All Forum Posts by: Dan Mahoney

@James AllenAlso I will add to be careful with zip codes in Atlanta.  You will find that zip codes like 30318 and 30310 will contain both $10,000 board up houses and $1,000,000 infill houses.  I've heard some people say location matters in real estate...

@James Allen Gosh this is a real "it depends what you want" situation.  I live and work in the City of Atlanta but some people don't go near anything inside the perimeter.  I think the trends in Atlanta favor urban locations.  This is only my opinion.

@Matt Foster Sell it.  If you can get $155, sell it.

@Jash Sayani A landlord policy is pretty straightforward.  Find an independent agent in the state where the property is located and they will help you find the right market for your policy.

Market specific.  Must have in Atlanta.

@Lane Kawaoka @Janelle Mcleod

Lane, first of all I like your podcast.  Second, I'm sorry for your troubles in DeKalb.  I'm sure you have a clause in your lease requiring the tenant to keep the yard clean but it is a pain in the neck to enforce.  It is your property managers job to keep you out of code enforcement problems.

Janelle, don't worry too much about the details and deadlines of the code enforcement process.  As you noted, they have 10,000 properties to deal with.  The process of taking action against the property ("in rem") takes a long time.  In many cases the $25,000 code violation lien will happen after the property is behind on taxes because if the property had any equity, it would be in the owners interest to fix it or sell it.  However, there is an opportunity here.  If you find a house that does not owe back taxes and has a reasonably new code violation, I think that would be a very opportune time to contact the owners because maybe they will want to sell before the situation escalates.

Here is another thought.  As a citizen you can report code violations when you see them.

Conventional is by far the cheapest but you will have to find a seller willing to wait 30-60 days to close. This is standard practice for retail owner-occupied homes but for investors it is more typical to close with cash or hard money because it is quick and certain.

A hybrid approach is to close in cash and then do a cash-out refinancing with a conventional loan under Fannie Mae's Delayed Financing Exception.

Good luck.

No, successfully appealing your tax assessment will not affect resale value.  It will just save you money on taxes!  Good luck. 

In the City of Atlanta basic code violation information is available online.  Google "accela atlanta" and go to the first page that comes up in the search results.  Once in Accela, click on "code enforcement" and then enter the address.  Here is a tip - you can just enter the street name and get all the code violations for that street.

If you are not looking in City of Atlanta, I'm less familiar with the implications of code violations.  I don't think it is ever "too late" to contact an owner, but you will find that many dilapidated houses face a situation where the unpaid property taxes exceed the value of the property, making it essentially impossible to sell.  In those cases the owner's incentive is to let the property rot.  The county may try to auction it off for unpaid taxes, but unlike a bank, the tax commissioner cannot take a haircut on what is owed, so if the unpaid taxes exceed the value, nobody will make the minimum bid on the courthouse steps and it reverts back to the owner.  This wrinkle of the Georgia property tax system is a major cause of sustained blight in the Atlanta area.

It sounds like you are pretty adept at online research of properties.  If you look up the unpaid taxes online (in Fulton County, it's www.fultoncountytaxes.org) this will save you from wasting your time on properties that are hopelessly upside down.

The math is easy.  If it rents right away for $1,200+ and you are all in for $48,000 with no near term capital items then it is a great investment.  Of course, if any of these assumptions are wrong, that would change the answer.  How confident are you in your estimates of the rental rate and rehab cost?

If you do buy the house, make sure to appeal the property tax assessment as soon as possible.  Sounds like fair market value is about $35k.  I would not put a lot of stock in the bank appraisal.