All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

@Angelica M Garzon

Will depend on local laws. Where I’m at a term tenancy can be any length the two agree to and tenants don’t need to give notice to vacate at the end of the defined term. I generally set everything up as 12 month term, rent due monthly. But 12 month term, rent due annually would be 100% legal here.

@Jay Hinrichs

Yep. And that’s the direction I’m headed with at least one that I currently own. But it takes pockets full of holding funds to make it work!

@Angelica M Garzon

Write it up as a one year lease with payment in full due on _____, 2019. This may negate having to refund if he bails. Similar to a monthly lease if they left on day 20.

@Shain Ismailovski

My advice would be similar. I would NEVER start out like this but after a great relationship is built I would be fine with it. Negotiate ~3% using the rational that you will be able to deposit the money and earn exactly that in interest, so in spite of inflation being a continuous reality you can save them money and cause yourself no detriment. Therefore: win - win.

@Andrew Taylor

Why wait to retake photos? It can be done in an hour. And honestly, someone with a better eye for composition could use their iPhone and it would still be better. My opinion is that you’ve got a great asset there, I know zero about your market but from what the pictures and copy show I believe it is entirely within the realm of possibility you could be leaving money on the table if proceeding without change. Again, that is with no background (or effort to retrieve any) on your market.

A significant number of the pictures (starting with 2 and 3, and including ALL the bathroom pics) can be improved with better attention to camera positioning. 2 and 3 serve nearly no purpose other than to show this is a LARGE house with uniform flooring and great natural light. This takes what is most likely something quite aesthetically pleasing in person and breaks it down into 2 words “large” and “bright” and a sq ft number. Same way as you focused on creating a positive feeling at every step of the renovation with your choice of materials etc the same decisions are made when photographing the space.

And I would drastically rewrite the copy. ... buts that’s an entire other argument that I’ve had (and won through A/B testing on multiple occasions) with my realtor!

It ain’t show friends it’s show business. If you want completely average results just do exactly what the rest are doing. You gotta treat it like a war man, every time someone skips by your listing you lost a battle.

@Andrew Taylor

Improve curb appeal. Swap out your thumbnail/ first pic, it sucks. Nobody is clicking with that as your thumbnail. Use the best interior one (looks like your kitchen / living area) paint the backside (Backyard that you see) of your fence white.

You’re competing for:

1. A click to open your listing.

2. A click response to it (or a buyers realtor)

3. Showings

4. An offer.

In that order. The low lying fruit here if your pricing is low as you’ve said is the click. I bet if you ran some 7 day A/B testing swapping that first pic gets 30%+ more click through. If that’s what you got for curb appeal and that’s the best street view pic you can take of it I would scrap that one altogether, but that’s a last resort.

Get the click.

@Russell Brazil

I’ve followed this thread fairly closely and appreciate your response here Russell. Wrt that last statement, one thing I found early on was that it took me some time to find a realtor who could value a property from an investment standpoint. At the beginning, I provided my realtor a checklist that had some things I was looking for and then the top two were non-negotiable. I went through 6 realtors before I found one that didn’t disregard the non-negotiables. I even pointed it out to them in bold letters on the checklist.

Recently, the realtor I've been using for almost a decade and I looked at a property that was almost perfect... except it needed literally $125-150k of work to bring it up to speed, which was about 40% of its ARV. I knew a builder could get that work done for $80-100k, but I couldn't. We didn't write because we knew it would not get accepted (previous inquiries) because a builder WOULD likely come along soon enough and pay more. List was $299, value to me was $150 (tops), it sold last week for $268... i suspect a builder bought it and will knock it over, split that massive lot, and build 2 high end ($800k+) units there profiting $150-$200 off each. In this case, my opinion was that $150 was not a lowball, but it also wasn't going to get accepted. And for the builder $268 was likely fairly reasonable as they'll still have a healthy profit on the way out.

A realtor able to value a property from an investment standpoint is essential if you plan to write offers. An investor able to value the property based off their skill/ experience is also essential so as to not lose your shirt. If I’d paid $268 and completed the renovations I would be upside down probably $40k and would’ve burnt 90 days worth of work to get there.

@Amber C.

Are you buying in Canada?

@Whitney Bowling

Yes that's what it's called. Other option is adding a technically separate product as a secured LOC. Likely easiest if you use the same lender. Made more difficult if the equity you could use for it is a small number. Some lenders don't like to do paperwork below $50,000 or similar.