All Forum Posts by: Stephen Masek

You have to dot every I and cross every t to not have greater problems. A local real estate attorney specializing in landlord-tenant matter is what you need. Look to you local apartment association and their magazine for ideas on a few to call. Good thing you are not in the city of Los Angeles, where tax money is funding a group which represents tenants and is demanding jury trials on evictions, now, when courthouse space has been drastically reduced.

Two things:

1) Apartment associations. There are many of them all over the USA. besides meeting owners, the brokers, attorneys, lenders, and other vendors who attend are the real deal, as I just posted in another thread.

2) For my consulting company, we purchased a mail list of San Fernando Valley apartment owners, but had to do a lot of work on it to get a clean list. Still, our direct mail effort certainly did pay off, as we hired to perform numerous lead-based paint inspections. The worst thing on a list is when they give the address and name of a leasing office person, as they are not who we need to contact.

What about apartment associations? Sure some people are mom and pops (and I'm probably also in that category with just 13 rental houses), but others have numerous buildings, and the insurance people, attorneys, lenders, and other vendors there are the real deal. There are two apartment associations in Orange County, and the real big fish in Los Angeles, AAGLA, and others all over the state and country.

People with money for hobbies can also be real estate investors. Cars are one of the very most expensive hobbies. I know several radio collectors with vast real estate holdings.

Asking? In Las Vegas and such, they are making offers way over asking, and dozens of them.

The rents don't scale, so you'd make more with ten $120,000 houses.

We're been to several of them and concluded we wasted our time and some money. They are all pushing extra cost books, classes, and such. At one meeting a supposed super expert flatly stated that people paying cash are lazy or stupid. Look at all of the cash sales occurring now. Of course, he was pushing extra cost "training," and talking about "contract sales" being a good idea. Another one we went to seems to be run by quite questionable characters. We went to something in LA years ago where another guy pushing "contact sales" could not explain what happens if the buyer does not pay, since the contract is not recorded and a UCC-1 is not filed. The most recent one where Will Bernard spoke was better, and two of those who attended have real estate radio shows.

We ignore the value estimates, but the recent sales data is useful. The schools data is useful. Sometimes the photos are useful. Sometimes the property history data is useful.

Same question - 100% financed = no equity, so what is to be exchanged?

To analyze this, I'd want to know:

a) Where it is located, to study schools, neighborhood, and so forth, to validate those comparable sales;

b) Major categories of work planned;

c) Inspection reports (home, environmental, termite);

d) A copy of the plans and specifications they are bidding; and,

e) Qualifications of the contractors invited to bid.

What might you get out of college that you can't get on your own, or can't get as efficiently? Going massively into debt for college is a horrible idea, and it is sad to see so many starting out that way.