All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

Try a different retail bank that you have a relationship with, not a credit union.  Also try a small local bank.  They might bite on it to get you to open other accounts.  Also, ask the listing agent (or your own agent to ask the listing agent) if there has been an appraisal done within the last 12 mos.  Take that appraisal and approach a few mortgage brokers that can do hard money.  You'll find someone that knows someone who wants to make a small loan if the deal is good.

It is important to note that a tax assessment is not a good gauge of value.  It's actually not a gauge of value at all.  As a matter of fact, tax assessments are rarely within 20% of the market value of a property and can be very outdated (high or low).  Never use assessed value for anything as a rule of thumb...

@Terry Sutherland  Occasionally realtors will price substantially under market to create a bidding war.. very common in our market

say a house is worth 650k.. they will start it at 575k and it will bid up to 700k, feeding frenzy of sorts.

but if this is for real.. I will buy it.. for 25k and sell it back to you for 40k if you can get a loan on it for that amount its still a great deal... and you can use it as a rental. as long as you can do it in 120 days or less..   hows that !  theres your funding

Every time a see or hear BRRR (Buy, Rent, Rehab, Refinance), I just...I don't know...I just bristle. It is cumbersome, awkward to pronounce, and can't be said without then saying what it stands for. Sorry @Brandon Turner!

Here's an idea.  Buy is a given, is it not?  I think we all know its about buying a property.  Rent is implied by the Refi part.  We wouldn't refi if we weren't holding.  And we wouldn't hold an empty property.

How about just Rehab, Refi?  Anybody else have a better idea?

I'm not jumping into the he-said/she-said and taking sides here (I don't know any of the parties), but after reading this post, I'll throw in an unsolicited opinion and a piece of business advice...

As a business owner, this is the WRONG way to be dealing with customer issues.  Badmouthing a potential customer -- who's biggest mistake is likely just being new, naive and paranoid -- in a public forum is not good business practice.  Especially given that many of your customers will be new, naive and paranoid.

As for your second statement above, it sounds like you agreed to get a mold test done and your contractor dropped the ball.  Sorry, but this isn't something you just chalk up to, "Welcome to dealing with contractors."  You told your customer you would do something; then you didn't do it. 

I've purchased hundreds of houses (i.e., I'm not new, naive or paranoid), but if I were told by a representative of mine that they would handle something for me, didn't handle it, and then just blamed it on a bad contractor, I'd be pretty pissed too.

The fact that you can blow off the fact that you didn't follow-through on the mold test you supposedly agreed to makes me wonder if you weren't just as nonchalant about agreements you made with the sump pump and the windows.  You may think these things are minor, but it's understandable that a customer wouldn't find them to be minor.  

This all goes right to the heart of your role as a turnkey seller -- you need to be TRUSTWORTHY.  And your comment above about the mold test doesn't instill much trust from me.

Again, I don't know you (or the OP) and it sounds like others here have had good experiences with your business, so maybe you're just having a bad day.  But, my suggestion is that, in the future, when you have to "fire a customer," you do it without the name calling and perhaps an apology for when your contractors may have dropped the ball.  If it weren't for your post above, I would have walked away from this thread with a relatively positive opinion of your company (based on others' comments and your other posts); but after this, I'm walking away thinking just the opposite.  

My opinion probably doesn't matter to you, but just think of all your potential future customers who may read this thread and walk away with the same impression I have...

raise the rent, increase the late fee, and convert to a month to month. Make it worth it for you to deal with their shortcomings 

Kevin,

@David Faulkner is correct. Seems like you're on the right path. You just need a little fine tuning. I don't know if you have access to the MLS or Redfin.com or the equivalent. Study those markets. You will see a pattern between neighborhoods and the rent to property value ratio. Once you have a good understanding of these parameters, you will spot a good deal from a mile away. In the quest of doing your research, you may identify some investors who are getting some sweet deals that never hit the market. Wouldn't it be nice if you're in that circle? :>)

What's the ARV of the property after you renovate it? That would determine whether or not you're low-balling the guy. As David mentioned above, buying in expensive markets can be very profitable compared to cheap markets. Once you got the formula figured out, I promise you will look at expensive markets with a different set of eyes. :>)

Thanks for the mention David. Those 1% deals are doing good and on the verge of doing great. My partner and I got lucky this year. We just hope the luck will continue into 2016. The deals that I bought at the courthouse steps during the downturn are doing 1.4%-1.5% now. However, they're worth 2.5-3 times now so the rent to value is about 0.6%.  :<(

What is your place for the property @Brandon Nappi? This could be part of the disconnect in the advice we are all giving you. @Account Closed is probably thinking about the property strictly as an investment....while I am interpreting as a retail purchase of something you may want to live in.  Ive purchased off market properties for clients, because they simply loved the house and had to have it...thus they paid a premium to purchase.  In our case it was a property worth about $600k, and I think we paid $650k, and they paid the realtor (Me) to facilitate the deal. So the sellers not only saved the commission, but got that premium for selling.

So that is sort of the scenario I envisioned when you asked how much of a premium should you pay.  

 When the seller doesn't really want to sell, telling them they will save the realtor commission fees does nothing for them.   You typically will have to offer something additional as an incentive (premium) to get them to really think about your offer.  Quick close, closing costs, etc typically does not get them motivated.  

@Account Closed

I did pick up on your earlier post in that regard, I think you are on to something.

One statistic I've always found amusing and don't quite know what to make of it is that in California as of February 2015 there were 137k licensed brokers + 265k licensed salespersons = 402k licensees.

So, 1/3 of the total licensees are brokers.  I know I'm really extrapolating the data here but that tells me there are a lot of brokers that don't have any salespersons working for them as they could.  And so why is that, well, I think they have the brokers licensee for investment purposes only, and thus more likely to own property.  Being a salesperson, in general, is just another low paying service job.

 Sounds like an investor that is a broker, not a broker that is an investor ... I'd bet those brokers don't have any agents working for them, they only buy/sell for their own account.