might send you free replacement cartridges if you call up customer service and they help you identify the model. A plumber will have to install the part but you'll at least be able to pre-order the part and have them install after it arrives in a single visit. might help to troubleshoot with customer service before calling plumber.

2nd, Buy any simple efficient replacement shower head and replace with that existing shower wand assembly. That one might have a blockage from minerals, sediment etc and might not longer be effective and it appears to be a loss of water pressure when its really just a blocked up shower head.  Your tenants don't need an expensive shower wand that becomes another maintenance liability, just a good shower head with strong water stream. Give that a go and report back!

clearly there was a miscommunication and it was not made clear that there would be additional fees for the refrigerant and other parts needed for the install (they charge you by the lb and each unit is different). the older R-22 type is usually billed at $30-50 per lb (but depends what units you had installed).  most units hold 4-8 lbs of refrigerant. that can be 300-600 just in refrigerant material costs alone for 2 units. copper lines cost money as does other items. While I agree that further explanation is required why there was the discrepancy between your bid and their invoice, $250 all in wouldn't even cover basic supplies of even an in-house HVAC guy who is already on your company books. I don't see how you based your expectations thinking an independent company would be able to do this better. $1400 seems competitive and not gouging. I've paid 4-5k for a single full system to be installed parts and labor in the mid atlantic area which is fair. I think 3k for all parts and labor would be considered an excellent price. Ask them to break down the materials cost better and share here if that helps.

I doubt even if he was a reliable person, he could do anything to affect your criminal court case given that he is not You or the attorney representing you. They would not likely share the details of the case that aren't the 2 people above. I wouldn't be waiting any amount of time to deal with a case that can result something showing up on my permanent record or worse, a bench warrant arrest for failure to appear in court and more sanctions.

You are welcome to give him a week to secure the property/ send you pictures/ flowers or whatever (however I personally would not recommend this), but these are judicial proceedings and only you or your attorney can take care of these issues directly, so I would take these very seriously and consider these issues your problem alone to settle in coordination with your attorney. In case it wasn't clear, now is the time to pickup the phone and start calling local Atlanta attorneys and seeing your options.

If you don't get any specific recommendations from BP, open up the phone book and start calling/ interviewing attorneys. Explain your situation and ask about their fee structure and how they might be able to help you. See if they can represent you in court for the summons in June and what they can do to make nothing appear on your record and pay as small a fine as possible. In other words, what is the best possible outcome they can get for you? interview a couple and determine which one you might want to choose represent you.

http://www.yellowbook.com/s/attorneys/perimeter-ce...

As was mentioned by others, it will be more prudent for you to have a attorney represent you in court than you flying down to appear if it is legal to do so.  They might be able to obtain a much better outcome than if you went yourself and you potentially avoid spending funds to fly down there vs. paying attorney for the court appearance. attorneys are about 200-500/ hour and their appearance fee should potentially be less than the cost for you to fly down for the weekend.

I'd also be working now to secure the property and mow the lawn. maybe you can go on craigslist (atlanta) and find a handyman to secure the property for you, board up what is needed and install new locks. Chances are it needs to be boarded up and re-keyed amongst other things. make sure they take video and pictures for you so you can assess properly and make the best possible decision. The sooner you do this, the less vandalism damage will be done. If you dont fix this by the date of your summons, that could also create more problems for you in court.

Do the same thing with finding a real estate agent to help you put it up for sale so you can exit from this disaster. You are in no position to be doing a rehab long distance and right now this is a liability for you. 

It seems you've been having some problems taking action. Unfortunately no one will be holding your hand and you will need to tackle this yourself and take your own initiative. You just need to jump in and start finding the right attorney, handyman for short term fixes to resolve the summons, and real estate agent to help you sell  this as quickly as possible to relieve your burden from being responsible for the maintenance of this property. Your team is one person and unfortunately, you're gonna have to rely on yourself to get yourself out of this jam. I wish you the best of luck!

Felons are not a protected class under the fair housing act. therefore, landlords are allowed to discriminate against felons if it is part of their rental policy. You can also put language in your ads about criminal background check being performed, but I flat out ask if they have any criminal record/ former evictions I should be aware of when they call. Sometimes they even self disqualify after going on a long explanation about what they did in the past. The good neighbors and safe tenant building is a great explanation if they ask why.

source:

http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/question-re...

http://www.reiclub.com/realestateblog/landlords-be...

I personally am happy with my criteria which disqualifies felons and formerly evicted tenants from renting my units. Let some other landlord inherit those headaches and potential disasters. On the other hand, you are St. Louis rental market and you'll be dealing with a higher percentage of low-income tenants with increased likelihood of financial issues/ history so you have to weed through more applicants to find a potential gem. Also, you need to do more research on your neighborhood market to see if you can market to higher end tenants or if low end is all you can appeal to. Maybe section 8 advertising channels might help? Maybe do a better job at sharing your criteria with applicants up front (either pre-screening over phone or in person) so you dont waste as much time with showings, applications, and running background checks for naught. i.e. felony criminal background, any evictions or landlord court proceedings grounds for disqualification. Bad credit OK but will be checked.

have you tried rentlinx.com? Craigslist? I've paid rentlinx to increase my online marketing presence to all of the syndicated websites and boost applicants. 40-50 dollars well spent vs. even a single month of vacancy. I've gotten all my tenants from both of these.

why dont you sell with an agent and try to get highest market value? You'll get a little over break even after broker fees. seller financing doesn't work when you have super low equity. The people who are asking you about seller financing are looking to see if they can get YOU to finance the sale so they could put as little money (and risk) into the deal possible. You only have 15% of equity to finance in the first place even if it was possible to do a sub2 Wrap around the existing mortgage. You can't finance more than 100% of the value of the asset. So chances are you cant pull out your 15% equity as a down payment and give them seller financing on top. Also, are you prepared with cash in your account if the bank calls the loan due upon sale with the sub2 wrap? If they call the loan due after finding out about your shenanigans, then you have to pay the balance in full immediately. Selling with an agent seems like the best route to sell the place even if the broker fee will reduce your profit. They will get you a better offer than the limited market you will get through FSBO.

I agree with stephen, NE DC and PG county have some great potential for flips, but you aren't the first one to have thought of this and exploited the opportunities.

83% Profit: P.G. County Ranks As Most Profitable For Flippers

Between 2010-2014, I found some great opportunities for flips and lower competition in PG county on MLS. I think now, retail prices are growing in these neighborhoods and banks are able to demand more for their REO/ short sales and not giving them away for a song. They often demand close to retail and leave margins too thin for comfort if there are any to begin with. This leaves you exploiting direct mail and off-market leads to generate leads that might allow you to find the discounted properties in these neighborhoods. I've already seen the yellow letter/ post-card pieces being sent to my rental properties in NE DC so its a highly targeted area even for investors like you looking for high equity properties.

You'll have to develop a system for long distance and determine if you want to do the long distance rehab if you have trusted guys and follow the advice from J scott's articles on how he is able to do it successfully. dont expect to make it here quickly in rush hour..

Finally, keep in mind that PG county might not currently be most profitable for 2015, but rather 2013/2014 like the article highlights from past numbers. these numbers might be much lower now that prices have risen.

@rob beland

No, but you were offering advice and other posters needed to caveat that you were advising the OP on a tactic that banks would consider fraud. That is something that you would want someone telling you if they were offering you advice on an issue you didn't know much about. Also, asking a seller to assume a non-collateral loan with no paperwork whatsoever to support the existence of such a loan would make recourse in the case default on such a loan extremely difficult for the seller. Tough sell even if you could convince the seller to conspire to loan fraud for little gain on their part.

No, bank is going to get BPO ordered once an offer is submitted. That BPO is basically a realtor doing a search for comps and current unit condition to determine the most appropriate value of the place based on recent sales. If your offer is way under the BPO value, they will reject or counter to meet or come close to BPO offer. In some cases, I've stood firm on original offer and supported it with laundry list of repairs and estimates for repairs (non cosmetic and necessary repairs) along with pictures. They accepted after my counter.  You can either challenge the BPO and find better comps, challenge the condition of the unit to support your offer, but you cant challenge their offer just because they are now dealing with an investor.... that wont cut it... you're still not past negotiations with the owner however and that's only your first hurdle....