All Forum Posts by: Dennis McNeely

I prefer an assignment @William Causey as it keeps me off the chain of title and any issue(s) that go with being in the chain, as well as any additional expenses related to a doublel close. For example, in Michigan those additional expenses would include revenue stamps owing for two closings. 

There are several things that could cause settlement @Ryan Fox. If the foundation / footing isn't deep enough, frost could have raised one side of the house and caused cracking. Similarly, if the house sits on expansive clay on one side of the house. the clay could lift that side of the house and caused the cracking.

Conversely, if one side of the house sits on unconsolidated fill or on silt, it would settle or shift over time - once again, causing cracking.

I'd start by getting a soils engineer to look at the soils around the building to determine what's gone on to cause the heaving or settlement. From there, you can determine the best solution to remedy the issue and prevent its recurrence.

In this area, the two soils engineers I've used most often are McDowell and Associates, and Soils and Materials Engineers (SME) - but I don't know if they have branch offices in the area near your problem site.

Best of luck with it!

Hi @Joy McQueary - you can find a breakdown of rental rate increases by state online, and here's where to find a list of the hottest multi-family markets.

Hopefully this is useful for your purposes.

@Joy McQueary

You can have a discussion with the city ROW agent and the project engineer @Burt L and let them know of your previous conversations, etc. - which I suspect you're already inclined to do.

You can also investigate various methods of pipe replacement / renewal that involve trenchless technologies, such as pipe lining, pipe bursting, or directional drilling. In many urban situations, one of the trenchless technologies will be less expensive than dig and replace pipe renewal.

Best of luck dealing with the city!

Where are your properties @Nick Troutman? Here in Michigan you need to be licensed as a real estate agent or broker to be legal. If you hired an agent or a broker to work with you, you'd be covered - but regulations & laws vary from place to place.

Screening is best done by establishing a set of guidelines to qualify applicant tenants, then sticking to those rules to avoid legal issues (and for your own sanity). There are many here with much more management experience than I; perhaps one of them will jump in with their recommendations.

Thanks for this John!

I've been an independent broker for 38 years now, and I've always represented myself in real estate transactions - even for out of state transactions where I won't be paid. There are too many places where a closing can go sideways!
I know there are a ton of great brokers out there, but there are also some duds - to put it mildly. I've had HUD forms filled out billing me for pro-rations that were the seller's responsibility, agents who have lost track of contingency removal dates, ... the list goes on and on.
If I'm the seller in an out of state transaction, I'll just have the title company or an attorney close the transaction. Done deal, and much less likely to cause an ulcer.

Hi @Rene Hosman -
In a nutshell, I find motivated sellers and tenants with damaged credit (or ones without a large enough down payment) and work to put the tenants in the seller's house with an option to buy. Without getting too deep into the weeds, there are a few ways to do this, including:
- write up an assignable lease and an option to buy which the seller signs, then assign the lease and option agreements to a tenant-buyer. The tenant-buyer has time to fix their credit and save more money for a down payment during the option period, then exercises their option - fulfilling their desire for home ownership. I'm paid fairly quickly, at the time the assignment occurs.
- go through all the above motions, but this time I don't assign the lease and option to the tenant-buyer. Instead, I write up a second lease and option for the tenant-buyer, but the monthly lease is greater than that I pay to the seller, and the purchase price is also more than that I pay the seller. I'm paid much more slowly, since I only receive the difference between the two lease agreements on a monthly basis - but then I also receive the difference between the two purchase agreements when they close. While the income stream is much slower, the total received is (hopefully) much greater.

Lease options are the vehicle of choice here, until I sort out how to get to the other side of the ceiling imposed by debt to income ratio.

I'm also growing a network of potential partners and investors, and will likely turn to them if that ceiling continues proving to be problematic - and will do so for larger properties even if I'm able to break through the ceiling on my own.

I'm interested in learning a bit more about typical vacancy percentages, size of the local population being serviced, reasonable percentage of effective gross income for expenses, etc. as well Peter.

Hopefully some experienced member(s) will sound off!