All Forum Posts by: Jeff Copeland

Attorneys deal with this all the time. You'll have to file a suit to quiet title. 

Not a huge deal, but will take time. 

Sent you a PM with some more info.

No one can tell for sure from the photos you posted, so don't take anyone's advice in this thread as gospel based on your photos. Get someone who knows what they're doing to look at it. 

(But don't invite the City building inspector inside if you are doing a bunch of unpermitted work!)

That being said, you should be able to tell by looking at it where the bearing points are. 

For example: Clearly the joists in the foreground bear weight on the wall to the left. What we can't tell from the photos are whether the joists all run in the same direction though the kitchen to the back wall:

If the joists in the kitchen look just like the ones in the foreground, then they most likely bear weight on the walls to the left and right, just like the ones in the foreground. If they don't, then you need to figure out what is bearing and where. 

The hard truth of the matter is, it is almost impossible to collect a judgment for past due rent from a tenant who skipped out. When more experienced landlords and PMs share this with you, we aren't making it up, and we aren't telling you what to do; We're just telling you the facts. 

You can spend your time being a real estate investor and landlord, which literally hundreds of thousands of people are successfully doing to build generational wealth, or you can spend your time being a debt collector, where the industry average success rate is about 20 cents on the dollar. 

http://www.evicttv.com/episode...

You have 168 hours in each weak, no more, no less. You decide how you can best put them to use. In my experience, it ain't debt collection. 

Is the seller free and clear, or do they have an existing mortgage to pay off? The seller can't sell you the house without paying off their existing mortgages and any other liens, so they'd need at least that much as a down payment, plus closing costs and commissions, just to walk away from the closing table with zero. 

And do you have a buyer's agent, or are you just concerned with the listing agent's commission?

It's important to understand how seller financing works, as well as how real estate agent commissions work on MLS-listed properties.

You are negotiating with the seller. 

The seller has already agreed to pay whatever % commission was agreed to in their listing agreement, so 1) it's too late to negotiate this (it has already been decided and agreed to in a written contract between the listing agent and the seller), and 2) it's not your concern as the buyer. 

Your concern as the buyer is making a realistic competitive offer. 100% seller financing is almost certainly not realistic or competitive. 

To be clear, my thoughts are you should absolutely file for homestead exemption. And there are specific timelines and deadlines regarding when you have to do it with the County. It would be foolish not to.

Then you'll obviously, want to monitor the supreme court ruling, and considering being somewhat discreet about how you advertise your rooms for rent. 

Also, keep your neighbors happy to avoid any unnecessary complaints or reports to the County.

My gut reaction was going to be "If you own the home, and you live in the home, then it is your homestead and you are entitled to the homestead exemption. Whether you live with your wife and kids, or 16 roommates, is really none of the State's business." 

However, after doing some fact checking, I now realize this is a tricky and contentious issue:

https://www.floridarealtors.or...

https://randrflorida.com/fla-c...

So the answer to your question is it depends on how your County's property appraiser interprets and enforces the rules, and it especially depends on the outcome of the pending supreme court case in the first link above. 

This is actually a really interesting issue to keep an eye on for people who work from home and maintain home offices. 

It depends on what you mean by "legally wholesale".

Can you negotiate with a seller in good faith, get a property under contract, and then assign that contract to another buyer? Yes. 

According to California Code, Business and Professions Code - BPC § 10131, California requires a license for the following:

"a person who, for a compensation or in expectation of a compensation, regardless of the form or time of payment, does or negotiates to do one or more of the following acts for another or others:

(a) Sells or offers to sell, buys or offers to buy, solicits prospective sellers or buyers of, solicits or obtains listings of, or negotiates the purchase, sale, or exchange of real property or a business opportunity.

(b) Leases or rents or offers to lease or rent, or places for rent, or solicits listings of places for rent, or solicits for prospective tenants, or negotiates the sale, purchase, or exchanges of leases on real property, or on a business opportunity, or collects rents from real property, or improvements thereon, or from business opportunities.

(c) Assists or offers to assist in filing an application for the purchase or lease of, or in locating or entering upon, lands owned by the state or federal government.

(d) Solicits borrowers or lenders for or negotiates loans or collects payments or performs services for borrowers or lenders or note owners in connection with loans secured directly or collaterally by liens on real property or on a business opportunity.

(e) Sells or offers to sell, buys or offers to buy, or exchanges or offers to exchange a real property sales contract, or a promissory note secured directly or collaterally by a lien on real property or on a business opportunity, and performs services for the holders thereof."

Most people who can carry 10 loans and still stay below the DTI threshold are high wage earners.

It's also a tough balancing act for self-employed individuals: You want to minimize your reported income and maximize your business expenses for tax purposes; But you want to maximize your income and minimize your expenses for DTI/Lending purposes. You can't have your cake and eat it to, and sometimes you have to be strategic about how you structure your income taxes and pay down other debt in order to qualify for financing at the right times.

We recently started offering coliving property management in St Petersburg, Florida (in addition to our portfolio of long term rentals), and I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "the importance of household" or what you mean by "household-led property management". 

These are interesting buzzwords, but I actually don't think there's a fundamental 180-degree difference between coliving, mid-term, and long-term property management. 

Our role as a property manager is to:

1) Put the right people in the units; Meaning well-qualified applicants who have stable income/employment, positive rental, credit, eviction, and criminal records, and are a good fit for the property, while staying within the scope of fair housing laws. 

2) Minimize vacancy and turnover

3) Maximize rent and rent collections (and provide the tech to make this painless and easy for tenants and owners)

4) Maintain the property and curb appeal (and provide the tech and staff to make maintenance responsive and relatively painless). 

These goals are the same for LTR, MTR, and coliving.

So I'm genuinely curious where "foster the household's sense of community" or whatever falls on your list of priorities, and what are the specific things you are doing to make this happen?

Don't get me wrong: It's wonderful that your tenants give each other rides and bring each other soup when they are sick. But I'd argue this is just the nature of living with good people (and my job as a coliving property manager is to put those good people in place). It's not something we taught them or fostered as their property manager. 

 When I first read the subject line of your post, I was expecting to read a gripe from a novice investor who wanted his agent to submit 20 offers per week at 60% of asking price. (We actually get that fairly often as investor-friendly agents, lol). 

But that is not the case here. An offer of $355k (or even $340k) on a $370k listing that has been sitting on the market for four months is not unreasonable on the surface. 

But, to be fair, it's also possible that you agent is speaking to the listing agents to feel out the situation, and being told things like "Don't waste your time, the seller just rejected an offer of $365k this morning. $370k is truly his line in the sand". (This happens all the time as well) 

So I think your first option is to have a heart to heart conversation with your buyers agent, explain your frustration, and ask him to explain to you why he won't write up these offers. If he doesn't have a solid answer that is to your satisfaction, then you are obviously within your rights to move on. 

And finally, "the agent who sold us our primary residence who we really liked" is often not the best fit for you when you decide to move forward as a real estate investor. Investing is different, and requires an agent with a different skillset. It's nothing personal. Business is business.