All Forum Posts by: Dante Pirouz

And I would not trust someone to watch a property (it is a lot of responsibility and hassle) unless I was paying them something. 

Is this an owner occupied property? How are you getting a 5% down loan if it is an investor property? Normally 20% down or more is required. And I actually estimate 10% for vacancies and 10% for repairs to allow for unexpected contingencies...you'd rather be generous on your expenses to ensure you are still cash flow positive than to underestimate them and be cash strapped.

@Robert Spencer Yes I'm a member of PHALA and Mike Bodeis helped out a ton during the process. We would love to meet up with you to talk shop. I plan on attending an upcoming meeting so maybe we could meet then!!

@Rick Maningas so if I'm understanding you correctly, we bought in October and sold in April so 6 months so that means 50K/40K = 125% annualized ROI?

@Franky Juwana From what I understand, some cities decide they want to minimize the spread of rentals in order to promote SFR homeownership so they restrict the zoning to residential R (no rentals) rather than residential plus multiunits R1 (mixed). Port Huron has a Rental Certification department that issues certification (and fines for blight and other building violations) and without it you can't evict in the courts and can get severely fined if your tenant reports you or they find out. So I guess you could rent under the table but it puts you at tremendous risk...we had to either sell it as a land contract or sell it outright...no rental, no lease to own or anything similarly. Now I know when I look at a new area I google whether the city or township has a Rental Cert office and then I call them and chat them up to see if they have some arcane rules before I buy.

First of all thank you to the BP community and @Joshua Dorkin and @Brandon Turner for all that they've done for someone who was a total newbie 3 years ago!

I'm a "buy and hold" buyer with 4 rental properties in the Thumb (google that if you don't know where that is!) in beautiful Michigan! I bought a property intending to rent it out but the zoning had changed in Port Huron, MI and didn't allow it. My husband chided me for making that mistake (Darn it!!) but the wisdom on BP allowed me to figure out I could flip it and use the $$ to buy other things and that's what I did. After about 60 days on the market and we sold it for $65K after buying it for $30K from HUD with about $7K reno budget. We closed last week in a quick close and the cash feels so good in the bank account. I still can't believe it could be done but it sure can with the help of BP!

Now in addition to buying a rental in the right part of town (no duh!), as a reward I get to buy a cute "tiny house" on 3 acres by Lake Huron for $5K down on a nice land contract (so much better than buying an expensive purse or something)... I couldn't be happier!!

And now my husband has to eat his humble pie re: RE investing (plus a nice steak dinner on me) ;)

Before and after pics below!

BEFORE

(That's my tireless and patient RE Agent Paul Steward in the pic who puts up with my investing trials and tribulations)

AFTER

You don't know yet if you will get it for 160 so only you counter the counter will you know for sure! To me if the numbers are positive (that's what we teach our MBAs/I'm a business school professor: $1 of positive return is worth the investment) I always counter my counter...you still might not get the deal but at least then you can move on with a sense of closure if they reject your counter. If you do get the offer accepted, you can always negotiate down the accepted offer based on whether there are new discoveries after the inspection that justify it (and there always are). Good luck with it!

I used to live in LA and had lots of friends who went to SC (I'm a Bruin for the record). I would definitely do the studio apartment so it could be a student rental,  extended family suite or an art studio/man cave. That's just my 2 cents! Good luck with flip!

PM me details...I'm always looking for wholesale buy and hold deals in MI!

I don't think commercial financing will be an option on this deal because I don't believe this seller has kept good records. Obviously if they haven't been paying property taxes on time for years management is a big issue. So what I imagine is that the seller wants an all cash offer so he can get out of the property that's why he is asking for proof of funds is my guess. Whether seller financing is a possibility, I'm not sure but in my experience most sellers I've talked to want a significant down payment 30-40% in order to entertain seller financing...am I wrong there?