All Forum Posts by: Dan Maciejewski

Whew, I though our Milwaukee's Best Christmas tree was epic!  That's nuts!

From my experience, Opendoor will not negotiate.  They are the same as any institutional seller and you'll be lucky to even talk to someone, let alone someone that makes decisions or talks to decision makers.  

As Jason above said -- is there an actual issue with the roof? Other than the age, is it leaking or defective in any way? The CapEx savings budget should be $526/year if it was 6 years old and $1,000/year if it's 15 years old (Assuming 10k roof and 25 year lifespan). Does that break the deal? That's $40/month extra in your Cap/Ex.

If not, buy the house.  

If it does, negotiate HARD to get your EMD back and cancel the contract. As in - first ask nicely, then play hardball and file suit to make them settle or just give it back. They honestly don't give 2 poops about your $8k. They lose around $17k per house they sell. They will just put it back on market and get it under contract again in a few hours. The asset manager has no dog in this fight. She just wants it off her plate and moving, along with the other 100 houses she's dealing with.

Either way, there's no likely way you can win a suit for misrepresentation.  Not with the disclosures their lawyers have drawn up.  They explicitly state that they are relying on what they were told, usually giving you the disclosure they got.  Otherwise, their disclosure is Non-occupancy and "we don't know anything."

We all see a ton of out of state investors that want to retire or move down here later in life.  It's a great plan.

I will point out that there's a few strategies / outcomes that I see here in the Tampa Bay area and especially in Pinellas County by the beaches.

1. Snowbird.  These people have come here for years and love a house or an area or a condo complex.  Then they buy what they know and love and come for 3-6 months a year.  Most treat it as a second home an do not rent it out.  They end up moving into their place and are super happy.

2. Vacation and Second Home buyer.  Generally these people have visited, know and love the area, know the restaurants and know where they want to be.  They also want a home that they and their family can live in when they decide to -- or just vacation in it whenever they want.  

These buyers usually rent it out for short term rentals when not using it.  We happen to be in one of the few places in the country where you can buy and actually break even or cash flow in this scenario.  Most vacation homes in the rest of the country just mitigate the mortgage when rented out.  These people usually eep the house as an asset and if they move, they usually have the house they want.

3. Investment home buyers.  These people want the investment to come first.  The numbers are the main deciding factor, not necessarily the loving the home or area.  These people will sometimes buy multiple properties in an area they see profit potential in, or buy in several regions.  Usually they will use the home for their vacations, but not always.  If they happen to retire in the area, I see them either keep the investment as an asset, or sell it and buy a "keeper" home that fits their lifestyle better.  Sometimes it works out that they can also move in but it's not the driving factor for the purchase.

The first thing to do is decide where you fit in this spectrum.  Then you know how to search and what criteria to use when searching.  You can't get the best investment AND the perfect retirement home AND the best appreciation all at once.  Or not unless you're named Derek Jeter or Ryan Howard, etc. . .

While I am super-bullish on the next decade+ of the Tampa Bay Real Estate market, I always advise to not count on that.  If you're category 1, you can swing another mortgage and you just want a second home and shouldn't care about the absolute market value..  Category 2, you can afford some loss but the cash flow and utility is what matters, not the ultimate value of the home.  And category 3 is all about the cash flow, not the retirement use or the resale value.

Great Post!

From what I've seen generally, the great CoC and Cash Flow investments seem to eat all that cash flow right back up on the turnovers.

Some people trust the numbers so much that they forget that this is also a people and service business.  The customers can make or break you.  

A great investment involves a lot of research and new investors should never go to war zones or out of state for all the reasons you laid out. 

 Definitely check against DNC!  I just mentioned that's the main reason I hear people give for not leaving voicemails.

Coming from a complete stranger that knows nothing about you except what you posted:

Ride the Oil and Gas pony while you're young and you can.  Save all that great money.  Buy a home and/or an investment property.  Maybe buy more if they make sense.  A lot of young people in your profession get roomies because you work so much.  

Get a license if you want-- it's not that hard.  I would not transfer over to selling real estate yet, if at all.  I just peeked at your sales prices and they aren't all that great -- they look to be half of the nation's average.  and the average Realtor makes around 50k/year w/ no benefits.  

After you get burnt out or want to change professions, you'll be sitting on good assets and a (hopefully) huge pile of cash.  Then you'll have all the options in the world.  

You should be able to show the ability to purchase. Unfortunately for them, not every seller will make sure the buyer can -- I've seen it more than once in a FSBO situation and with "wholesale" deals that fall apart.

Unless you informed the seller that you are assigning the contract to another buyer.  And in that case, it should be spelled out in the contract

If you're looking for call lists, I use RedX Geo Leads and just use their dialer.  If you want more in-depth like emails, I've heard great things about Cole Realty Resource.  Those are more geared towards Realtors but should work just fine for anyone.

You can also try PropStre@m, but I think it looks a tad pricey for me, although I have a lot of tools that do the same things for free with my MLS membership.

I think it depends on your goals and your offer.  You'll get people that never leave them because they are afraid they're calling DNC lists and will get in trouble and you'll get people that always drop one because they might get a call back.

When I'm calling homeowners I do leave a VM and the best for me is simply, "Hi, my name is ______ .  I'm a local Realtor in the area.  I just had a few questions about your house.  You can always reach me at _______.  Thanks, have a great day. 😊"

I leave that whether it's a geo call, a FSBO, or expired. For multifamily owners, "I just had a few questions about your property at _____." That way there's no confusion between prospects. I find it has the most callbacks with the least amount of animosity.

AFAIK, Texas isn't a public records state, so the data came straight from the local MLS? If that's the case, then it would be in their TOS. However they allow you to share should be pretty clearly spelled out in there.