All Forum Posts by: Tyler Smiarowski

Pros: rent

Cons: Your basically handing the keys over to the gov't and they can do as they damn well please. I had a section 8 tenant who also had her daughter on the lease. Her daughter got arrested for pushing a cop. Everyweek in my city Leased Housing (Sec 8) runs a report to see if any tenants show up on it. This happened around the 10th of that particular month and leased housing ended up cancelling the payment to me immediately...so I didn't get the following month's rent even though I was never given a notice..ie 30 days. According to the mother after it was cancelled they went to court and apparently her daughter never got charged with anything.

I think this should apply to homeowners as well. It should be standard procedure to take care of your home and everything..right? Therefore we need a training session for 1st time homebuyers.

If someone wants to do a background check on someone..great. If not...that's fine with me. Once cities start mandating things is when I have issues with it.

There is also an ordinance in Cedar Rapids that if you own a rental that is 4 units or less...you are "mandated" to use city garbage!!! Even though we have many other options in CR for private garbage pickup. I have a friend that owns two 4plexes that share a parking lot. It makes sense for him to rent a dumpster from a private business and have the 4plexes share it. But according to the City he can't. The city sent letters out last summer regarding this to all owners of rentals with 4 units or less.

UPDATE:

Former Tenant hasn't sued me. When I had my lawyer send her "lawyer" our letter saying that the tenant had no case....the lawyer had no clue who she was.

Basically the tenant pulled this lawyers name off of some website and just inserted it in her letter. I guess she was trying to scare me into giving her money.

The tenant is a real loser.

It requires landlords to:

attend mandatory "training session" for $50

requires landlords to run background checks

if the city defines your property as a "nuisance" property...they can charge you evertime the police come to your property..I believe its $94 per hour per cop. (to become a nuisance property it can only take 1 time for the cops to stop by your property for it to become a "nuisance"...depending on the offense)

http://www.kcrg.com/subject/news/district-judge-rules-in-favor-of-cedar-rapids-nuisance-abatement-program-20140813

Here are some of the ways I have bought my properties:

Buy  on Contract

Get a 1st mortgage and have seller carry a 2nd

Develop relationships with portfolio lenders in your area

Buy a multi unit building and live in 1 of the units.

Below is what I currently own, not alot but plugging along:

- 6 rentals (23 units) total about $11,539 out of pocket to obtain ownership

- 1 flip currenlty I am working on (zero out of pocket, closed on the home and the portfolio lender loaned me 10k at closing, they based the loan amount on ARV..so since I bought at a good price I had no out of pocket expenses...pretty cool. ) Paid 53k...ARV is 100k..so they loaned me 63k at closing.

- 1 Personal residence...actually got a check for $900 at closing.

http://www.kcrg.com/subject/news/cedar-rapids-landlords-sue-the-city-over-housing-code-rules-20140509

In Iowa coops require "2" shareholders. Mine each have two shareholders which are LLC's...both owned by me. My lawyer charges roughly $800..but have a friend who was charged $2500 to set up his coop. The savings can but quite a bit but do require additional tax costs due to the corporate return being filed as well as a little additional bookkeeping. Also last year Gov't Brandstad signed into law a commerical tax relief bill. Which in theory over the next 10 years will reduce commerical property taxes to the same level as residential thus converting to a coop would not be needed. I just PM you the lawyer I have used many times. Thanks

Hi Rebecca,

Did you get my pm?

May seem like a basic question but wanted to verify...

If I were to purchase a home at a sheriff sale...as long as I purchase the "1st" mortgage on the home I am ok? (not including back taxes, mechanic liens, etc). Regardless if it has a "2nd" mortgage on it?

The big mistake to make as I understand it is to purchase a 2nd mortgage at a sheriff sale and being in second position on the property after the auction?

I would think that if the judgement amount on the home is higher than the ARV, for example the house has a judgment of 100k but only worth 90k this would be a good indication that the foreclosure has been brought on by the bank carrying the 1st mortgage on it?