All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

If they pay the two years upfront I'm all in for it, otherwise no.

Hey guys, 

Found this article yesterday in the Tampa Bay Times: 

Roughly 62,000 Hillsborough County properties could soon have a new flood zone designation.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency released new proposed flood maps for coastal parts of Hillsborough and Manatee counties. Updated for the first time in nearly 30 years, the maps better reflect the flooding risk homes and businesses face.

"The biggest reason for doing (the update) is that technology has changed," said Mark Vieira, senior engineer at FEMA. "A lot more data goes into the study than it did 30 years ago."

Source: https://www.tampabay.com/business/fema-releases-pr...

This could potentially raise the insurance for many many investors. 

Also a big fan of Lakeland here. For the guys out there that have never visited Lakeland or just went there to make a transaction and left - check out downtown Lakeland. I make sure to grab a cup of coffee there on almost every visit. It's really nice.

I was just about to write a post about this matter exactly. About five years ago there was a major scam in Israel where companies would buy houses in ghost towns in the US for dirt cheap. They would mark up the price and sell them to Israeli's with a promise for at least 3 years rent income. The checks would come every month but after three years no more checks. People started flying to check out their properties and found out they were distressed abandoned houses that were never rented out.

I know a few things:

1. Do your due diligence up front. It's cheaper than doing it afterwards when your money is no longer in your pocket.

2. No such thing as passive income with buying REI. At least not when you directly invest into a property. There's just no way, 0% that the owner doesn't deal with anything. I deal with Insurance, Property management, Pre-rent repairs and when big stuff breaks. There's no way you're getting a pass on all that without paying a price, either it's a premium for the management costs such as overpaying on each repair and insurance. REI in my eyes is just not passive. You want passive ? Invest in stocks, bonds and savings accounts or syndication (which I know nothing about).

I think @Thomas S. hit the nail in the head.

There's a Hebrew saying: "You wanna be smart or right?" Smart is doing what Thomas said, right - try to fight the situation. 

The iron was replaced with PVC lines. 

Thanks for the feedback guys.

Yes, Kitchen sink waste plumbing all the way to the stack and vents at $1300. My guy is experienced and I expect him to get good results with the work. 

I'm just really worried that the restroom is going to have a similar situation in the future. 

Hi Guys,

I got a question about a property I bought, recently renovated, rented out and now two weeks later problems with the plumbing have arrived.

The house is a 3/1 in Lakeland Florida. Bathroom and kitchen are in the back of the house. Plumbing is old and sceptic. Was solid when inspected a couple months back.

The tenants that recently moved in noticed that there's water dripping outside the house in the back yard when they use the kitchen faucet. The back yard had kind of a puddle. 

My GC went there, thought it's a simple fix with a pipe replacement and he'd be done. Opens the wall and lord behold:

Pipes of steel that are completely rotten. They have been dripping for a while in the concrete block. 

My GC said he's going to replace the plumbing from the kitchen out and all the way to the roof where there's an air vent. The bill is $1,300 which includes all materials, replacing the pipes and putting everything back together and painting the back to match. 

Am I being priced fairly ? 

I am also scared that somewhere in the slab (although no indication of that) and also in the shower and toilet (again no indication of that, water flushes smoothly to the sceptic and no funny smells outside) the plumbing is bad.

Thanks for the input guys. 
I'm not a big fan of window units but it seems like it's still suitable for this specific neighborhood. I'm just going to get a bigger living room unit and a unit for a room and also have them with heating. Hopefully this should be satisfactory.

It's not recommended to "dump" a large sum of money into the stock market. IF you intend on investing in stocks/ETF/Mutual funds is is recommended you use the dollar averaging method.

Like others have mentioned mentioned, diversifying between real estate, mutual funds and possibly private lending would be a good idea. I would also recommend having an interest bearing Savings Account just in case you need cash for a rainy day.