All Forum Posts by: Helen Kirk

@Marc Jolicoeur and @Wayne Brooks

Excellent ideas, both of you.  I recently opened up a new American Express card that has $15K available at no interest for 15 months.  I could use part of that.  I also have $30K in the bank for rehab costs and the down payment of $16K on the property.  I just don't like cutting things short.  My dad tells me he also has 40K just sitting in savings that he is willing to loan me, but he wouldn't want to charge me more than 6% interest, so that makes me breathe a bit easier.  I'll let everyone know the outcome when I get this all figured out!  Exciting stuff....I'm hooked!

Hi @Brian Gibbons   Thanks for your input!

I don't have much info on the seller.  I understand it was owned by an old lady that was planning on living in it, but went to a nursing home instead.  The townhome had been empty for years when she passed.  The heirs just want to sell it quickly, hence the low price.  It was originally offered for sale at 74,900, but by the time I saw it (4 days on realtor.com) there were already two competitive offers on it.  I upped my offer and it was accepted.  I truly believe it would sell for $120K if not more when it is fixed up.

Since the property is so close to the university here, it will make an excellent buy and hold rental investment.  I would rather not flip it.

The lady I'm working with at the bank said there would be no problem with the loan.  My credit score is close to 800, but my W2 income is rather low.  My thought is that the bank wants to tie up the rest of my available funds so I don't go and spend them on something else... just my thoughts on this though.  I don't have any proof.

I think once I get this property settled and working for me, I will look for my next investments to be more in the lease option/purchase area.  I have to get a bit more education on what all that entails though.

Hi everyone,

Working on my first property:  

I've put in an offer on a 4br 2 ba townhouse for $80K in an area where the townhomes like this one are going for $120K and up.  It was accepted and I'm now to the point where I'm jumping through hoops with the bank.  They had given me a pre-approval letter earlier. I had a home inspection done, knowing it needed some work, including a new roof.  Now the bank wants a complete list of everything that needs to be done with an estimate of how much it is going to cost.  They want to have the funds needed for these repairs put into escrow at closing.  Is this normal?  Most of the repairs are cosmetic, with a new stove needed as well.  My own unofficial estimate is around $15K total (5K extra added just in case)

I have the extra funds for this, but was planning on using some of my credit cards for a lot of the work, and am a bit annoyed that I'm going to have to use my cash for the repairs!

I'm putting down 20% of the 80K, and my monthly payments on the remainder of 64K at 4% interest for 30 years will be around $380.00. I can get around $1200 - $1400 a month in rent, so cash flow will not be a problem.  My realtor is a bit annoyed with them as well.

After this experience, I think I'm only going to look for properties with seller financing!!! Not that I'm planning on flipping this property, but how do people flip houses if they have to put the money in escrow first???  I guess using conventional financing is not going to be something I use a lot of.

Dang.... for a moment I thought you were talking about Auburn Alabama!

I'm also interested in this topic.  I recently purchased a 4 br townhouse close to our local university and I'm planning on renting it out to students.  It is my first property and i'm trying to get educated on all I'll need to know about student rentals.

I'm considering whether to put all four tenants on one lease or have a lease for each renter.  If anyone has any good experiences or tips that they can pass along I'd really appreciate it.

@Aaron Mercer

 If you use their software, you can take a iPad or tablet (or even smartphone) with you to the property, then go room to room touching the area of the tablet that corresponds to what you want to rehab.  They have Home Depot and Lowe's skew numbers programmed into the software, so once you've finished deciding what you want to update, (it also shows you options on items you can choose from), you can print out a Statement of Work for your contractor that includes all the skew numbers, and costs room by room, and you can order directly from the software and have the items shipped directly to your site.  Saves a bunch of time and expense.  You would conceivably only have labor costs from your contractor.  You could submit this Statement of Work to multiple contractors to get their labor cost estimates because the SOW also has a column for adding labor costs.

Anyway, that is my understanding.  If I were doing a lot of rehabs, then this system would make a lot of sense to use instead of making multiple trips back and forth to the store, or letting the contractor provide the materials (with his/her markup).

I just went to their 3-day seminar in Montgomery, AL.  Loved the Statement of Work cost estimator software.  Did not love the hard sell for the Mastery class.  I had the money, but did not give it to them.  Today, just one day later, I get an email from them wanting to call me and tell me about an exciting opportunity for me.  Did you get one of these calls too?  

There is no way I'm going to spend this amount of money on their "mentor" calls at 30 minutes once a week.  The software made me drool, so if they will let me just purchase that part, I might consider it.

Find a mortgage broker and ask him/her to ask his lenders for a rehab loan for the After Repair Value (ARV) of the home. You could get up to 85% of the rehabbed value from what I understand.

Has anyone ever purchased a commercial property using a "subject to" method?  

This has just fallen in my lap and I'm wondering if it is worth pursuing.

I have a lady that owes $275,000.00 on a beautiful little commercial building 4000+ SF that is used for a catering business, and is also rented out for weddings, receptions and has a lease for a church that meets there on Sundays. It has an upstairs apartment that the owner lives in. She is about to be foreclosed upon this week, and has contacted me through the Montgomery, AL REIT to see if we could work out something that would benefit both of us. She wants to lease it back, with an option to purchase it back in 2-3 years with an additional 15% of the original price (around $41K). She also owns a nice house in a nice neighborhood that is free and clear, worth $130K. She is renting it out at $850.00 a month.

I will be getting the numbers this afternoon, but she is frantic, and is willing for me to take over the 275K loan, deeding the property over to me, leaving her name on the loan.

This will be my first property if it goes through, so naturally I am cautious, and would rather take it slow, but her deadline is Wednesday, so I need to overcome my reluctance if we are to do this thing.

I'm wondering if I should just be a private lender to her, allowing her to get caught up on her loan without going through the bother of purchasing the building.

Thanks @Adrian Chu

 I did not go forward with this opportunity.  I'll be attending some courthouse auctions next week and am focusing on them for now.  I'm also looking at an auction.com property which is up for its third listing on auction.com.  I have a hunch that I'm the only one bidding on it.

Helen