All Forum Posts by: Jennifer Rysdam

Have any of you had/put doorbells in your apartment buildings? I have an 8-plex and you have to knock SO hard on the doors for them to hear it that you end up with the neighbors coming to their doors too. I'm wondering if putting a wireless doorbell would work better. They would have to have enough frequencies that they wouldn't intercept each other, but I think it would be nice. Any thoughts???

I'm wondering if there is a reverse mortgage or something and they are trying to get out of. Maybe they only listed it so that a family member could then "buy" it and make it look legit. I can't imagine how anyone else would buy into that. You never know though, lol.

That is so strange. I've never seen anything like it. Did you ask the listing agent what would be in it for the buyer? I'm interested to see how they try to make it look beneficial. 

If you finance longer you will have more cash flow left over for more investing. Let the bank hold the debt while you use your money to invest. Maximize cash coming in and minimize cash going out. You can always pay more if you choose to, but at least you will have the choice.

@Matthew Olszak  @Russell Brazil I guess I just see it a different way. I used to sell real estate. Sometimes I'd make a haul with very little work, while other times I didn't make as much or had to tote people to 20 houses before they found the one they liked. It all balanced out in the end. There are expensive houses and there are cheap houses. I didn't refuse anyone because of what their interests or budget were.
My point was that this realtor obviously isn't interested in doing the deals that he is interested in. Time to move on for both of them. If he's planning on flipping this property and relisting it with the same realtor, then the realtor is going to get plenty of money out of the deal in the end in my opinion.
It also goes both ways. I drove 30 miles to look at a "starter home" yesterday. Hired a babysitter, etc. Pictures were nice. Turns out the pictures were from before the house was trashed and the basement window was knocked out letting who knows what in. The place needed a bulldozer. Not so "starter home" to me. I'm sure I'll look at a few of these before I find one that's actually worth buying. It's part of the deal. Time and energy gets wasted on both sides. It balances out in my opinion. I just bought an 8-plex with my realtor in April which was a piece of cake for him. A contract for deed taken care of by the lawyers. The same one that wasted his time meeting me at this house yesterday. I'll find my flip and I'll relist it with him when I'm done with it. We're both happy in the end. You have to do what makes you happy, and so do I. That may be completely different for both of us. Peace :)

I would get a new realtor. Getting good deals is what you are trying to do. Sounds like every good deal you find isn't going to be anything he wants to show you because the commissions won't be much. I think you have a conflict of interest. If he can't see that he'll be making money off of your volume of purchases over time, then he's just going to be one more frustrating part of the process. You also can't trust him to find you the good buys because he doesn't want to deal with them. How frustrating!

I would like to be able to put one of those floorplan pics on my website since people can't always view my units. Any good ones out there?

Thanks!

@Deanna McCormick Hi Deanna. I was not aware of that. Where can I find this info? It's not in the purple book that I have noticed. Want to make sure I'm not breaking the law :) Thanks!

Thanks everyone for the responses. I appreciate the information. I think I'll keep it at the $520,000 and just shop around for a better rate. @Jason BottThanks for your thorough response. Do you have any insurance company recommendations for SW MN? I called all of the local ones and they were higher than the one I have.

Hi everyone! I bought an 8-plex in SW MN in April. I paid $175,000 for it. It was insured for $520,000, so I just stuck with that number for my policy too. Is that a reasonable number? Do I really need that much? It's a 6500 square foot building and I'm currently paying $3000 per year for insurance.

Thanks!