All Forum Posts by: Armando Ramirez

you must wait 30 days before you can dispose. Municipal court, the sheriff or HAPCO can explain. 

In Philadelphia, the distinction is between a single/multi family home versus a rooming house. Just because the house has three bedrooms does not mean you can rent each room separately. It's still being used as an illegal rooming house. You run the risk of someone calling L&I and having them come out and put a "candy stripe" sign (white sheet with thin red lines to draw attention) pasted on your door ordering all tenants to vacate in 45 days. Then you have to get them to reinspect once the house is vacant and lift the violation. Unfortunately, rooming houses have a negative stigma and most applications for zoning variance to convert a house to a rooming house are denied....unless you're a large university. 

Hello Joe,

I would absolutely let the court and sheriff handle this one.

They're savvy enough to check the mail and make an excuse. But its all words until there is a payment agreement or judgment. 

Definitely call to feel them out, drive by and see what they're doing. But keep contact minimal. At this point, your objective should be getting them out, accepting payment will allow them to go month to month past the lease expiration. And a vacant property usually sells quicker!

Make sure you have your lease, and preferably some sort of signed acknowledgment that the tenant received a copy of your rental license, certificate of rental suitability and copy of the partners for good housing pamphlet. If the tenant is smarter than you and knows how to game the system, they will say they never received these documents from you and you will not be able to collect any rent, you would just be seeking a judgment for termination of the lease to vacate the property.....but that would only be after the lease term has ended.

If tenant does not show up to court, highly likely, you win the judgment automatically. 

Evictions in philly are dirt cheap. Filing fees around $90-$200 depending on amount of tenant owes, which tenant will have to pay upon winning a judgment. THIS IS NOTHING! Paying a process server alone would cost around $500. Philadelphia serves the tenant for you! Then costs for writ of possession, alias writ and sheriff won't be more than another $200.

Cash for keys is a stupid tactic used by stupid, lazy landlords/slumlords trying to skirt laws and squeeze pennies out of row houses. Its way too easy to properly, legally rent your property in philadelphia to avoid ever having to pay someone to leave your property. Pay the court and the sheriff to handle it!

So you should go to court, bring all of your documents and the best case you can ask for is a judgment for payment of all rent owed and for tenant to vacate Sept 30 or as of the judgement date since the lease will have already expired. If you win the judgment, the clock starts and ten days later if tenant has not left, you file for writ of possession, 11 days later you file for alias writ and request sheriff appointment date. If it comes down to sheriff eviction, you're looking at possibly a date in October/November. (December becomes a dead month because the sheriff will not evict during the holidays and all appointments pushed into the new year!) 

After the judgement, no more negotiating with tenants, they know when they have to leave. Make arrangements for exchange of keys and an inspection with tenant when they have property completely vacant, or as close as they think they will get it. They hopefully may just stop answering your calls and leave.

Express Drains

hey Cameron

I know your predicament. I tried juggling my license and a career at Chase Bank in NYC. I would suggest going after listings instead of working with buyers or renters. When you control a property you can then schedule showings and open houses at your convenience. When you're working with buyers and renters, imo you are essentially a personal shopper. I was told early in my career control the property. If you read Million Dollar Agent, Gary Keller emphasizes obtaining listings as the primary focus to building your practice. 

Best of luck Cameron!

Hello everyone,

To give a brief intro, my name is Armando. I've been a broker in NYC and am now directing my efforts to start investing in Philadelphia. 

In looking for deals, word has gotten around to my family and their friends and some people have said they have a property that they were thinking about selling. One was serious enough to give me a price and say she would like to close within the next 30-60 days if possible. 

She needs $38,000, but would not take less than $35,000. Now I have never acted as a wholesaler. So since she's a friend of a friend of a family friend (you know how that goes) I'm trying to get her the highest possible price, while looking to collect an assignment fee of $2500-1500. So I'm advertising the asking price at $40,000.

The house is in fair condition. It's livable, currently owner-occupied. I have not gotten any contractor estimates since this just fell in my lap today.

The property is a 2 bedroom, 1.5 bath on North Reese Street, off Glenwood Avenue. Now I love Philly as much as I love New York. And I grew up visiting this area and several different family members in the area. But for those who don't know or are interested in investing in Philadelphia from a distance, this area is appropriately named "the Badlands". To this day there are open-air, drive thru drug deals. It's as if there has been no change, and according to current residents, it has even gotten worse through the years. So I know this is going to be an interesting, challenging deal. But I'm from pre-hipster, pre-bike lane Harlem, so whatever.

Nevertheless, this is still my FIRST wholesale deal so I would really appreciate some guidance on the following:

1-What is a typical assignment fee at this price point? As a broker, when I'm going for a listing, I start at asking for a 6% broker fee. So in this case, if I can get the seller $38,000, a $2000 assignment is approximately 5.2%. Is that in-line or too much?

2-Comps in Philly? First off, City assessed value for this property is $46,900, property taxes $682. This area has some ridiculous sale prices, like under $5000 so it makes it difficult. I like property shark because it groups the properties by square feet and sale price greater than $25,000. So for "Residential Medium" (house is 810 sq ft) properties sold in the past 18 months for more than $25,000 in the 19140 zip code, Property Shark finds 184 properties and the median sale price was $40,000 (coincidence?). The median price per square foot was $32 which would value the house at $26,000. What site/tools/statistics do all of you other Philly investors/wholesalers use for comps?

3-Pricing? Again, I'm trying to act like a wholesaler, but I know I'm thinking like an agent representing a seller. I'm trying to get her the highest possible price while still trying to make this deal worth the time and effort for me which would be no less than $1500-1000. I'm expecting some negotiation depending on interest and their rehab estimates. But I know that 2 bedrooms in the area are renting for $500-700 in worse condition than this house, and the main buyer interest will most likely be landlords. So a landlord/buyer can put a tenant in with minor work, less than $5000. So am I using a good pricing strategy to expect some negotiation, get the seller a price she will say yes to and not erode my fee? 

4-Advertising? I'm keeping a spartan budget therefore not looking to pay for any marketing because I honestly have never had to in New York. Is this the same for Philly wholesalers? I have posted ads on Craigslist, and Postlets which feeds to the usual suspect sites which are all owned by Zillow anyway. Any other sites/resources anyone can recommend for marketing this deal?

5-Title Company?  I'm running this deal so I need a wholesaler (and rookie) friendly title company....any recommendations, Philadelphians?

6-Contract? Lastly but most importantly, I'm going to see her Monday again to sign the contract. 

I have some sample purchase contracts which allow assignment that I have downloaded over time while researching the wholesaler niche. But I would really love to see what other Philadelphia wholesalers use. 

If anyone would be kind enough and willing to connect with me so I can get a copy of the purchase contract and the agreement to assign that active wholesalers are using, I would be happy to repay you with a Philly cheese steak, a bottle of wine, box of cigars, Eagles tickets, etc. you name it!

I would really appreciate some guidance and look forward to connecting with more Philly players!

Thank you

check and confirm that you can get clear title. also most title companies won't do a title insurance policy for a property purchased from a sheriff sales unless you can prove you have inspected it and its structurally sound.

Congrats Hank!

Don't be discouraged. Those are all reasonable nightmares to deal with and definitely to learn from. 

I don't know what you're looking, I just looked at 19132 for a 5 night stay dec 2-7, 101 listings came up and most of them are under $150. I still don't know if there's a question in this post somewhere but whatever data you are gathering from Airbnb for this discussion is incorrect. 

Don't know what raw data you used but it is completely inaccurate. I've helped clients rent their apartments in Manhattan and none of them charge more than $150 per night. And some of these apartments are in the ultra safe highly affluent neighborhoods like chelsea, TriBeCa, upper west side. 

I don't see how the national average nightly rate can be as high as $200 per night. That would make Airbnb more expensive than most hotels. 

And I don't see how the top ten zip codes based on value are all in either Ohio, Pennsylvania, or Georgia. These are not tourist destinations.