All Forum Posts by: Mr Good

I own a single house with two separate residences (separate everything). The upstairs is rented to an extremely nice couple, quiet, they have the garage and much nicer overall setup so they pay $1200/mo. Basement suite is $800/mo.

I met a couple today for the basement unit. She has an air about her which is demanding and bossy, he comes across as Mr Penny Pincher and he looks aggressive. I got a bad vibe especially when he said that right down the street his 14 and 9 year old daughters live, he wants to bbq outside all summer, and use the lawn. The basement suite has 1 bdrm. It's going to be too much commotion to have this guy and his whole family coming over to play football and have bbq outside, when the main floor has to deal with all of them.

Can I reject this guy based on what grounds? Can I say that the basement suite is only available for not more than 2 persons, thus eliminating his kids from coming over, thus making him not want the place?

Hope that makes sense. Appreciate any advice. Thanks!

THANK YOU very much for your responses, and particular thanks for generously outlining those figures Mr Wheatie. It feels great so far to be involved with this, making the jump. I shopped hard and feel good about what I have now. Any other comments highly appreciated.

Countrywide can be terrible. My property may be worth $2M or more, 7 prime acres where NOBODY has 7 acres. So I am nervous in general about people trying to mess with my property.

I've never been late. One month last year, paid on time but Cwide "lost" it. I only knew because I called to make sure they got it. They promised that if I sent a new pymt, no late charge, plus they would destroy the "lost" check if it came in. I sent a new check, they cashed it. A month later they "found" the missing check, and they tried to cash it. It bounced (of course). All of my future payments went into some kind of reserve account for delinquent. If I were not paying attention or on vacation, who knows what would have happened. I stormed into a local Cwide branch and demanded action NOW to sort it out. I was furious because the Cwide rep spoke in extremely rude ebonic gangland speak and insulted me. How a company can hire someone like that to answer phone calls is beyond me.

Fortunately Cwide, to their credit, does have local branches so I can put a face to my payment. Ever since that happened, I make my payments in person at Cwide office and get a paper receipt. In the back of my mind I think there may be an undercover operation to snare valuable properties using trickery (lost check, tell customer to put stop pymt, then try to cash it, and hold all future pymts). It was probably just pure incompetence. Either way, I don't care for Cwide and wish I could pay someone else for mortgage. Their phone customer service is just terrible.

Hello, I love this forum and the sage advice. I'll try to be short and to the point.

Purchased for $310k, 3400 sq ft beautiful brick home with separate entry/laundry/kitchens. It was a bank REO. Upper level has world-class city view. Basement suite is large, but no view. 23,000 sq ft lot, likely can be subdivided but not yet certain. Sought-after area (close to new mass transit center). Great deal on the house but the market for flip is bad, like everywhere.

Paid $101k out of pocket to buy it (high down payment) got 5.65% 30 yr loan, monthly mortgage $1570. So far put exactly $30k into new roof, electrical panel, appliances, cabinet, carpentry, etc. I am done putting money into prepping the house. I have made two mortgage pymts as well.

Have been very picky about selecting a renter. Most people had cats or bad credit, or both. Found a bright, educated, solid-employed, newly-married Mormon to rent the upper level. I believe he will be the perfect tenant. No pets and very respectful. $1200/mo.

There is strong interest in the basement suite at $850 but I have stopped advertising it because I want to get upper level guy moved in, and settled for a few weeks, before getting basement moved in. I am certain I will get $850, there is very little avail in the area especially at that price.

So here we are. About $135k has gone in, $1570 goes out each month, and I have $2050 coming in. I know someone said 50% of revenue disappears from expenses, which is debatable. A very close friend has 16 rental homes here in the area, he says vacancy is 100% all the time (never shortage of tenants) low turnover here, and low expenses. But who knows. I guess you can all call me crazy now but in 30 years it's mine and I do not like the stock market.

How about this deal.

Hello. I just purchased an investment property, my first. In an area where I grew up, know a lot of people. So far so good, it is being somewhat rehabbed to prepare for renters. There is a separate entry upstairs and downstairs, separate kitchens and separate laundry. Not sure how to deal with splitting the bills but that is my problem, I'll figure something out.

Wondering if you can suggest any software programs that help track expenses, revenues, etc, designed specifically for landlords. Thanks for any advice!

Hello,

In the basement of my investment property (built 1951) all of the windows are single-pane with hand-crank windows. I just bought the place.

The windows upstairs open up nicely but in the basement they are really hard to crank open. I suppose they may just need to be lubed up? Any tips on that?

Also, if I want to change to double-pane windows, what is the most affordable way to switch them?

Thanks for any advice!

Thanks for all of your feedback. The deal did close, just 11 days after I paid down payment at Title company, and 7 days later than the initial estimated closing date. It was hung up at the bank, not sure why, but it closed. Yeah!

Thanks a lot for your response. I appreciate it. The real estate agent gave me the keys. I know he probably should not have. I have been working on the house a bit the last few days. I guess I should be happy that I am not yet charged for the loan, and have access to the house. I am just concerned that it will not close for some crazy reason. If you can think of any other advice I greatly appreciate it.

Hello. I got great advice here before. Thanks again. Current dilemma:

I made an offer to buy a home which is owned by a bank (foreclosure). The seller accepted my offer, signed a purchase/sale agreement. Expiry of agreement is Feb-27.

Home passed appraisal and I was approved by a lender, and I put down 30% ($95k) of my own money.

Monday Feb-11 I delivered $95k to a Title company, and signed a stack of documents for the loan in front of a Title Officer. Typically, once this is done the deal is "recorded" at the county within 2 days and I get the keys. Stated closing date was Feb-14.

Feb-14, the title company advised that they were waiting for a "Signed Warranty Deed" from seller. Feb-15 (today) I got the same story "still waiting for seller to sign and courier to us the warranty deed". They said "we will call you on Monday with any updates".

My loan rate-lock expires Mar-01, if the deal is not recorded by then it will cost me a fortune due to increased rates. Aside from that, Feb-27 is contract expiry.

Shall I hire a lawyer to ensure that seller performs on the contract? They did, after all, sign an agreement to sell by Feb-27.

I am not sure if this is just a clerical delay. Hypothetical: if someone else offered them double the price for the home, they still can't sell it to anyone else because they already agreed to sell it to me, right? Isn't my real estate agent's good offices (huge company) responsible for providing me legal counsel or do I need to get one on my own? What would you do at this point--wait longer? Monday is a bank holiday... I still have time but the clock is ticking and I want this over with.

Thanks for any advice.

Thanks for your response. I suppose the big difference between property purchase and the lottery, in particular for the person who purchased 20 acres and held them, at any time immediately after purchasing that land it could have been sold for an increasingly higher amount of money. How long you hold it determines the payout obviously but it's not a strict lotto, win or lose.

There are so many ways to win with real estate, not just buying and making money right away via rents, and at the end of the day what you purchased almost always has value if it needs to be sold. Excise taxes and real estate fees add up though so the outlook has to be in years but hardly anything like an all-or-nothing lotto ticket. But I am sure you are a winner with the market area of your focus. No question about that.

I wonder something about regional difference in capital outlay vs timing of positive cash flow. From what I can see there are a lot of people renting homes in my area for levels which are far below breakeven, if they choose to sell those homes and walk away. In other words, you can see a home that could get $380k on today's market and it rents for $1400/mo. The only way this is happening is that the guy has owned it for a long time.

There must be a fairly common timeline involved for certain large markets, in terms of the amount of time it takes to invest and the lag for rents to catch up, as well as appreciation. I don't doubt that in many markets it's possible to assume 50% rent is lost due to various factors, and still get positive cash flow on a property with 30% down payment, and in other markets if those formulas are applied nobody would ever invest in rentals.