All Forum Posts by: Gilbert Dominguez

@Nick Versetto,

Alright Nick ! good going. You were smart to turn it around into a buy and hold. Should give you a nice add to your monthly income. Great Job !! just go for it bro. Now just do 10 more just like this one. 

My opinion;

Josh Cantwell is a set up. His deals I think are for very experienced rehabbers not for newbies. You get the job done according to schedule and pay Josh his money or else. He is also every experienced and wouldn't you think he would like to gain ownership of houses after they are already finished ? With his money he would be getting them at a deep discount. Sure you can do a project in 6 months and what if it does not sell in time? Most hard money lenders are at 2 to 4 points and most are at under 10%. He is asking 16%. If he was an investor I would have no problem but he is a lender and he puts on allot of pressure. 6 Points and 16% is extreme even for a hard money lender. 

To me he is a shark in the mist of sharks , a shark of sharks, proceed at your own peril. 

To start with he asks almost $1,000.00. If he gets 1000 members he is already ahead $1M. then he will lend that $1 Million at 6 points and 16% interest, nice gig !!!! Who would pay him $ $1,000.00 to join and not use him for money?

I foresee allot of things going wrong for allot of people !!!!

There is another group that offers that if the house will not sell the investor will buy the house at market prices from the seller less his investment plus his expected interest. Yeah I am going to volunteer to be an investor. These guys that put this deal together make money, $15,000.00 up front. The investor pays that on top of what is required for the project then to top it off if the house does not sell the investor is on the hook for buying the house at market rates. 

These guys make things sound wonderful, easy, no problem but to me they are all shmucks !

First he will take the time to verify your deal is only the very best of deals. I do like that because I would not mind someone double checking that I have a good deal on my hand. I would pay him  $1,000.00 for that and have him analyze all of my deals but I would never take his money. Like I said. Proceed at your own peril. 

You say you have big goals in real estate investing? You're my kind of people Jeremy. 

In any case the Chicago building department is still a great or the best source for information about what your building will have to offer and conform to if you plan to offer it for student housing. The building and planning departments are not the hammer everyone is afraid to get hit over the head with. They are actually quite helpful in answering all of your building concerns as the owner or landlord. 

First I would check with the city building department to find out exactly what condo requirements are. For example:

. Sprinkler system

. Grounded electrical all code conforming

. Fire rated partitions

. Fire rated ceilings

. Separate metering for electric, water and gas

. Code conforming copper tubing and other code conforming plumbing. 

Etc. Etc. Then I would get a GC out to the site and request an estimate or quote to comply with all condo building requirements. 

I am assuming you want to prepare for  a condo conversion in the future. Is that right?

Marie Maxwell, 

The first time I purchased property out of my area which is California I bought around the east coast. Talk about taxation without representation ! I thought somehow I was in the twilight zone not in America. Wow ! the policies local governments enforce there are something else for property owners. 

For $250K you should be in a good neighborhood, is that right? I am sure you checked everything but just make sure everything works and there are no obvious things that pop out at you like anything electric not working and having good water flow in all of your faucets, good water pressure in the bath tubs or shower. Have you been up on the roof to inspect it for condition, anything look too worn on in need of replacement. 

Just make sure you will be able to live in the house without needed to spend more money on repairs that might have been over looked. 

I once lost two building lots that I owned when they were valued at about $400K the market on building lots dropped to $100K. Have you heard the saying or advise not to get emotional about property?

After telling my friend about my loss he offered to take him to see the lots and see if the houses had also dropped in value as well. I said no, no way. After about 4 months I did see if the houses had dropped in value and they had not. In fact they had appreciated. That should have told me those lots we going to be in great demand because they were in a neighborhood of million and multi million dollar houses. In fact my friend had offered me that If I included him on the location of the lots he would buy them both at $100K each and give me one for putting him in a good situation. I refused. About one week ago those two lots sold for $650K each. Don't let your emotions about properties cloud your judgement. Within the same comp area we could find two other lots selling for allot less and build two houses on them with each house appraising for and valued at $1.7 Million each and we could have done it with $1.3 Million. That means we could have had two houses together worth $3.4 Million but we missed out because I refused to let my friend know where the lots were and let him buy them at $100K each. 

Have you ever thought about petting a 120 pound pit bull just to see what would happen?

I don't think you really want to know. To this day I will drive an extra 1/2 mile just to avoid that guy's house. There are human beings and animals that look exactly like human beings and with those guys you will never know until its too late. 

Actually this sounds funny because you would think they have enough money to buy whatever they want so why would they rent? However this does remind me of one time I did an electrical job to rewire an entire house for a mafioso and he told me I better hurry to get the job done otherwise he would have to get tough with me. I knew what he meant because the next day these two 300 pound guys showed up asking me why I was giving the old man a hard time. They also told me to hurry up and get the job done or else, while pulling two baseball bats out of the trunk of their car. Come to think of it the old man stiffed me for $200 bucks at the end of the job guess I was lucky I didn't get my legs broken. :)

That job usually took me 9 days to complete. I got done in 5 and " forgota bout" asking for the $200.00 bucks yet unpaid.