All Forum Posts by: Gary E. London

Hi John,

That's the Marquette Park (Chicago Lawn) area. On the border of the Englewood area. The answer to your question is NO. If you must invest in this area your best play is buy cheap, I mean real cheap and fix/flip. Otherwise it will be awhile before you see any type of general market appreciation. Probably not what you want to hear but hope it helps.

Gary

George, thanks for your response. I'll give you a call this week

Looking to work with a Chicago area investor friendly realtor. Currently concentrating on the pretty house market in Chicago and the surrounding suburbs. Willing to look at REO's, short sales and regular listings. Have closed 4 deals in the last 45 days and looking to ramp up buying machine but need a realtor that doesn't mind working with creative techniques. Looking in the price range from $125K to $950K.

David thanks for your comments. Some people across the country seem to think Chicago is the "wild wild west". Remember the violence is contained among the fighting gang factions and unfortunately innocent citizens are occasionally caught up. Was the theater in Colorado in a "bad" area? No! Everybody understands my point. To specifically address the question if you have concern about a certain area I would check with law enforcement to see if there are gang hotspots and stay away from them but just like David I also invest in many areas on the south side and have never had any issues. Suzette if you run across a good deal do your homework and don't let this type of issue stop you from making a good profit.

I know that when closing on the first of the month it's advantageous to the buyer since you get credit for the full months rent. Is it reasonable if closing is scheduled for the last day of the month to ask for a full credit for the next months rent at closing but then allow the seller to collect that rent. My logic is that is cuts down on confusion for those tenants who actually pay on the first. Just let the seller collect those rents. Do this make any sense legally or otherwise?

Hi Brandon,

One point that many investor debate is with a multi-family if you have one vacancy you property should still cash flow but if your SFH has a tenant move out there is zero income. Just something to think about. But it sounds like you're looking to flip most of your singles anyway.

I can only assume that Tom Vu went to prison for something other than being a sleazy guru. Was it a shady R.E. deal or something else?

Ok, Bill that's the insight I was looking for. You made some good points about the buyers bringing a pre-qual letter or having a loan committment in place. I think you're right it's probably a waste of the MB time and effort. Thanks for your help.

Short Sale Solutions is still in business but they only take referral business. I guess you could say that you were referred by Jake since he is a real estate agent.

Hi Bill,

Thanks for your reply, but I'm speaking of having propspective buyers on site at a house we have for sell. This would be a round robin type of bidding. I want to have a broker on site to qualify the buyers. So they would have to be local. I'm wondering if this setting would be of any value to a mortgage broker?