All Forum Posts by: James De Stefano

Good info about from @Cameron Parr.  Sounds like some skeletons in the closet. 

To your question about walking away or renegotiating,  how much would you lose in E.M.  ?   Do you have  a buying agent on your side, or this is an off-market/ solo deal you're working on?

Headaches are always part of the real estate world, and I'm not that many years in-deep to it.  So find the right balance is the best I can offer. GL

Howdy!  It probably will take a conversation with a loan officer, and a snap shot of your  financial situation & credit situation. 

Money talks, if you've got it.  GL

+1  to the above comments about Zillow being inconsistent with rental rates.  It's not impossible to find and follow the 1% rule, but it's very challenging overall, especially if your house isn't built like a "tank", and requires frequent repairs or remodeling from the start. 

It will be very interesting to see the results on the rental market with this major shift in our economy over the next few weeks and months. 

Again, renting is a long-term game and you want something that will bring solid cash flow down the line.   Reach out if you have additional questions OP

Market Update....

And this STILL doesn't make any sense. 

While it's  good that stocks aren't spinning out of control downward, It just seems so early to price to be climbing back upwards while we're in the middle of this madness. 

Emotions are a powerful drug

^^^ Her Poker Face will be the ultimate deciding factor about how much of the truth is being revealed after all!!

IMO... if you had 3 choices what to do with  50k right now =  1. Stocks  2.  Real Estate 3.  Hold as Cash.     Then #3. cash is probably best.  But buying RE and holding for the long term is almost never, ever a BAD Idea.  as long as you have funds to keep the lights on and feed your family.

Stocks are great 5, 10, 20 years from now , but they don't give you a roof over your head. 

Good discussion.   Also remember, the real movers in the market are managers of 10's and 100's of millions of dollars, not  someone like me who has "play" money  who will buy 5 of 10 shares of Amazon.   

And the Stock market can be heavily driven by emotions.   Real estate deals with purchases that take 30-40 days, instead of 2 seconds on the computer w/ stocks.  

All that being said... I still like buying shares of Carnival cruise line at $8 or 9 / share, when they were at $60 !!! about a month ago.    

Either they completely got out of business (possible..) or they will be back and raring to go in 1 year or so.  Ppl love those freaking buffets!

Welcome! Houston has a lot to offer, just depends how much you want to spend. 160 - 200K from MLS to get your something that might meet your criteria Outside of 610 loop. Be careful just saying "inner loop" as there are A+ areas and D- F areas spread throughout the inner loop.

  Beltway 8 is essentially the 2nd dividing loop in the city, much of which is established suburban areas. 

Spend a few hours driving the city to get a good feel of it and the major highways. 

Good luck, reach out if you have additional Q's

The Easter thing... not so much. 

But I think we will win this War against the virus, there's too many smart people working on it, and I feel that 95% or more of our population is taking it very seriously.  June/ July seems realistic for the big Economic wheel to start spinning again, just will be lots of debris to put back together. 

The news will ALWAYS show the most shocking and crazy folks ( ie. Texas has some people still opening their churches because it's an essential service...but only a few real loonies are open)

Very positive to hear so many tenants doing the right things and paying.   I would imagine there are  people saving well over $100 / week because they can't go out and spend money on drinks/ restaurants, sports events ( $12 beer anyone? ) 

Let's see how April treats us...

I could be wrong on this, but truly believe that ARV's of the past 6 months, need to be shaved by 5 - 10% moving forward.

There WILL be buyers in the market no matter how the Economy is doing/ recovers.  But I think it's best to play it safe, and if you expect to sell a rehab for 300k in August or Sept... .shave off at least 20k.  

just food for thought.