All Forum Posts by: Francis Rusnak

 I looked in Lake County (IN) for a good bit, but I found their taxes surprisingly close to similarly priced houses in Chicago. And you can't get nearly as high of rents there. 

Lookup the property on http://www.cookcountypropertyinfo.com/

From there it tells you what the county has the estimated property value on the top-right. 

If you want to take off exemptions the property has you won't qualify for go to https://www.cookcountyassessor.com/address-search and it will tell you the exact exemption values. 

For your situation, just look up similar homes until you find one that has the homestead exemption to estimate. Cook County doesn't have the easy calculator Will or others have afaik. 

Not sure how the county assesses values exactly, but it seems they don't go by loan/refinance amounts, but will account for sale prices -- wasn't there a rumor they used Zestimates at one point and got in trouble for that?

If you think the value will likely be raised by 25% after you buy, I'd multiply the current rate by .25 to get in the ballpark #s. 

You can do the BRRRR with a conventional loan, but it's not likely to have as much equity when you buy it.

You'll be competing with home owners who are able to pay closer to retail. Best deals are going to be the ones that a bank won't lend on for whatever reason. 

And no, it's not a home run every time like you read about on these message boards and hear on the podcasts. I lost over 50k on my first deal. People tend to be a little more tight-lipped on their losses. 

Luckily we've done over 30 deals since and things have gone a little better : )

0% cash on cash would be a good return in this situation assuming all expenses are accounted for. 

You'll be in a good (theoretically) appreciating market, get to live for free and don't forget the amortization of the principal paydown. 

Also you get the tax benefits of being a homeowner; which is, ultimately, more money in your pocket -- less money you give Uncle Sam. 

Good intel Crystal. Do you happen to know if that same language for the holder able to release during impasse is available on the 6.1? 

This particular contract was actually written on the Multi-board 6.1 -- try to use mult-boards even on off-market to make things cleaner when going through attorneys since they're used to them. 

Had three different flips all get offers close to asking in the last few weeks. 

Now just need them to appraise. One of our agents told us she had 2 of her houses last week appraise 15 and 20k less than sale price, and one had multiple offers but didn't even go for full asking. 

Appraisers are getting a lot of pressure from banks. Banks are taking a very conservative approach now. 

The buyer pool has been cut in half, but so has the inventory, balancing out the supply-demand. But how the banks approach this is going to influence how the markets go. 

Wouldn't it be the same situation if our attorney was holding? Meaning they'd still need seller signoff ... 

As a default we always have our attorney hold EMD and aim for 2-500 unless we get pushback from the seller's attorney, like in this case.

We'll have to add Sole Escrow Orders into the mix and try and pass that as well in the future. 

There was never a time when the deal officially fell apart. We held out hope the deal would still go through up until recently. You get some strange situations off-market when people randomly ghost you then come back out of nowhere -- they may have found a temporary financial solution then go broke again. 

Good to know it sounds optimistic from your point of view. Thanks.

Solar can be put on for free with no downpayment if you use certain companies and your house qualifies. Illinois afaik is one of the few states that allows this with different grants. Have a friend who installs .. @Andy Margolis

Have an off-market house we were supposed to close on 4 months ago. The seller was the one who contacted us to sell, then he randomly goes MIA so we never close on his house.

Clearing up the books and go to get the 1k earnest money back and the title company tells me we need his signature to release it. 

The seller didn't have an agent and the attorney who represented him is adamant he doesn't represent the client anymore -- sounds like they had a falling out. My attorney is working on it, but it doesn't sound good. Either need his signature or a court order. 

Anyone have something similar happen?