All Forum Posts by: Ken M.

So if I understand sub to, you're basically assuming the mortgage. The owner doesn't really benefit much except for not having to pay a mortgage anymore?

 @Ken M. So you're a new user as of ten days ago, 74 posts in 10 days and 3 of those are pro DealMachine? Yeah that's not suspicious at all.

I lost a lot of trust for biggerpockets podcast when started using dealmachine and batchleads (same company) for sponsors too. All you have to do is look at the better business bureau complaints and the continuous instances of predatory billing practices to know how much they care about their customers.

The 5 star reviews are a sham. Somehow they bury bad reviews on google with great reviews.

Hi Mike, really appreciate you sharing this. I am the owner of DealMachine and take personal responsibility for making sure we communicate clearly and have issued a refund to you (the initial charge was April 2023 and it is 2025 now... sorry it took so long to see this).

Direct mail is a hard cost, so when you send out direct mail, you get the first 20 free during the free trial. 

Any additional mail costs $.50-$.76 depending on the size... so to prevent you from having hundreds of $.50 charges on your credit card, the default "reload" is $50 (you can set this to whatever you like in the app).

Hope this helps...

I have been researching wholesaling as an investment option. I stumbled upon Deal Machine as a tool to aid in the process. This appeared to be everything I was missing. I signed up for the 7 day trial. I created lists, searched virtual markets and was able to skip trace all of these for free...or so I thought. At no time was I informed that what I was doing was going to cost money. I'm not even sure what I did that needed to be paid for. But they auto-deposited $50 into my "marketing account." I now have $48.61. When I talked to a rep they said I could not be refunded that amount and now my trial has expired, so in order to spend my $48.61 I would need to spend $59 for the month. 

Service seems useful. But be careful with your trial. Zero help getting that balance back. Just kept telling me to send some postcards...

Never again with Deal Machine. 
 

There's a house I'm considering buying with a business partner as an investment rental. It would rent for what I assume $2,500 with one renter or $3,100 if I did rent by the room. It is an old house but has been completely gutted and rennovated in a Midwest state with a flatline population growth. It's near where I live though. Based on its price and rental income do you think it is worth it? It is a considerably good price considering the area, I'm just not sure on whether the rental income is worth paying for.

Apart from about $10,000 it is fully rennovated and ready to be rented out within 2-3 months.

Thanks for any advice!

When you buy a house, how does that impact your credit score? Is it dependent on how you get funding? If I were to do seller financing as opposed to FHA would it have a different impact?

Got an inspection objection back with something I’ve not seen on my other rehab’s (this is a Colorado property):

“The seller agrees to have a licensed plumber install external sewer cleanouts per city code and scope the sewer line ensuring its integrity.”

This was a full interior/gut rehab and almost everything is brand new. Yes, sewer clean outs are required on new construction, but on a 1947 rehab house that didn’t have existing clean outs, is it really possible that I can be required to install them? Yes, I’ll check with regional building, but curious for additional thoughts here.

The code being cited by the inspector is below if you care to bother.

Thank you.

https://codes.iccsafe.org/content/IPC2021P3/chapter-7-sanitary-drainage#IPC2021P3_Ch07_Sec708

Hello everyone,

Happy New Year! I hope you all had a great start to 2025.

I have a question and would appreciate your input. I’ve done a couple of fix-and-flip projects in the past, both of which were financed through hard money lenders. While these deals were successful, I realized that the cost of using hard money significantly ate into my profits. In some cases, after crunching the numbers, the profit margin was so slim—or even negative—that I had to pass on some promising opportunities.

Here’s my situation: I currently own two properties—a primary residence and a rental property—both of which have substantial equity. I’m considering tapping into this equity to fund future fix-and-flip projects or even purchase another rental property.

My questions are:

1. Do you think leveraging the equity in my properties is a smart move for real estate investments?
2. Are there any potential risks or downsides I should keep in mind before proceeding?

I’d love to hear your thoughts, experiences, or advice on this approach.

Thank you in advance for your insights!

Ken, You're changing the subject to something neither of us ever discussed.

The only thing you claimed was that having no-debt on a SFR property makes no sense, because of your theory that the government is going to be massively raising taxes on property owners to "oppressive" levels.

And what I said is that if this actually does happen, then properties with debt will actually be the *first* ones to go under ... and the ones without debt will be in the strongest and best position to survive. So you are actually disproving your point rather than proving it.

On this new topic, it sounds like you're not able to afford a diversified portfolio without taking on debt.

If so, that isn't everyone's situation (and is also not mine). But, if I were in that situation I would probably not be buying any directly owned properties at all (and would instead be investing in a diversified fund).

But everyone has their own unique financial situation, financial goals and risk tolerance. And good luck to whatever you choose to do.