All Forum Posts by: Eric H.

@Account Closed Welcome to BP!! I don't think there is a right or wrong answer to your question. It all depends on your goals, short term and long term. The suggestions regarding how to get started will be a direct result of how the person giving the advice did or did not get started. With that being said, I say pick one strategy and stick to it for at least 2-3 years. Learn everything you can about that strategy before moving on to another. No matter what strategy you choose, you will have to 1st learn your target market. Attend some REIAs, link up with other BP members that invest in your area. Link up with a realtor to get email alerts about houses for sale and that have been sold in your target market. You can also accomplish this by creating a Redfin or Zillow account. 50k is more than enough to get started. Rentals are the way to go for cashflow. Acquiring rentals is my current strategy thus it's my suggestion to you.

Hope this helps!

Sincerely,

E. Harris

@Jenna Pedersen Welcome to BP and welcome to the world of REI!! I'm from Baltimore but how it works here is YES, you must pay off all liens against property before property can be transferred and new owner has the ability to record deed. I'm pretty confident it works that way throughout the country but check with some local investors. Type in Edmond, Oklahoma with your post and BP members that have those terms as keyword alerts will be notified and may respond to you.

I wish you the best!

Sincerely,

E. Harris

@Jeff Arnett Welcome to BP!! I've used PATLive for about 9 months now. The experience has been great. I have no complaints. I use them for live receptionist services for my direct mail campaigns. They do not qualify lead. They only capture lead's information, then transfer call to me. Of course you can have them qualify lead if that is what you desire. I get sent an email transcript of every call even if it's a hang up. I was using Google Voice before PATLive. Do you know of any other companies that offer services similar to PATLive? I'm currently paying for the basic package. Not sure of all the details regarding user minutes, but I pay $99/month for three lines. I have cut back the number of mailpieces I'm sending every month therefore the number of calls I'm getting has decreased. I'm wondering if there is a more economical solution to my problem but I want to keep the same professional feel. I may be unreasonable in my request because I don't think $99/month is too expensive. I'm just trying to cut expenses if I can at this point.

Happy investing!

Sincerely,

E. Harris

@Stephen Nicholson Yes I plan on doing some cold calling.

What's happening @Frank Closer? At that price point you are more than likely going to be buying a shell. I would just make sure the 'bones' of the property are in good shape. No foundation issues, all exterior and load bearing walls are in good condition, roof is in fair condition and not leaking severely. As far as liens, that will be handled during title search. You can do some research of your own by looking up environmental fines, backed up taxes, and water bills. But the title search will reveal anything that you have missed. All of these bills have to be paid before property can be transferred and should be factored into your acquisition costs. Another major thing to consider is if you put 30k -40k (contractor prices) into rehab plus 7k for purchase how much equity will you have when it's all said and done. If you plan on doing the rehab yourself you could lower your rehab cost significantly but I think you should still factor in your labor costs when evaluating the deal because eventually the business savvy individual does not make much $$ slinging hammers. I would also line up some potential lenders that would be willing to refinance your property as part of my prepurchase planning.

I hope I answered your question.

Happy investing!

E. Harris

Greetings and welcome to BP @KL Dolphy. I've been virtually wholesaling here in Baltimore with a good dude from that area.

@Jeffrey Mark Can you help this young lady out?

I am pretty sure he can answer all of your questions.

I wish you the best.

Sincerely,

E. Harris

@Octavius Henderson Check out the following thread

https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/93/topics/54108-buyer-s-list-how-to-

I wish you the best!!

Sincerely,

E. Harris

@Judi Smith Congratulations on deciding to make a move in the RE game!! Investing in the hood is definitely a specialty and not for everyone. Read this thread in it's entirety.

https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/61/topics/115...

It's filled with nuggets from some successful hood investors. Feel free to reach out as I invest in these communities as well.

I wish you the best!

Sincerely,

E. Harris

@Frank Closer New agent here that also invests in that price range. PM me if you would like to link up.

E. Harris

@David Dachtera Thanks for taking the time to respond.

In Baltimore City, tax liens expire after two years. At the auction, the winning bidder only pays the lien amount and a high bid premium if he/she bids more than a certain amount.

For example if lien amount is $1,000 and winning bidder bids $100,000 he she only pays $1000 plus high bid premium (won't bore you with how to calculate high bid premium here. visit bidbaltimore.com for those who want to know). Say high bid premium is another 10k. At close of auction winning bidder owes city $11,000.

Now 12 months later after property has been foreclosed on, winning bidder (lien holder) has to fulfill his or her promise to pay $99,000. The 'overbid' is supposed to go to homeowner but it rarely does because many don't know anything about how the law is written or how tax sale actually works. There is even a market/business for helping these kinds of folks claim this overbid. So an overbid is what happened here. Bidder bid too high. Some investors don't want the property, they just want the interest. This type of investor can bid high to acquire lien and collect interest because he/she has no intent of acquiring property. The caveat here is interest is not earned on HBP so it takes a lot of due diligence to make sure you are actually making money when using this strategy.

So I contacted this lien holder. She doesn't want to pay up so her deed hasn't been recorded. She has to pay that overbid in order to record deed. She could assign the lien but the assignee would have to pay that overbid too.

Anyone investing in Baltimore City tax liens and properties please pitch in. @Ned Carey any thoughts?