All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

I would only amend the lease by adding the daughter as an occupant responsible for payment and all other terms in the least. I would not waste my time doing a credit check and would make it clear that her parent are still ultimately liable. I don't 

A few years ago, we had a father rent a unit and make believe he was living in it with his daughter. The father never moved in and we had serious problems with the daughter starting with the first day she moved in. She was going to college, was a stoned-out slut and was banging guys day and night.  Her noise and partying bothered all the tenants. This was the type girl where her friends would literally park in the middle of the street, talk to each other through the car windows and traded their drugs. I called the father several times and immediately gave them the boot. The father was very responsive, apologized several times and if I had removed the father from the lease I am 100% positive I would have had to go to court to get the promiscuous drugged-out slut out of the unit. Otherwise, I think very highly of her. She was definitely cute, sexy and I see why the guys hung around the building like wolves sniffing for blood. Or, maybe, I was envious. You figure that out for yourself. As a landlord, I never got any of those types of perks.

 I don't think the competition in the neighborhood makes a difference since we tried to use zillow for renting units and we got 5 to 10 leads every day, but we also got the worst of the litter. We advertise our rental units on billboard outside high-end grocery stores and get a great selection of tenant. 

When we remove a dishwasher we have a cabinet contractor build a face and one shelf. I believe the tenants like the extra storage space better than a dishwasher. My ex-wife (2nd of 3) installed a brand new dishwasher and in the 18 years we had it we used it maybe 3 times. We find that most dishwashers we remove were never used because people have a fetish where they feel dishes need to be pre-cleaned in the sink before putting in the dishwasher, it is faster to clean dishes by hand and dishwashers make a racket and run through cycles for too long when people are trying to relax and avoid the banging.

As for the rental price per unit, most of my units are C-Grade or better and the prices are close to all other landlords' properties at $1550 to $1650 for a 1 bedroom 1 bath and $1800 to $1950 for a 2-bedroom and 1 or 2 bath unit. I think we are about $100 less than the average market for all our units. I don't care about the price for the rentals and would remove them even in high-end units.

The next most-important thing to do when dealing with prospects interested in selling is you nee a good game plan. As soon as the property owner tells me he is interested in selling I tell him that I am already familiar with his property in the sense that I know the street, block, did some research on the internet about his house, the size, price and I tell him I would love to see inside and will buy it as-is, for cash and pay top-dollar.

Then, when I meet with the seller, I bring a pre-printed form with the price that zillow.com com and propertradar.com indicates. Then, I give put the form in the property owner's face, tell him if he sells his property the conventional way through a broker he will have to pay a 6% commission and I get a verbal acknowledgement, positive body language and I ask the property owner to write the amount of the form. Then, I mention that the property owner will need to do repairs, pay for the repairs, show the home to multiple prospects, put the property in escrow, get a home inspection, make more repairs and pay more money, give discounts and then it is not uncommon for the buyer to either back out because he no longer wants your home, or his loan gets rejected and you start the process over and over. Then you have to deal with contractors that can be unreliable, contractors who never finish by the deadline you have and you have to deal with those issues and the messes they make. At the same time I have the prospect write on my form all the costs I mentioned and at the end the only thing I say is:

"you can sell your home the conventional way and deal with all those issues, take your chances, or sell your property, today, not deal with one issue, no commissions, no inspections, no showing your home to multiple prospects, no waiting several months and backing out and you will know, today, exactly what you will walk away with, to the penny."

Then I take the form from the prospect, deduct all the expenses, tell the prospect I buy homes for a profit and what I get from buying properties is the costs for my time, costs for the repairs, costs to maintain the property during construction, cost for dealing with the contractors, costs for advertising the property and broker commissions, etc. and when you are talking to a level-headed prospect the outcome is very positive and a high percent of prospect will sell to me, but there are also many prospects who are seriously afraid to make decisions e.g. whether or not they want to sell, at all and I don't pressure myself because pressure is counter-productive. What I find to be super effective is I think of myself as chained and locked to the prospects kitchen table and I never try to add new things to say to my prospects. What I do is I start from the very beginning like I never said one word to the prospect and I say the exact same thing over from the beginning. The reason I do that is because people can process only about one-third of what they see and hear. If you want to get the prospect to give you a decision you need to say the exact same thing 3 times to get the prospect to process and understand 90% of what you say. If you keep adding new statements then you confuse the prospect more when he has not even processed what you already told him. What I do always amazes me because a prospect will tell me 3 or 4 times he needs a few days to think, to discuss his options with relatives, or some broker, or an attorney and a few minutes later he agrees to sign a deal.   

It is sad that  BP does not have a better system for searching for thread in regards to subject, but I clearly see the reason and I am too cheap to become a Pro Member. 

The best way to get leads for off market properties it to use propertyradar.com if it covers your area and you get more power than most brokers have. I suggested propertyradar to 2 broker friends, they were amazed and subscribed and I don't get a commission from them but wish I did (not from my friends, but from all the people I recommend propertyradar to).

The best property owners to go after are those who had their property on the market and the property did not sell for some reason e.g. the seller got cold feet, could not get the price he wanted, could not sell because the property needed a massive amount of work, etc.

With property radar you can download 10,000 filtered records per month for only $79 (that is what I pay for 5 state). There are many filters for properties that were removed from the market, owners' names, owner's addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses, loan documents that show a history of loans and loan balances and the website is amazing.

There is no need to purchase a canned list from some other company because 25% to 30% of the records are outdated and you don't get all the information e.g. loan documents, phone numbers, etc.

Like everything we do on this planet, people can tell you what to do, but actually implementing what you are told to do can be daunting and frustrating. Maybe, today, or tomorrow, I will create a video showing how to use propertyradar.com and how I use the free software I give away to download thousands of records and then manage the records.

I am a chicken (coward) when it comes to telemarketing, but with a super simple one-line question and my software I actually enjoy telemarketing for properties that were removed from the market. It is super simple and I get almost zero rejections or anger from the people I call. 

This is what I say:

"Hello!!! My name is Jack (my real name is not Jack for those who don't know) and the reason I'm calling is I heard your home was on the market and am wondering if you are still interested in selling?"

That is all I plan to say and then let the property owner take the lead for how the conversation turns because if a prospect is really interested enough about wanting to sell he will light up on the other end of the phone and you can expect that you and the prospect will have an honest conversation. If the prospect is not interested in selling then it doesn't make sense that you would want to badger him by asking him why, or trying to convince him to sell. My software has the ability to print customized letters, easily, and I may mention to the prospect that I will send my information in case he changes him mind, but it is better to move on to a better prospect before your fingers get stiff.

Whatever you want to do post your number, first, lets have a look and don't forget that a huge chunk of your mortgage payment is applied to the principal and this makes a huge difference when crunching your numbers.

But...I still try to stay away from single-family homes when the home will not appreciate in value, substantially, but as a previous BP member posted, you still may be better off buying than renting if that is your only choice and cannot buy an investment property that generates a profit almost exponentially compared to a single family home for your personal residence.

I try to be as frugal as possible and am always looking to downsize rather that upsize. My father had always had a lot of old say sayings that made a lot of sense and one of them was, "the more you own, the more you have to maintain".  I am a plumbing contractor, went to give an estimate to install new water piping at a house where only a husband and wife lived and when I quoted my price the husband literally starting swearing at me and called me a crook. The aho..e had a 4,000 sq ft house with 5 bathrooms with 5 fixtures in almost every bathroom. The house had 2 washers and dryers and 2 water heaters. My price for an average house at the time was only about $2,000, but for this house my price was $8,000 and that was low compared to other plumbers. Then, what do you think a new roof would cost for his 4,000 sq ft house compared to the price for a 1200 to 1500 sq ft house. It will be 4 times as much. So, where is the fun and glory when a person owns more that he has to maintain and then literally suffers for the rest of his life trying to pay for all the excess.

It seems like almost everyone has dreams about owning the ranch house in the middle of a farm with a white picket fence and the strange thing about that is when you own a ranch, or even just additional acreage you take on a massive amount of work that puts the screws to your retiring. I see many people buy cars and work their butts off to make the payments. People buy new homes and work their butts off to make the payments. For myself, nothing material in this world is worth working my butt off for. My wife, two children and I live in a commercial building built in 1904. We have zero furniture with the exception of beds. We drive beat up vehicles like I have a 2000 beat up Volkswagen that looks like it came out of a junk yard, but we also have zero stress, zero bills and we enjoy not having a desire for a nice house nor material things. I work in customer's homes every day and seriously feel sorry for people with houses cluttered with tens of thousands of dollars worth material crap, expensive cars and a high percent of my customers tell me they can't pay me $69 to clean their drain until they get their paycheck. My wife always tells me she wants to try to travel around the country with zero money to see what it is like and I have more respect for that than all the people talking about the things they would like to have if or as soon as they get some hot cash in their hands.

I always believe in being frugal and keep doubling your money by saving and investing rather than spending and spending.

If you are running out of space buy bunk beds. Maybe, that is a joke!

The only way to know is to do spreadsheets and see where your money will make the best return. I am a contractor and find it hard to believe anyone can add a bathroom for less than $30,000 even if you are adding it to a room already inside the house. I charge my customer not one penny less than $18,000 to remodel an existing bathroom. When adding a bathroom you need water piping, drain and sewer pipes, drain vents through the roof, a window, electrical work including a ceiling fan with a humidistat, drywall, painting, plumbing fixtures permits, and the rest of the list is too much to write.

The big question is; can you get a better return by using the money toward purchasing another property, or blow the money on a bathroom that give you a smaller overall return and miss out on the opportunity to be making tons of money from appreciation from two properties.

Personally, I never ever wanted to purchase a property and try to add value to the property by adding more living space or a bathroom and I don't think the amount the property appreciates with the addition of a bathroom will make a significant difference where a bank loans you a higher amount against the property. Not significantly enough for my business model and time.

 Those are very good ideas.

The exceptions I don't go with is curtains and black appliances. I install only cheap horizontal blinds because they make the windows look uniform and black appliances are ugly and make the kitchen less bright. Just a few months ago, I purchased a an apartment building, remodeled a unit and it had a black stove and refrigerator. They were in great condition, but I threw them out, installed white and the appearance and brightness was huge.

You are the first person to say you remove disposers. I've been removing them for several years because we got an average of disposer problems every week and during 1 week we had 5 tenants call with disposer problems. We also remove every dishwasher and never had a tenant complain.

But, you have a lot of great suggestions for others to follow and save a massive amount of money. I talk to many of my real estate friends and convince some of them to do the same to cut their costs to repair and replace things many tenants don't use and don't need. 

Your problem is probably not about the high taxes. It could be that you are looking at the properties that don't make sense regardless of the math. I just posted a video on youtube about analyzing single-family properties, how to do the math and I have a few videos about multi-unit calculations.

Personally, I never purchase single-family properties unless I can get them for 40% less than their after repair value and you will see this in my video.

Search yourtube for blprei analyze single family homes (since BP won't allow me to put a link)

Post your numbers with a reply to this post and lets have a look at what you are looking at. The real truth about investing is; I look at 5 to 10 properties every day and won't purchase properties for several years even though I have enough cash to pay for the entire property because it is very difficult to find properties that are a good deal where I can make buckets of money. I am 71-years old, still a workaholic, can work rehabbing apartments units for 18-hour days for month, but I don't work like a dog for little biscuits. I am not motivated to work when not making tons of money. So, I wait years and years until a goldmine comes along rather than blowing my wad of cash on junk and then losing out on a goldmine.

Send the numbers you've been looking at and lets have a looksie! I must be getting crazy because I never said that work before and actually hate the word.

Get a CPA and not an accountant and you will be okay. Get an accountant and expect to have serious tax problems in the future.